The way to eat in Paris.

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Geo: 48.8566, 2.35097

We are fortunate that we can catch a train from round the corner from where we live to St.Pancras International and there catch the Eurostar direct to Paris. A pleasant light lunch with wine on the train and by early afternoon you are in Gare du Nord. There are queues for the taxi rank but beware of someone coming up and leading you straight to a taxi and avoiding the queue. They charge 80 euros which is about 3 times the price! We settled into the Hotel de Banville ( see review) and then strolled round the corner for our first continental beer in a typical French bar and watched the world go by. In the evening we catch a cab to Restaurant Laurent, 41 avenue Gabriel where we have a reservation. It is a beautiful white mansion with large paintings around a semicircular large dining room. The menu for the lady has no prices on it so beware! We chose the Spring Menu , a 6 course fabulous meal - every course was different and delicious but the filled Morels were to die for! My only criticism is that it is rather quiet and could have done with some background music.
The following day we catch the Metro to St Lazare and walk to the Musee Gustave Moreau in the Pigalle district. Entrance is 6 euros. The musee is in Moreau's original house and to begin with is sort of disappointing as the rooms are rather dark and crammed with lots of not very marvellous paintings. I had studied him briefly when I did my Art History course and expected large 18th century Symbolist paintings. After the first 2 floors we ascended a staircase to his Atelier and suddenly there was a large light filled room with lots of large paintings and a lovely spiral staircase leading to yet more so I was not disappointed in the end. After we had lunch in Hotel Amour on 8 Rue de Navarin. This is a trendy lively busy restaurant and will not disappoint if you want a light lunch and some nice wine. Later in the afternoon our friends arrive and after travelling a long distance by car they want somewhere local for dinner so we walk round to Dessirier on 9 Place du Marechal Juin, one of several fish restaurants owned by a famous french chef- sorry forgot his name. We had a lovely meal of oysters etc followed by the fish of the day and all was going very well until the waiter managed to knock and break a full glass of wine over Stefan. He was very apologetic and immediately brought us another bottle of wine on the house. It was rose and did not stain so no problem.
The following day we walked to the Louis Vuitton Foundation ,a huge modern gallery, designed by Frank Gehry, which only opened in 2014. For such a huge building which looks a bit like the Sydney Opera House there was very little art. However what there was was good. We managed to find all the pieces for the Chinese exhibition- you need the map as there is lots of going up and down- you are there for the building itself as much as anything. At the moment the building is clad in huge coloured perspex "sails" and this itself is a temporary work of art called "The Observatory of Light" by Daniel Buren. We had a light lunch in the restaurant and then strolled out into the Parc d'Acclimatisation which is next to the Bois du Boulogne and is a delight to walk through. A combination of walking, metro and bar stops followed before getting ready for the evening.
We had dinner at the Georges Cinq hotel, one of if not the best hotels in Paris. The attentive waiters bring the ladies little stools on which to place handbags. Once again thank heaven the girls did not see the prices on the menu! The Cotes de Provence Rose however is the nicest I have ever had. We chose 2 courses only but as they bring you a pre starter followed by an amuse bouche before the starter, lots of the most delicious bread you could imagine and then lots of little dessert stuff after the main course, we were glad we did only choose two.The first tasters are tiny morsels which explode with taste in your mouth- you have to try as the sensation is impossible to describe. The amuse bouche was an unusual combination of cherry with artichoke cream- delicious. I had the spider crab followed by pigeon- absolutely lovely and the waiters were lovely too. We dined with the King & Queen of Bahrain. They were actually behind some huge flower arrangement unseen fronted by a huge security detail marching up and down with mobile phones clamped to their ears- so intruth I can only say we dined in the vicinity of....
The other guests were wealthy Chinese who spent all the time between courses on their mobile phones! It is an experience I am very glad to have had despite the cost, ( which by the way I still don't know!) We took a cab back to the area close to the hotel where there are several bars and ended up with comparatively cheap drinks.
It was homeward bound for us all the following morning. I was glad we didn't have to cross the pond like our friends. We hopped on the train which left at 11am and by 2pm I was at work at the hospital! We are so lucky to be living so close to Europe even though I will be voting Brexit!!

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Comments

[steve cole]

Have a good time, hope the weather is better than here.