Paris – Day 1

3 Sep

You would think that there’s all kinds of time to update this. It’s 8:53 on Saturday morning and I have to ‘hurry’ to get this out there, or I fear that I’ll already be 2 days behind! As usual, nothing goes perfectly. The plan was to sleep on the airplane, land in Paris @ 9:00 AM and take the train into Paris for a late breakfast croissant or pain du chocolate & a cafe o-lait. That didn’t happen. We ended up checking in to our room at 1:00 PM and rushing out the door to grab the nearest cafe on Rue Cler.

Cafe Central was our pick based on the pure ‘touristy’ factors of sitting outside watching people with the ‘most French’ looking menu. I know – but we were hungry and tired and thirsty. In the end, it was just what the Dr. ordered. Typical French Cafe fare:

We skipped dinner & breakfast on the plane so we were very hungry and ordered too much food. Meat plate, cheese plate, bread, butter, water & an entire bottle of Viognier wine from the south of France.

I’ll write more about the food – just wanted to get out some pictures and what we ordered.

Cheese plate of course – amazing cheese, more later. Meat plate – wow – the mortadella was from Italy, but was great! Then we gorged on the best butter on the planet on the best bread on the planet until our food came.

Best Mortadella ever!

We went ‘typical French cafe’ again: I had a Croq Madame – which is the best toasted ham & cheese sandwich with an egg on top, Donna had a classic ceasar salad and also, we split an order of fries. No we didn’t finish all of it – but yes, tried all of it. The fries were just ‘pretty good’ – I really expected crisper fries, but still great flavor. The wine – just perfect for a hot sunny day in Paris – cold, crisp & fruity.

Not just - toasted ham & cheese with an egg on top!

We did NOT order dessert as we obviously ordered too much food – so we had a coffee for me & cafe creme for Donna. Then off to explore Paris by walking to the Eiffel Tower & taking a boat cruise up the Seine – pictures on FaceBook: www.facebook.com/manny.montejano

Then – dinner, 1st night in Paris @ Willi’s Wine Bar – http://www.williswinebar.com/ my favorite place to eat in Paris, not because it’s got the best food ever, but because it’s got it all. Great food, great staff, poster art that you can buy and bring home (I have 6 of their posters at home) and the food and wine is great – and the staff know something about every bottle on the wine list.

My favorite place to eat in Paris!

Ok – gotta go quickly now.

We both started with champagne & the fois gras – an extra 3 Euro supplement – but so well worth it! (For those of you who are against eating fois gras – I understand, but I will continue to eat this rich, tasty, like-butter, decandant stuff until I can’t afford it.

Donna had the lamb, I order the beef & had a crazy good bottle of Cornas wine from the south of France. We ran into some wine industry people who obviously could afford any bottle on the menu, but chose to drink the same Cornas – I highly recommend it.

Here are some pictures – I have to run now – finished with a great cheese plate & Donna had pralines that were out of this world.

More tonight!! Gottta go grab a croissant & pain du chocolate!