Tuesday, May 31
We awoke to rain coming down quite hard
outside, made coffee and tea (Laura has turned into quite the tea drinker this
trip) and then headed out in the rain to go see Notre Dam.
The view from our flat. That the Louvre in front of the cement mixer.
If you look beneath the trees to the left, that's the River Seine
and if you look just left of center above the tree line that's Eiffel Tower.
We stopped in a
sidewalk café across the street from the cathedral to get a coffee, white tea,
and a croque monsieur.
By the time we were done, Laura was feeling decidedly
icky, so rather than go into Notre Dam, we walked back to the flat so Laura
could have a lie-down. We hung out there for a couple hours until she was
feeling better, then we decided to seek out lunch. We ate a late and light
lunch before taking the Metro to see Eiffel Tower.
Drizzly and rainy, the top of the Tower was
hidden in low clouds so we didn’t really see a compelling reason to go up
inside. We took selfies and photos, then headed on up to the Arc de Triomphe
and then a walk down the fashion house-lined Champs de Elysses.
It was getting
to be late afternoon at this point and we were going to have a grand dinner at
three Michelin star Restaurant Pierre Gagnare. We grabbed a taxi and went back
to our flat to get ready.
Later, after a tense Uber ride to the
restaurant, we were seated in the lovely dining room, side by side. Looking
over the menu, it was hard to figure out not only what to order but what some
of the items even were. Appetizers came in a cluster of plates per order, and
you ordered your mains by selecting a protein type (lamb, langoustine, veal,
etc.) and you’d get another cluster of plates all focused on that one protein.
This sounded complicated, and since Laura loves tasting menus we decided to do
that, not anticipating what was to follow, which was no less than 24 individual
dishes of food over 3 ½ hours.
The problem was, we didn’t love any of it.
Some of it was good, but there was nothing that we ooh’d and ah’d over. There
was no putting a bite in the mouth with an orgasmic “mmmm!” like we’d done only
a few nights earlier at The Kitchin and even Edinburgh Food Studio. Plus, we
had expected “nouvelle French cuisine” and this was a bit too far left field and
too “nouvelle” to even resemble French cuisine. The technique was amazing and
the service excellent, but it was by far not the best meal we had ever eaten.
The tasting menu.
Breadsticks and amuse bouches.
This was the dish that gave us trouble, the cuttlefish and veal kidney.
Neither one of us ate much of it and so they couldn't just let us
move on, the chef had to make us "something special."
The "special" was shrimp and celeriac. And Laura hates shrimp.
It ain't over yet, folks. Below, dessert begins:
Above, petit fours for later. Later?!?!?!
Laura had me take a shot of the whole table to see the ridiculous number of plates involved in just ONE COURSE of dessert.
The above two photos are of the second course of dessert
(then we still had the petit fours and then after the bill
they brought housemade chocolates).
The top of the two photos shows a wild strawberry,
vinegar, black pepper, and toulle dessert that I thought was
quite sublime.
Laura began to fade around 10 pm, so getting
through the rest of the meal was…challenging…to say the least. Not to mention,
one dish (cuttlefish with veal kidneys) neither one of us really liked. Well,
Laura hated it and didn’t eat more than a bite. The staff seemed appalled that
Laura didn’t absolutely swoon over the dish, and promised to make it right.
Well, we still had two courses to go—and that didn’t even include “le grande
dessert”! We almost begged them to not
make it right, but soon we were waiting for a surprise dish from the chef.
What came out was…shrimp. Laura doesn’t eat
shrimp. At all. And this shrimp sat on a bed of celeriac and some strange
broth/sauce that neither one of us liked. But I ate mine to avoid further
delay, and even ate one of Laura’s shrimp, too. Laura cut up her other shrimp
and distributed about on her plate, like a four year old trying to hide her
uneaten vegetables.
They fell for this and we were onto our last
two courses. Laura was ready to curl up under the table and go to sleep, but we
had our final main dishes to go, plus two courses (and petit fours!) worth of
desserts! Oh, and a handmade, housemade chocolate! GAH! NO MORE FOOD!
At 11:30 the dining room manager called us a
taxi and we were back at our flat, Laura completely exhausted. I poured her
into bed and we both fell asleep, window open, oblivious to the traffic,
honking, trucks, and scooters outside our window.
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