All the Pretty Little Paris Meals

Chocolate Ice Cream and Raspberry-Rose Sorbet from Berthillon

I just got back from a weekend in Paris–breathless! It seems a touch self-indulgent, and I certainly hope I don’t make any readers smug and miserable, but I had to share with you what I ate:

Friday

• Warm white asparagus with vinaigrette and baguette, with French onion soup on rue de Buci
• A fresh galette sarrasin made before my eyes and stuffed with only shredded Gruyère from L’Avant Comptoir
• Lobster salad with chiffonade preserved lemon peel, purple potato chips, sucrine lettuce, avocado, and haricots verts remoulade was followed by a seasonal assiette de legumes, a little pot of creamy brebis with honey, and a vanilla pot de creme, my favorite, at Le Comptoir. And a requisite carafe de vin blanc.

Saturday

• A smoked salmon tartine with half a pain au chocolat and a pink grapefruit pressé at Les Deux Magots.
• Peaches and pears bought from the fruit market on rue de Seine and devoured on the point of Ile de la Cité.
• A little coupe of ice cream–dark chocolate ice cream and my favorite signature raspberry rose sorbet–from Berthillon.
• A lunch of flûte, caviar d’aubergines, and tomme noire de Pyrenées, bought from Monoprix, was devoured in the Luxembourg gardens
• Dinner at Pères et Filles. Tartare of crab, cucumber, and green apple, and more white asparagus with herb vinaigrette. Then, seven-hour braised lamb shank and fennel with rosemary, and a veal milanese with black olive polenta. Another bottle of white. And for dessert, Grom pistachio and vanilla.

Sunday

• Another smoked salmon tartine and pamplemousse pressé at Les Deux Magots.
• Back to Le Compoir for a three-hour lunch with friends. A bottle of Côtes de Provence.
• Mozzarella sweating milk and covered with fresh spring basil pistou. A salad of sucrine and spring vegetables. And then tuna, just seared, with loose Provençal pistou and tapenade, topped with a garden of soft, sweet, seared spring vegetables. Riz au lait with fresh caramel. And the nougat snatched from Mr. English’s espresso saucer.
• And my last bite at the Eurostar train station: a bag of old-fashioned potato chips. I am an American in Paris, after all.