I really like the neighborhood I live in in Paris' 18eme, I found the most delicious pastry here called a Bichon au Citron, a sort of lemon chasson au pomme. It's one of the best things I've ever tasted sweets wise, and one weekend when Sylvain went out to get our saturday pastries he went to a different boulangerie and I had a minor tantrum when he didn't bring one home. It's not that I am prone to tantrums but for 30 minutes while he was doing errands and getting the pastries I had literally been imagining the first bite, the disappointment was bitter.
I'd say raclette has been my favorite "meal" discovery and we live near Abesses where there is a great Savoyen restaurant on the corner somewhere along Rue de Trois Freres, about a month ago we went with another couple and ordered the raclette, I literally inhaled it, I don't remember coming up for air except to ask for more cornichons. Raclette is totally brainless, if you buy raclette grill and raclette cheese all you do is add potatoes and charcuterie, I need a jar of cornichons to myself and generally you start with a salad and drink a dry white. I really don't think anyone could fail at raclette and it's fun and easy to do with a dinner party.
Sauce au poivre I ate off of Sylvain's plate and then went straight home and found a recipe how to make it, I generally put it over pork chops but it goes over red meat more traditionally I think. I make potatoes as a side because they soak up the extra sauce. This is a sauce I could easily lick the plate over, but since I know better I refrain.
We just went skiing in Savoy between Christmas and New Years and we ate well, raclette, tartiflette and fondue are traditional meals in this region and all were amazingly satisfying after a day on the pistes. Ive never been a HUGE fan of pasta, it's okay, but give me potatoes and yum. Tartiflette for me is the number one comfort food. I'd eat this on a cold winters day or on any of those days that just beat you down and you need to eat your way out. Tartiflette is like carmalized onions, potatoes, lardons (bacon), and cream with roblochon fromage. Again it's a white wine meal and it's wasy to forget about calories with food that tastes this good.
One thing you can never go wrong with in france is a planche with cheese charchuterie and if it's offered, get the ones with pate, usually it will come with some salad and cornichons, and of course, baguette, all you need is a bottle of wine.
France doesn't do a menu carte the same way we do in the states, good restaurants generally have a chalkboard menu that you choose a prix fix of starter, main, dessert or a combination of two like starter and main. I like my sweets after a meal, but I find that generally the starters are the best things on the menu and as far as french desserts go, you've already tasted most of them because they've crossed the Atlantic and although they'll be good, you won't taste anything new or surprising. I also feel that by the time I get to dessert I have two bites and don't finish it, the starter is where it's at.
In other food news, skip the chinese in France, it reminds me of what you would get if school cafeterias offered a chinese menu. One interesting food experience I had here was when we ordered a pizza here a couple weeks ago- we got creme fraiche on it and it was a winning experience, unlike some other creative offerings I've seen, like chicken, and corn in the UK. For my money, macaroons are totally overrated and overpriced and a pain au suisse kicks up a regular old pain au chocolate up a notch. After watching the Julie and Julia movie and reading Julia's book just before arriving I dropped a small fortune on trying Sole Meuniere because Julia has a Meg Ryan experience eating it in the movie, a bit of a waste of money if you ask my palette, it didn't hold it's own. I'd say ditto for the Beef Bourguignon. My two cents on the whole Julia Child cookbook thing, is it's about as useless as it is pretty. People don't eat the same today as they did 50 years ago anywhere, our tastes have changed somewhat and so has the alimentation available. I'm not advocating McDonalds eating, just that today's chefs have amped up or reinterpreted older recipes with new life, and a simple google search will reveal great recipe options without the hulk of that brick.
Anytime you have friends over or are invited your bound to experience the Apero, this is the drink and snack portion of the experience almost similar to the Brits tradition of having tea. French wine glass are very small and so it truly is just a bit of alcohol like a pastis, a kir, whisky and coke, anything you like actually, and some bar snacks, nuts, cheese, olives. I've found as much as the food, the way of eating is as enjoyable as the food itself.
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