Food Food Glorious Food! - Paris

Our time in Paris made me realise how good the French have it. It is a foodies paradise! There were specialty food stores at every turn, markets more than once a week and so much variety.
As soon as we arrived in Paris we were straight off to find a pain au chocolate (me) and a doughnut with nutella (Lewis) as well as a fruit market (grapes- yum!).

They have fresh open air food markets numerous times a week in pretty much every district and the produce is unbelievably fresh at most of them :D
We discovered a love for the local boucherie with its hot chicken, ham and spiced potatoes cooked under the rotisserie right from the first day!... those potatoes were the best thing ever, I'm not going to lie I ate a fair few!.
An amazing baguette was an excellent addition to our hot chicken/ham purchases to make the perfect lunch...Our baguettes always came from the boulangerie of course. Boulangeries were on nearly every corner (them and pharmacies are a plenty in Paris.) and every single one's baguette was slightly different...some alot more tougher than others.
After searching high and low for decent food tour I decided that a self-created Patisserie tour was needed. After much googling an itinerary was created of some of the best Patisserie's in Paris.
We ended up making it to 5 patisseries:

Laduree had the most beautiful packaging. We had a a vanilla caramel work of art. The cream was so smooth the eclairs not soggy and the caramel crunchy without being too thick. It was a great start to the patisserie tour. Our macaroon was strawberry jelly flavoured and tasted great. It melted in your mouth. I loved this place cos it had alot of old school class. (I wanted to keep the box cos it was so pretty lol)

Pierre Herme is world renowned for his magnificent macaroons. We got a chocolate creation which Lewis devoured. It consisted of chocolate cake and mouse layers with hazelnuts and a dark chocolate cover. The tempered chocolate had the beautiful snap when halved. I tried the lime macaroon with a yoghurt ganache centre (yum!) It melted in your mouth

Next stop was Un Dimanche a Paris for another creation; a strawberry vanilla cupcake with pistachio crumble and a strawberry cream. Yum was an understatement. Also another macaroon (chocolate..also delicious)

The hot chocolate was thick and velvety...it definitely wasn't a powdered variety. It was exactly what we need after being up on our feet all day searching for amazing pastries.

A few days later we missioned to Pain du Sucre for a vanilla apricot tart and a savoury scroll. The apricot was so tangy against the vanilla mousse that accompanied it. A perfect combination

The last stop on the Patisserie tour was L'Éclair de génie for eclairs. I had the white chocolate and apricot (white chocolate glaze with an apricot custard) Lewis had the dark chocolate (dark chocolate mousse and bitter dark chocolate on top. These were the best eclairs I have ever had. (Sorry Mum!)

A few other foodie faves while I was in Paris:

-We tried Berthillion ice-cream (famous in Paris) on our night bike tour. I discovered that I definitely prefer gelato (my goodness it made me realise how good Giapos is!) to icecream. (Italy here we come :D)

-The Pink Flamingo Pizza: We had a cuban Pork pizza (New York style). The novelty of this was that we sat on the canal with our balloon and they biked the pizza to you. Even better was it tasted delicious! I had no idea what to do with the balloon after so let it go (good old helium). The little kids on the balcony above were so excited watching it float away and disappear.

- Little Breizh Crepes: Buckwheat (Galette) Crepe with pan fried apples, salted caramel and vanilla ice cream, it was the perfect combination :D, Lewis had hot banana and Nutella.

Lets hope we find some amazing waffles in Amsterdam :D

xx