To eat or not to eat: Ode to Chandni

We ate here almost every day. Open until midnight! Our favorite gelato place.



Grom France SARL
81, Rue de Seine
75006 Paris, France
01 40 46 92 60


Crêperie Josselin


Del Papa


Street crêpe in the Bastille


L'As du Falafel


ZenZoo


Aki


El Nopal


First Mexican burrito in Paris!


El Nopal
3, rue Eugène Varlin
75010 Paris
07 86 39 63 46

Chez Joséphine Dumonet‎

One of Amir's favorite bistro's.

Naturally, I ordered the côte de bœuf.




Didn't even need the béarnaise sauce that came with it.

Chez Joséphine Dumonet‎
117, Rue du Cherche-Midi
75006 Paris, France‎
Tel: 01 45 48 52 40‎

Quite possibly the best brioche in the world

I had to come back to Bread and Roses during this trip to eat the best brioche in the world. No joke.



This brioche blows my mind, every time. It's probably a good thing I don't have easy access to this... I really can't eat brioche from anywhere else except for maybe, the Moisin bio boulangerie in the 14th.

Everyone else opted for the seasonal quiches.

Spinach and smoked salmon


Girolles


Fraise des bois tarte


Sadly, the quiches were decent yet underwhelming, especially for the price. But doesn't matter because there was plenty of brioche to go around.

Bread & Roses
7 Rue de Fleurus
75006 Paris, France
01 42 22 06 06

Milk foam lessons

Rudy was kind enough to give me tips and lessons for 2,5 hours on milk foam and latte art.

HOW COOL IS THAT?



This is hardcore - a barista kit!


These are macchiatos !






Swan


Taj Mahal




My f'ed up looking bear... or cat? Or lion?


I've always had issues with making rosetta's. This is one of my better ones... almost there!


Merci, Rudy !

Malongo Café

Reconnected with my friend, Rudy, whom I met at the Gastronomie on the Seine food event. Just found out he was Barista Champion of France 2009 for latte art.






Haven't had good coffee since Doge. What a relief. =)

Malongo Café
50 Rue Saint-André des Arts
75006 Paris, France
+33 1 43 26 47 10

Bread and Roses

I had previously eaten at Bread and Roses for the first time with Ulla just a few days ago. I had a café crème and a blueberry muffin. This was not a muffin, but rather a scone in muffin form. Holy butter ! It was good - just don't expect a fluffy blueberry muffin.


She mentioned that the cheesecake here was better than American cheesecake. I found it very hard to believe so I opted to come back and try it for myself. I met up with Amanda and Amir today to try it out.

Sorry Ulla, it has nothing on American cheesecake! It was made with crème fraîche instead of Philly cream cheese (Philly cream cheese is a MUST). Also, the crust was a bit too watery and salty for me. It was a lot better than most cheese cake I have tried in France, but not the same as back home. Amanda claims that her cheesecake is better (she made the recipe at her restaurant and the chef put it on their menu - 11 Euro a pop!). I believe her. ;)


The brioche, however, was amazing. Loved it! Amir managed to eat most of the loaf by himself... with some help from me and Amanda. Good job, Amir! Tu bouffe tous. haha


This place is pretty pricey but the quality is definitely there. Next time I will come back and try some of their savory items.

Bread and Roses
7, Rue de Fleurus
75006 Paris
Te: 01 42 22 06 06‎

Café Malongo

Last week, when Pim and I went to grab a coffee together, we got into a small discussion on shitty coffee in Paris - the differences in Robusta beans and Arabica beans... and using fresh milk. This really peaked my interest since I had been drinking coffee since I was 11 but hadn't taken the time (or had the time) to learn more about it. I decided to do some research on which cafés in Paris that sell Arabica coffee as well as serve fresh milk. (Pim has a great post about it here). Café Malongo does both. (Another great post by David Lebovitz on coffee/espresso here).

I finally stopped by Café Malongo where Rudy and Stephanie work (whom I met at Gastronomie by the Seine.) Unfortunately, neither Rudy nor Stephanie were working. Perhaps next time.

The prices are great here for the quality of the coffee, cheaper than some of the crap café's around Paris. It was the cheapest café viennois I have had in Paris so far - ran about 3,80 Euro. Typically café's around Paris charge 4,50+ Euro. And of course (cream aside), it was delicious, smooth, with no traces of "tar" in my mouth, and no making of the "bitter, acid face". Now if only they had WiFi. I'd be here every day. =)



Le Malongo Café
50 rue St André des Arts
75006 PARIS
M4: Odeon or Saint-Michel
Tel: 01.53.10.87.87‎

Del Papa again

Today I spent the afternoon studying a bit for finals. Since the weather has miraculously gone from rainy and gloomy to nice and sunny, I went to Jardins des Tuileries to study.

