Memories from France III: Hello Poppy

Hey guys! Sorry for the lack of updates lately, uni started last week and I've been lazying off these days. Here's the next installment of my gastronomic adventures in France!

One of the highlights of my trip was claiming some restaurants as "ours" by making a habit of always taking a certain meal at a certain establishment. Coquelicot was one such place. Sleeping in late and then enjoying a satisfying brunch there was always a sure-fire way to begin a beautiful day in Paris!

Coquelicot

Address: 24 rue des Abbesses (Metro Abbesses, 18e arr. Paris)
Phone: 01 46 06 18 77
Website: http://www.coquelicot-montmartre.com/
Style: bakery, breakfast&brunch, French traiteur (deli)
Hours: Tue-Sun 7:30 AM to 8PM
(Breakfast starts at 8AM; Brunch is served the whole day on weekends)


(Coquelicot means "poppy" in French. Did you know that the pretty red flower only grows in non-chemically treated fields?)

Coquelicot is first and foremost a bakery offering both breads (boulangerie) and pastries (pâtisserie) made in-store. Located in Montmartre on the picturesque rue des Abbesses, it follows the age-old French tradition of freshly baked goodness and wholesome ingredients. The popular establishment also does breakfasts, brunches, catering and home delivery. A true neighborhood landmark of delicious food and wonderful atmosphere.

Let's start with the bread. Bought over-the-counter or enjoyed on the cutesy little terrasse, the breads at Coquelicot are truly remarkable. Incredibly fresh, perfectly moist yet crusty and oh-so flavourful, they are all baked on location by three expert bakers. The store offers a seasonal menu of breads, including the Pain au Coquelicot (made with whole grains and shaped like a flower), the Pain aux marrons (the French love their chestnuts!) and of course, the incontournable French baguette. The latter is by far one of the best I tasted in Paris, and ah the freshness! Right out of the oven and into your plate...such freshness simply cannot be beaten!


(Bread being baked right in front of your eyes!)

And now the pastries. Mmmm. Coquelicot doesn't do anything terribly fancy, but it offers a very wide and absolutely yummy range of baked goods and fresh fruit pies. You'll find all the French classics such as éclairs, macarons, Paris-brest, crème brûlée and mille-feuilles. I personally love anything involving baked crusts and chocolate, so little desserts such as the tigré (a round little soft sponge cake with strands of chocolate and a soft chocolate center) and the confidence (a fluffy macaron biscuit spread with chocolate ganache) particularly appeal to me. Also not to be missed are of course the croissants: plain (aka butter), chocolate or almond, they are all crispy sweet delights straight from the Heavens above!


(The pastries counter. Hours and hours of perusing and tasting to be spent here!)

Their freshly baked fruit pies are also to die for. (Basically, all of their food is DROP DEAD DELICIOUS, if you haven't gotten the gist of it yet.) They have unusual but utterly toothsome fillings such as grapefruit-pear-blueberry, banana-chocolate-coconut, and even pineapples and prunes. Lovely, fresh, juicy, ridiculously tasty, never-can-get-enough-of. You can taste each and every ingredient and it's just a veritable explosion of flavours in your mouth. As some online might say: OM NOM NOM NOM.


(The grapefruit-pear-blueberry pie. So good. SO SO GOOD.)

A brunch wouldn't be complete without some kind of substantial, non-bread-based food. My choice of predilection? Salads. The French, I've observed, take their salad business seriously. They bestow upon them such care and details, and I'm happy to report that the results are positively delicious. Oh, and quite large too. Coquelicot doesn't have an overly long list of salads available, but the quality more than makes up for the little quantity. Standouts were the Coquelicot Salad, made with fresh greens, tomatoes, olives, cat ears pasta and smoked salmon; as well as the Salade de Chèvre, which has lettuce, tomatoes, lardons, baked potato nibs and a beautiful slice of goat cheese sitting a top a thin piece of baguette. Oh the loveliness, how I already miss thee.



(Salade Coquelicot (top) and Salade au Chèvre (bottom): salads that everyone should try in their lifetimes.)

As an end note, I'd also like to mention that the coffee there is excellent, the croque-monsieurs are by far the BEST I had on the trip, and the service can be a little slow at times (but hey, it is Paris after all). Also, places on the terrasse are limited and highly in demand, so if you see a free spot just grab it!

Hope you all like this little review about a place that stole my heart while I was in Paris. Next up: Au pied de la montagne, il y a un bon p'tit resto pas cher...

Memories from France II: l'embarras du choix

Picture this:
You've been strolling 'round Paris and taking in the sights all day long. Tired and hungry, you decide to grab a meal on your way back to the hotel. You look around and the first thing that catches your eye is...

