Given that the sands of time are rapidly running away, and my memories of this amazing week are already fading, I thought it was high time to write this up. We are now early October, and this trip happened in early September, so hopefully I will remember most of the important details and be true to the week.
Ahhh... Paris. No matter how many times I go (and I'm lucky enough to have done so on numerous occasions over the years), the City of Light never fails to dazzle and inspire the soul. It is undoubtedly my favourite city in the world and, despite not being a city-boy by any means, is somewhere I would very much like to live. I like to think I'm wise enough to realise that the reality of living and working there would be quite different, and that the romance would wear off pretty quickly - Paris, perhaps more than most, suffers from all the usual capital city annoyances including congestion, traffic, overcrowding (particularly endless tourists), noise, pollution, poverty and social inequity. However, for the visitor (be it a regular old-timer or Paris virgin), in my mind there's something about the city which sets it apart from any other - possibly the stunning architecture, abundant art, eclectic music, chic people and, above all, incredible food. I don't know.
The purpose of the trip was twofold: first and foremost, perhaps unfortunately, it was a work-related trip. That being said, despite being sad to be locked in a seminar room for 3 days, any reason to go to Paris is a good one. The second purpose was to have a little holiday. The balance was about half and half - we left on a Saturday, catching the Eurotunnel and driving from Calais to Paris, stopping roughly halfway overnight. We then spent 3 days at work, before another 3 days of holiday. So not a bad balance.
The first day was relatively uneventful - it was a grey, fairly cold day as we left Reading, and the drive to Folkestone was its usual boring affair. We were a little late thanks to heavy M25 traffic, but managed to get on the next train and arrived in France with no drama. The weather there was similar - perhaps slightly warmer - and the drive through northern France was again without drama. I had, completely at random, found a hotel in a small place called Nœux-les-Mines, just to the south-west of Lille - originally a centre for coal mining as the name might suggest, it is now a small industrial and farming town with a handful of shops, bars and the small 19th-century church of St Martin in the centre. Our hotel was located just out of town, and was a large (recently renovated) mansion containing comfortable rooms and a smart restaurant area. We had a great meal that night, beginning with a small tray of amuse bouche containing delicate pastry-based cheese straws and a small glass of fois gras topped with fruity jelly. Accompanied, of course, by the usual favourite - a kir.
The meal itself was also excellent, comprising of pan-fried foie gras followed by roasted cod and a selection of local cheeses for me. Debbie, being vegetarian and knowing full well that the French are not great when it comes to this (despite a massive improvement to 20 or even 10 years ago), was expecting to have a week of goat's cheese salad and bread - much as she did on our recent trip to Brittany. However, she was pleasantly surprised and impressed by her broad bean risotto, followed by morel omelette and crème caramel - indeed, I think it ranked top all week.
The next morning was another non-descript day, warm but with mostly grey skies and a light breeze. After checking out of the hotel, we drove the remaining kilometres to Paris and arrived around lunchtime - it being Sunday, traffic was fortunately light and so Debbie's slight trepidation (understandably so) about driving in Paris was, for the most part, unwarranted. Our hotel, a comfortable but standard Ibis, was right in the heart of the city, deep in the 7ème arrondissement and a stone's throw from the Eiffel Tower. Sadly the Tower was not visible from our 7th floor room, but was from the lobby area. After a light lunch (the unbeatable croque monsieur) in a nearby bar, which would become our local, we spent the remainder of afternoon unpacking before walking out early evening towards the Champ de Mars and the Tower. The most noticeable thing during lunch and our evening stroll was the warmth - unlike Reading, summer was still in full swing in Paris. It had been my intention to take Debs up the Tower however, no doubt thanks to the warm evening sun, the crowds were out in force and the queue for the lift was both massive and seemingly stationery.
Instead, we settled for seeing it from below, and after taking the obligatory photographs went in search of a little nearby bistro I had read about previously - La Fontaine de Mars.
The restaurant surrounds a tiny cobbled square with a large fountain in the middle, hence the name. We hadn't booked and, having located it down a small side street off Rue St Dominique, were a little crestfallen (but perhaps unsurprised) to find it heaving and with a long queue. However, to our surprise, they promised to get us a table in an hour, so we wandered for a bit and passed the time pleasantly with a kir at a nearby roadside bar. Returning to the restaurant at around 9 PM and despite yet another long queue - at least I don't think the same people were still waiting - they found us a small table on the corner of the square, and we had a truly excellent and memorable meal. The bistro was classically laid out, with red check tablecloths, smart waiters and a traditional menu.