All the tourists have emerged from their caves!


Then joined Amanda, her cousin Chris, Alex, and Julie at Del Papa. Unfortunately, it was an off night because the delicious pasta with gambas didn't taste very fresh this night (same with everyone else's dishes). Oh well! It was still fun.

Ze Kitchen Gallerie, Part II

Ever since Andrew and I had dinner at Ze Kitchen Gallerie, we were quite eager to try the tasting menu. Ulla, a student from last year's Anglophone class also loved eating at Ze Kitchen Gallerie and hadn't been back for awhile. (She used to work at HP in IT for a long time in Grenoble, France. She used to travel to Cupertino all the time. Small world!) Anyway, we all decided to go one night. Andrew had to take some convincing since he didn't plan on doing a tasting menu here this soon. Here is what we were served:

Farcis de torteau, Gaspacho Betterave, Condiment de mangue, gingembre, curcuma. This Gaspacho was excellent. It was such a great balance with the beets, crab, mango and ginger.


The second dish was a large tube of pasta cooked perfectly al dente with lobster. It had hints of citrus and ginger.


Macaroni, Pistou de roquette, asperges et crevettes, Bouillon Thai Citronelle. This dish was also really really good but it was so close to the previous dish we had. We felt it was unnecessary to serve us both of these, especially consecutively.


Next we were served daurade which was really excellent and cooked perfectly. Again, some hints of ginger and citrus but different from the previous two dishes.


Now this was chicken. Really good chicken. See the gray/metallic sauce? It was sesame sauce which went really well with the chicken.




Glace chocolat blanc, pistache + wasabi, Torrone, jus the vert. This dessert was heavenly. I never knew I could like white chocolate. And pistachio and wasabi together is the perfect pairing! LOVED it. Also, they had a biscuit made out of egg whites which was so delicious. Ulla loved this dessert so much that she ordered another one!


And the mango dessert. Deliciously sweet and tangy.


Overall, I have to say that this meal was very very tasty and satisfying. And it was also really light. I didn't feel like I was going to explode afterwards - which is a nice feeling. It was so nice to eat foods with more acid and different ingredients such as citrus and ginger. I LOVE coriandre and citrus flavors. Nice break from all the butter and cream. The only thing I had a problem with were dishes #2 and #3. They were EXCELLENT however, seemed repetitive in flavors and ingredients. Also, I think they should have served another meat like the Agneau de lait (young lamb). It was all seafood except for the chicken dish. I would definitely go back but not sure if I would go back for the tasting menu again unless they mixed it up a bit more. Andrew really loved tonight's dinner. One of the best meals he has had thus far in Paris. It was refreshing to have French food with South East Asian influences. The Asian fusion food I have had in California has been pretty bland. Chef Ledeuil really pulled it off.

Ze Kitchen Gallerie
Executive Chef: William Ledeuil
4, Rue Grands Augustins
75006 Paris, France
+33 1 44 32 00 32

L'Epi Dupin, Part II

Tonight I decided to take my buddies to L'Epi Dupin since I had such a good experience at Jacob's Farewell Dinner. We all ordered the 3-course prix-fixe for 34 Euro.

Amuse bouche - carrot soup. No salt ! =( The sesame tuile was great.


These fish croquettes with the mango and eggplant chutney were delicious.


I ordered scallops with orange risotto. Again, lacking salt, the risotto was overcooked, and I was expecting more of an orange taste. But the scallops were perfectly cooked.


This is a beef dish that Kristine ordered. She usually doesn't eat cooked carrots but she loved the ones on this plate. They were probably cooked in a pound of butter.


Chocolate lava cake. This was really good but it was missing ice-cream. Last time they served it with ice-cream and it had a better balance.


Super rich caramel tarte with coffee ice-cream. Really good but I could only have one bite of it.


This was some kind of cooked banana dessert with cream on top. It was good as well but nothing exceptional.


Overall, tonight was good except for the fact that they forgot to salt quite a few of their dishes. I am not sure what happened there. Perhaps a bad night? Who knows ? (Andrew dined here as well with his family this night! I think they had the same problems.) Anyway, for the most part, we were happy with our meal. They all said they preferred it over Au Bon Acceuil and Ze Kitchen Gallerie. Personally, I will still give L'Epi Dupin another chance in the future. I hope my friends had a nice vacation of eating here in Paris.

L'Épi Dupin
Executive Chef: François Pasteau
11, rue Dupin
75006 PARIS
Tel : 01 42 22 64 56