I’ve just returned from quite the culinary adventure in Paris, France! Ahhh, I love that city. Cheap cheeses, charcuterie, and crepes as far as the eye can see. Mulled wine and to-die-for hot chocolate to warm the spirit. And sugary confections that will make your heart melt. Yes, Paris truly is a gastronomists delight. Of course as an American, fine dining gets expensive quickly considering the euro exchange rate is not in my favor. But there are still plentiful bargains to be found, especially if you’re renting and apartment as I was and could buy foodstuffs to bring back and make a hodgepodge dinner (more on that in another post).
If not, there are endless numbers of cute little cafes around every corner. We’d been told by my French cousin that Cafe Beaubourg had the best chocolate chaud (hot chocolate) in Paris, so we just had to go check it out for lunch one day. It definitely lived up to expectations, although the prices were a bit on the high side since the cafe looks out over the Pompidou Center, a busy tourist site. In fact, it’s a perfect place to grab a hot drink after touring the museum. The front outside seating area has heaters in the winter, and it’s great people watching.
We sat indoors since we needed a larger table. Between the table we ordered a chocolate chaud with whipped cream, a plan chocolate chaud, and a vin chaud (mulled wine).
Chocolate chaud with whipped cream
Chocolate chaud
The chocolate chaud was wonderful, silky and not too sweet. It was clearly made with real chocolate, not some powdered crap. Mine came with the whipped cream, and while it was lovely cream, i have to say that the cream took up too much space and I wasn’t actually left with that much drinking chocolate at the bottom. My friend’s order without cream came in a separate container so he could pour the glass as he went. It was the much better buy, and with hot chocolate as delicious as this was, you wanted as much as possible! My other friend was disappointed that the hot chocolate wasn’t the uber rich/thick Spanish kind that you practically need to eat with a spoon, but I actually prefer hot chocolate that’s more drinkable. So I give this one top marks.
The Vin Chaud was…fine. I’m not a big fan of mulled wine.
Vin Chaud
I find that it tastes too acidic and not quite fruity enough. My friend thought that this was good vin chaud, although not the best she tasted in Paris.
We also decided to get some lunch while we were at Cafe Beaubourg, though none of us wanted anything too big since we had a nice dinner planned. I ordered the salmon tartare appetizer which was HUGE when it arrived! A giant mound of tartare, a little dish of this divine dill cream sauce, a few pieces of toast, and a lovely little salad.
salmon tartare
The salad had a very light but enjoyable dressing on it, making it quite refreshing. The tartare was very fresh, with a touch of spice in it along with some dill for flavor. There was a healthy dollop of salmon roe on top as well. Salmon roe is not my favorite–I find that it’s too fishy tasting–but it was a nice counterpoint to the tartare and the dill sauce when I used only one or two eggs per piece of toast. Overall, a very satisfying and elegant lunch.
Sausage and hash browns
One of my companions ordered the special of the day, which was a grilled sausage and hash browns dish. It was quite tasty, with great flavor to the sausage and good crisp to the potatoes, although it wasn’t quite the star of the lunch. It was rather plain, and the other dishes outshone it’s simplicity.
My other friend ordered a cherry tomato and buffala mozzarella salad which was outstanding! The tomatoes were super ripe and sweet, which surprised us given that it’s the middle of winter! We’re not sure if the tomatoes were greenhouse grown, or imported from Africa as much of the produce seemed to be in Paris, but they were wonderful.
Tomato bufala mozzarella salad
And the bufala…mmmm. For anyone who doesn’t know, bufala mozzarella is made from buffalo milk in Italy, and unlike other fresh mozzarellas, it has a much higher percent of fat, so it’s extremely creamy and much softer than regular mozzarellas. This was phenomenal bufala mozzarella, playing perfect counterpoint to the tomatoes with just a drizzle of olive oil to top it off. Probably the star of the meal. When you have great ingredients like Cafe Beaubourg, you don’t need any heavy sauces, or intricate preparations. You can simple let the quality and flavor of the ingredients speak for themselves.
sunny side up eggs
My third friend wasn’t all that hungry and ordered just some eggs. Unfortunately, our waiter spoke no English, and we spoke almost no French, so didn’t know how to tell him that she wanted the eggs sunnyside up. It wasn’t in our pocket dictionary either. So my friend mimed cracking an egg onto a griddle–sound effects and all–and lo and behold, he got it! Ah, the power of food, to cross cultural and linguistic boundaries. sigh.
Not much to say about the eggs, other than the yolks were very orange – a sign that they came from happy, free range chickens. Chickens that get to run around and live like chickens should build up omega 3′s in their eggs, which gives the yolks their organgey hue. Most chickens in the U.S. (everything you buy in the grocery store) are confined and fed restricted diets, so they don’t build up the omega 3′s or the organgey color. Just another example of how France seems to have figured out the balance between food affordability and quality that the U.S. is still struggling to balance.
Overall, Cafe Beaubourg was quite the success, and I highly recommend it for anyone traveling to Paris in the near future. Stay tuned for more tales of my Parisian culinary adventures.
Eat well.
Intellectual Eater