...an Italian pizzeria? A Greek deli? An Asian restaurant?

If you guessed any of the above, then you're right. Despite being this Paris-we're-the-center-of-the-world-and-French-food-is-the-best-Paris, the city abounds with foreign eateries. And boy are those places TEMPTING. But, remember, you're in France. Therefore the only places you should be eating at are sidewalk-lining cafés and neighbourhood bistro(t)s. Nothing else will do---unless you can afford lobster bisque soufflé and foie gras terrine at some haute cuisine restaurant. Only then it is acceptable.




(The Jules Verne restaurant at the Eiffel Tower: more than we can afford. Pic from here.)

I personally found that cafés in Paris came in clumps---you walk pass a few dozens of them when you're not hungry, whereas not a single comfy-looking one can be found when your stomach starts growling. But finding THE right place to eat---somewhere with the right kind of food, setting and service, can be tricky in such a big city. Those in search of great brunching (bah, who wants to get up for breakfast when on vacation?), lunching and dining experiences would do well to heed these following tips:

1. As a general rule of thumb, the closest a café is to a famous attraction, the blander and more overpriced is the food. I only had two truly unremarkable meals during my stay in Paris, and both were in places right next to the Eiffel Tower. I would have loved to take the metro back to Montmartre and go our usual eatery there, but hey, you can't always know when the hunger attacks and your legs collapse.




(Bland chicken salad from Le Champs-de-Mars. Sure it looks great, but taste-wise, it greatly disappoints.)

The other one was Café Le Castel, which had exorbitantly priced Americanized croque-monsieur's and really yucky bathrooms.

2. Here are some well-known Parisien fares that you should try when in town, because they don't make 'em like this anywhere else: French onion soup, croque-monsieur (add a poached egg on top and you have croque-madame), fois gras and escargots. Also make sure to taste the many meat-based main dishes available, such as blanquette de veau and coq au vin. Try all of their salads, particularly salade niçoise and something with goat cheese. Finally, for dessert---everything! But especially macarons, crêpes, pain au chocolat (chocolatine) and croissant aux amandes (almond croissants). And of course, the infamous French baguette!


(My jumbo-sized chocolate coffee macaron from Fauchon. It was so good!)

3. Be patient with the service. Oh, the horror stories you hear about the customer service in Paris: short-tempered waiters who never smile, abrupt and uncaring service, which sometimes includes being abandoned for dozens of minutes without seeing trace of your food or your waiter. Personally though, while I certainly ran into some very blunt service, the majority of times I was served by a cordial and capable waitress (sorry men, but the ladies are nicer!).There was even a waitress at Coquelicot who deducted a few dollars from our bill because we waited unusually long, even by Parisian standeards, for our food to come. But certainly, it can help to: be a girl, speak French with a mock-Parisian accent, and smile a lot at the male waiters.

Also, remember that the prices listed on menus already include taxes and a 15% tip for the waiter/waitress. So while it's not necessary to leave any tip, you can add an Euro or two for waiters that you especially liked.

4. When ordering coffee, always specify that you want café au lait or café crème, or else they will bring you espresso. Just don't try ordering any coffee after 7pm, because the waiter will then glance at you suspiciously and try to give you wine instead. And in terms of price, remember that wine is cheaper then coffee which is cheaper than Coke. A little glass bottle of imported coke can easily set you back four Euros, while a nice bottle of rosé can go as low as two Euros.


(Espresso...not the coffee I had in mind!)

5. The anatomy of menu vocabularies: Even French-speakers might have trouble getting understood in Paris. To assist, here are some terms the French seem oh-so-fond of using:
- A Coke is not a Coke; it is a COCA (no doubt short for Coca-Cola).
- When ordering ice cream, do not say "crème glacée"; the French say GLACE. And there are not "saveurs" (flavours), but rather PARFUMS.
- If you want water, specify if you want EAU PLATE (uncarbonated mineral water) or the kind of sparkling water you desire (Perrier, Pellegrino...the list goes on).
- They are not breadsticks "bâtonnets", but STICKS (said with a heavy Parisian accent).

Other useful terms for non-French speakers: l'addition (the bill), les salles de bain (the French are not so fond of saying les toilettes), ticket instead of billet for...well, a ticket. If they don't understand you, try another variation of the word, such as croissant aux amandes and amandine. Or you could just speak English.

