Visit Paris and feel like a parisienne
Photo By Lucas Costanzi
After living in Paris for the past year, I can list 6 indispensable items that helps you understand the local culinary and gets you inside the vast and amazing French cousin. For you really know a city you have to understand and discover their culture and habits. To start you should forget any kind of prejudice or disgust with food that you are not use to have at home or in your country.
First, ask for a portion of escargots à la provençale and share with your friends. If you don’t know what it is, sorry, but I will not be the one to tell you! Close your eyes and feel the taste of pesto mixed with a soft texture. * Try it at L’Escargot (38 rue Montergueil, 75001) and enjoy Montegeuil’s street market.
If you pass the first phase, you are ready to go ahead with a classic soupe à l’oignon. Specially in winter, the bread gratin and light onion flavor are going to catch you quickly.
Continue choosing between a sour-sweet magret de canard or a steak tartare (If you are a vegetarian, skip these lines). If not, try both.The first one must come with a coulis de fruits rouges, giving you an excentric duck-fruit experience. The second one, for me, is perfect when it is dejà préparé and in aaller-retour way: minced raw beef, marinating in wine or other spirits, sometimes with a raw egg yolk on top and lightly seared on both sides.
Scared? Don’t worry. From now on you will find just “normal” desserts.
Please, do not leave France without going to a Pierre Hermé boutique. He is a fantastic pastry chef, mostly famous for his macarons. He usually creates unusual flavor combinations with nice colors that made him known as “The Picasso of Pastry.” I would say go straight to jasmine and rose flavors. After that, then, you can try the cakes, chocolates and jellies made under his brand ( At 72 rue Bonaparte , 75006).
But if you are in a restaurant, do not hesitate to ask for a crème brûlée. This burned vanilla cream is something simple, but hard to find in a well done way. Look for a crispy sugar layer on top, and be happy with the inside!
* Try at La Chocolaterie Jacques Genin (133 rue de Turenne , 75003) and have also his incredible millefeuille.
Following that you will eat high quality French food and really understand why they celebrate so much lunch time. Off course, do not forget your glass of Bordeaux! Salut!