Having served us with wine and thinly sliced saucisson, I began (with some trepidation) with 6 snails. The reason I felt some trepidation was not because I have any problem eating snails - I have done so many times before. It was because, on every other occasion, they have resembled garlicky rubber. One of my favourite authors and fellow Francophile, Peter Mayle, admits that when it comes to eating snails, 95% of the time they are not done particularly well and are chewy and rubbery. However, I thought it was time for another go - and I'm so pleased I did. They were, without doubt, the best snails I have ever had - meltingly soft and perfectly garlicky.
My only regret is that I reckon I've now had my 5% of good snails, so am doomed for another long list of chewy ones. My main course of confit duck with fried potatoes was equally good - not something I usually order, but amazingly tender and rich in fat. Debbie also did very well, and despite not having many vegetarian options on the menu they did themselves proud - serving leeks in red wine as a starter and then inventing a selection of vegetables, all cooked well and prepared beautifully. Despite being fairly full, we couldn't resist the tarte tatin as a desert which, again, was perfect and quite different (in a good way) from our own attempt - the latter was much richer in caramel, and therefore sweeter, whereas in this one the apples were much more prominent.
Both very nice, in different ways. After a final coffee, we staggered back to the hotel, exhausted but immensely satisfied.
The following morning was less enjoyable, with the alarm going off at some stupid-o'clock, and the next 3 days passed in a bit of an exhausted and coffee-fuelled blur. Although the meeting was interesting and worthwhile, spending 8 hours a day in a stuffy seminar room is never relaxing. The meeting was hosted by UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation), which was a thoroughly impressive building covering a large part of the arrondissement and overlooking the École Militaire. Lunches were held in the main UNESCO restaurant, with a wonderful view of the Eiffel Tower, and despite being in a canteen environment were actually very impressive. This was Paris, after all. Each day lunch consisted of a small salad to start with, followed by a choice of things - I think I had rabbit one day, lamb tagine another and salmon on the last - followed by a desert or cheese. Wine was on offer, but none of us did - I might have been tempted to partake had others done so, but in retrospect it was probably a wise choice as the combination of a big lunch, wine and an afternoon of seminars is never a good one. We had a couple of very nice conference dinners in the evening (both of which were in easy walking distance of UNESCO and our hotel) - one in a traditional but upmarket bistro, and another in a small Sardinian restaurant.
The Grand Bistro de Breteuil, in particular, was very good, and despite our large number I think everyone received what we had previously ordered - including foie gras, sea bass and crème brûlée.
The meeting finished on the Wednesday, and we all parted company. So, that evening, Debbie and I ventured away from the 7ème arrondissement, taking a bus across the Seine and into the Latin Quarter - an area renowned for having a trendy student atmosphere and numerous bistros and jazz bars. It was to one of the latter that we were headed, the well-known and long established Duc des Lombards. It advertises itself as a jazz club and restaurant, but I was fully aware that the place would be all about the music and less so the food. We arrived fairly early and the place was deserted, so given that our concert didn't start until 8 PM we had a couple of drinks in a nearby crowded bar (the whole area was heaving, as expected). We returned at 8 PM, fortunately to find the place much busier, and passed a very enjoyable evening listening to some fairly avant-garde and experimental jazz. The place was not quite as I expected - fairly modern, clean and trendy, with a smart cocktail bar and classy 21st century lighting and sound equipment. The food, as expected, was nice but nothing amazing - and, rather oddly, was served in little plastic bowls, with plastic cutlery. It was edible, but nothing special - my chicken on a bed of mash felt like a cross between English pub-grub and festival or street-food. The strangest thing about the entire evening was its length - the show started at 8 PM, and indeed no-one much was there beforehand, but by 9 PM it was all over and everyone left. At first I thought it was just an interval and there would be a second-half, but sadly not. So much for the romantic notion of sitting in a smoky basement, listening to jazz and drinking wine until the early hours of the morning...
The next morning we were again greeted by hot sun and blue skies, albeit slightly chilly first thing, with the TV weather forecast predicting temperatures of up to 30 degrees. After a quick coffee and croissant in our usual café over the road, we met my parents who had taken an early morning train from where they were still sailing in Brittany. With them, we had a very pleasant day - in the morning, we walked around the École Militaire to Les Invalides (known officially as L'Hôtel National des Invalides or L'Hôtel des Invalides), the impressive 17th-century complex of buildings which are now all museums and monuments commemorating France's military history. As the name suggests, the main building was originally a hospital and retirement home for soldiers and war veterans. We didn't actually enter the museum, instead passing the morning strolling through the highly manicured gardens. When it comes to hospitals, I can think of worse places to be ill and to recover - and indeed, I have been in many of them.