6. Finally, some money-saving tips:
- I repeat myself, but eat far, far away from famous attactions and particularly the Eiffel Tower (unless the place is on the Tower itself...then it's another story).
- Table d'hôte's are a great way of saving money. You will most likely get to choose une entrée, un plat principal and un dessert for around 15 Euros. (The café/bistrot/restaurant Au Pied de Montmartre where we often ate supper had a great one starting at 11.90 Euros.)
- If you're not too hungry, skip the main dish and order two entrées instead, like a soup and a salad. Actually, even if you're hungry, with those two dishes and the free refillable basket of baguette, you will probably be full afterwards.
- Skip the café altogether for meals and go buy your own food at the nearest supermarket (G20 and Carrefour are good, cheap ones). Just be careful, most usually close at 6pm and sometimes aren't even open on Sundays at all.

Basically, food and other living amenities are very, very expensive in France, particularly in Paris. There is not really many ways of getting around that, especially when you set out to get a taste of its infamous eating experience. Quite often though, it is not only the highly flavourful food that makes the meal worthwhile, but the setting as well. Sitting in a little café in Montmartre having croissant and café au lait by the sidewalk, listening to children play on the nearby merry-go-round while an old man plays acordeon in the background and tasting the warm, buttery texture of the pastry melt in your mouth as the sent of bread fills up the air...truly no price can be put on that.

Up next: Un joli coquelicot mesdames...

Memories from France

I am back! And what a trip!
(Actually I came back a week ago...there's just been so much to do that I haven't had time to properly write an entry for this. Sorry?)

Paris wasn't exactly what I had expected. I was thinking of a big city full of lights, sweep-you-off-your-feet romance and genteel, well-dressed people. Instead, I got a sweeping metropolis with no grass, square trees and hordes of tourists. The Seine is probably a romantic destination for couples; just not when it's raining and 18 degrees Celsius outside. I had seen so many pictures of infamous Parisian buildings and monuments: the Louvre, Versailles, Notre-Dame, the Eiffel Tower. In real life, they look smaller and somewhat less imposing, but they certainly don't disappoint!


(This is Notre-Dame de Paris...but where is Quasimodo?)


(Look, it's the Mona Lisa!)


(The ubiquitous Eiffel Tower, lit up as an European Union flag.)

In Paris, everything is small and narrow. The streets, the cars, the buildings. The notable exception is the food. The plates are positively huge! Their salads are the biggest that I've seen anywhere--and those are only appetizers! They also aren't a big fan of chopping their lettuce, something I found quite amusing. We ate mostly at cafés for brunch (breakfast? No one gets up that early!) and dinner, as well as grabbing the occasional late-night snack from a food stand. I found the food stands to be quite interesting. Their usual fare consists of crepes, paninis, hot dogs, waffles and ice cream (glaces, in France). Their lines move at the speed of a snail---because they make everything fresh right in front of your eyes, from the crepe to the toppings. Ah, the French idea of fast food! Oh, and their hot dogs use baguettes as buns, which you then slather in dijon mustard. Weak stomachs need no apply.

Flavours certainly run strong in that part of the world. Whether it's a slice of grapefruit-pear-blueberry pie or a hot escalope milanaise right out the oven, the foods taste like they should. In other words, you can smell each of the fruits in the pie, and the escalope's sauce tastes like every single one of its ingredients. The bread, of course, is sans reproche here. Who knew that I could eat so much baguette in one day? And if you're in France, then certainly you must try their famous onion soup! Made with chunks of bread and grated cheese heated in a flavourful onion broth, it's a wonderful way to warm up a chilly afternoon.


(French onion soup. It smells so inviting, mmmm.)


(This pictures was taken inside a McCafé. Even McDonalds in France sell macarons and tiramisu, how amazing!)

In the upcoming days, I'll do a few posts of specific eateries that stood out for me, and to which I repeatedly went back. After all, why mess around with a good thing? The one big drawback of eating out in Paris is that it is exceedingly expensive. An onion soup will usually set you back about 7 Euros (or 11 Canadian dollars), whereas a slice of cake will at least be 3.50 Euros (5.50 CAD). The good thing is that tip and taxes are already included in the listed prices, so you don't get any extra surprises when the bill comes. You can still tip them one or two extra Euros, but it's really not necessary.

Next post: Finding somewhere to eat in Paris...decisions, decisions, decisions!

Foie-gras this!

This food blog means a lot to me, so it pains me to leave it lifeless and hanging there for a week+ while I am soaking up the sights and scents of Paris, the city of lights.

I don't expect to be able to afford haute cuisine while in France, but whatever I eat, I shall do my best to take pics, jot down notes and post about once I come back home.

I AM GOING TO PARIS, Y'ALL.
AM VERY EXCITED!!!!

I shall miss you, oh laptop... (I could technically bring Nicco the Laptop with me since I get free wi-fi at the hotel, but it's really more of a luggage issue.)

A plus tard, mes chéris!