The big event of the day, in celebration of my mother's imminent birthday, was lunch. Originally I had booked us a table at Le Petit Marius, a well-known fish and seafood restaurant just over the river on the famous Avenue George V. However, 2 things had been bothering me about this place: firstly that there would be very little, if anything, for Debbie to eat - "
Mais, Monsieur, why would you come to zis restaurant when you do not like ze feeesh?" - and secondly that we all, especially my parents, are very familiar with fish and seafood restaurants. Even Paris, with its amazing array of restaurants, might not compete with a summer of sailing around Brittany and all of its beautiful little fishing villages that we know so well. So, because we were so impressed with it on Sunday and to give my parents a more authentic and traditional Parisian experience, we returned to La Fontaine de Mars. I had booked a table this time and they greeted us like old friends, sitting us inside overlooking the fountain. As hoped, we had an extremely good, extremely long and very boozy lunch - I can't remember exactly what everyone had, but our dishes involved more snails (my father was equally impressed), egg cocotte, foie gras, turbot, veal, duck, cheese and clafoutis. When we had finally finished - it must have been around 4 PM - we walked along the river and back to our hotel, ready for my parents to catch their return train.
That evening, after a much-needed rest, we headed out again, this time catching a bus to nearby Montparnasse - an area of the city again known for its cafes and bars, and famous (or possibly infamous) because of the Tour Montparnasse, Paris' only and much-disliked skyscraper. We were headed to another jazz club, the Petit Journal Montparnasse. The concert started later at this place, so we stopped for a light dinner (incredibly we were a little peckish by this time) at a nearby bistro. At around 10 PM, we arrived at the club, and again passed a hugely enjoyable evening listening to an impressive 20-piece big band. The place was much more what I had expected - although it was also a restaurant, and the food indeed looked rather good, it was much more compressed and cosy, with dim lighting and a smoky atmosphere (albeit synthetic, as even Parisian jazz bars can't resist anti-smoking laws). The music was amazing, and unlike the previous night there were numerous intervals and performances. I'm not sure what time it ended, but we left around 1 AM - apart from missing the night bus and having to walk home, all in all it had been an excellent day.
For our final day in Paris, after another quick breakfast outside our usual café we took a bus towards the river, getting off near St Germaine and walking along the south bank towards the Île de la Cité. It was another gloriously hot day, and we spent all morning walking along the river, around the island and visiting Notre Dame.
We had a lovely lunch in a small restaurant down a side alley on the island, enough off the beaten track to be less crowded with tourists - egg cocotte with foie gras for me, and mini spinach pancakes for Debs. We spent the afternoon walking back through St Germaine, window-shopping at all the fancy chocolate shops and wondering if we could afford to buy any. For the most part, the answer was no.
We had planned a visit to Montmartre for our final evening, however because we were reliant on buses and traffic was causing every journey to take longer than expected, we decided to postpone that plan for another time. Instead, we returned to the area around the Eiffel Tower, meeting a Parisian friend of mine for a last kir in one of the many bars surrounding the Champ de Mars. We had booked a table at another bistro I had read about some weeks before, which turned out to be a tiny place again off Rue St Dominique. This was more of an upmarket bistro, but was equally nice - I had a starter of raw sea bass in a beetroot mousse, followed by sweetbreads which were wonderfully tender. Again, they made a fair attempt at something vegetarian for Debs, giving her a starter involving eggs and mushrooms and then a main course of selected vegetables, again beautifully presented. All in all, a wonderful final evening.
Our last day was spent in transit, and doesn't need to be reported here. Suffice it to say that it was a fairly stressful day - surprisingly, getting out of Paris was relatively easy. The rest, however, was not. Unusually for France, a long section of our motorway was a car park for much of the morning, and we wasted almost 2 hours doing no more than 10 km. As a consequence, we missed our Eurotunnel, who were also experiencing delays of their own. Finally, we got back to Reading at 10 PM, almost 6 hours later and vowing that next time, soon, we would go by train...
Once protected, all the supplied ingredients (plus a couple of others, such as eggs and orange zest) were carefully added and incorporated, before pouring the mixture into the tin. This was then covered in yet more parchment paper, before going into a low oven (140°C) for roughly 2 and a half hours.
