The only odd thing was that we were only able to find a single Latin restaurant in the Latin Quarter. The Greek Quarter would have been a much more appropriate title, but that's just me.
Regardless, we hopped from bar to bar until the hours were no longer happy and then proceeded into a nearby restaurant which advertised its 3-course meals. My appetizer was better and so was my dessert. But my entree...Who would have guessed my grilled steak would come up short when compared to Kelby's pork? Not me, that's for sure. But before you argue that Kelby broke into the scoring column, here this: There were four entrees from which to choose on the pre-fixed meal. I was considering the steak and the pork, while Kelby was going to go with the fish dish. Instead of making the decision on my own, I decided to ask our waitress which dishes she recommended. She informed us that her two favorites were the steak and pork, and adamantly argued against the other two dishes (the fish entree included). Yes, Kelby swallowed her pride and ordered the good dish I did not. Yes, her pork was better than my steak. But I just can't award her as the victor. Left to her own devices and without my prodding of the waitress, I would have gloated with glee over yet another triumphant out-order.
Friday afternoon was a huge disappointment. Let's Go had told me of a feature at Parc Andre Citroen which allowed people to go up in a hot air balloon to enjoy views from higher altitudes than that of the Eifel Tower. To paraphrase Bob Ryan from Entourage, If I told you you could experience this hot air balloon ride for a mere 10 euro, is that something you would be interested in? I felt like Red when traveling to reunite with Andy in Zihuatanejo - that's how excited I was for this hot air balloon ride.
It was not to be. Upon reach our destination, we saw a sign which read, "Closed for Rennovations. Will Re-Open in the Summer."
Here's my problem: If you want to close the exhibit for the spring because it's the off-season, that's reasonable. But for rennovations? Really? Are you painting the balloon a different color? Are you tying a better knot on the rope?
Dismayed, we decided to pay a visit to the Eifel Tower during the day. After waiting in an hour long line in the frigid, windy air, we headed to the second level (apparently this is the optimal level - the first isn't high enough and the most expensive third floor offers views that are simply too high off the grouund to truly enjoy). The scenery from the tower were beautiful. Despite the wind and cold, we were REALLY fortunate because the 45 minutes or so were up there happened to be some of the sunniest and most picturesque moments of our trip. We kept joking that the clouds didn't look real and frankly, they still don't look real even when looking at the pictures.
After regaining feeling in my extremities, we walked to the Louvre. The museum offers free admittance to people under the age of 26 (Sorry, Justin. Sorry, Dave.) on Friday nights. One surprisingly nice feature of most Parisan museums is that they allow photography. Well, it was nice at first. I quickly became annoyed with the what seemed to be the paparazzi photographing works of which they had no appreciation. We were able to see famous works such as Mona Lisa and Raft of the Medusa, but the highlight of the museum for me was when Kelby pointed out the Nike of Samothrace, a sculpture of Nike, the Goddess of Victory. Now I know where Nike got its name! Have I mentioned recently how awesome it was that Kelby is an Art History major? Well, if I haven't, it was.
For dinner that night, we were both in the mood for Thai so we made our way towards a totally new side of town in the Paris' version of Chinatown in search of Lao Siam. When we walked in, we were delighted to see nothing but locals. Knowing that she wanted to enjoy what she ordered, Kelby suggested that we share a bunch of dishes. The highlight of the meal was the lemongrass with shrimp soup, which was in a tomato base and surrounded by delicious vegetables. Overall, the chicken curry, the beef with broccoli and the stir fried noodles did not disappoint. And it was cheap. Well done, Let's Go.
Saturday was a days of ups and downs. I'll spare you the details of the downs, but just know that we searched far and wide with no luck to find a particular produce, meat and cheese market. We scoured the area for an hour after getting off at the correct metro stop and asking three different people for directions. Still, no dice.
Also, we went to the Rodin Museum, but Kelby was lefty sorely dsiappointed because all of Camile Claudel's (Rodin's student and then mistress) work was on display in Spain.
Sidenote: In crazy news, I ran into my friend Riva when crossing paths at the Rodin Museum. Berkeley had just begun its spring break and she was on vacation in Paris. As she walked out, and we were about to walk in, I saw a girl who I thought looked like Riva. As we got closer, the girl even more resembled Riva. Still closer, I could swear it was Riva. Then we made eye contact, and she gave me a crazed look. But it wasn't one of those, "why the hell are you looking at me, you creepy guy" looks, it was a "no, that can't be Ari" look. Once we realized our eyes were not deceiving us, we stopped and talked for a few minutes. Riva earns special points in my book, because she made a reference to The Blog without provocation, citing that "this has to be in the blog". Kudos to my curly-haired friend.
Now for the ups.
On the flight from Madrid to Paris, I read that Let's Go referred to Berthillon as "the city's best ice cream". It turned out today was going to be the day we would hunt this place down, regardless of what obstacles were in our way. After leaving the Rodin Museum, we ventured toward the shop. Again, the street we were looking for was absent from our maps, so we were making guess after guess once we embarked from the subway. We deduced it was off of Ile St-Louis, so when we discovered Notre Dame Cathedral, we knew we were on the right track. After much treachery, and plenty of "this ice cream better be worth it"'s, we finally found our street. The street address Let's Go gave us for Berthillon was 31 Rue St-Louise-enl'lle, which meant that we were about a 4 minute walk from where we entered the street. Oddly though, I saw "Berthillon Ice Cream" virutally immediately after turning. I checked the address to verify this was the place to be, but the address was in the 90's. A bit skeptical, we asked if they had the specialty flavors Let's Go recommended; they had one of two. Still far from convinced, I asked if they had recently moved from down the street. When the woman behind the counter told me they hadn't, and that, "we sell under the same name as the people down the street", Kelby and I suspected someone was trying to pull a fast one on us. We agreed we would walk down to 31, just to make sure we got the real deal. Just one block later, we saw another Berthillon Ice Cream! Oddly confused, we marched on.
And then we saw it on the corner of the street. We could tell just by looking at the sign that we had struck oil. We walked into the store, which looked it was straight from a fairytale. On the right were extravagant pastries and chocolates, while the ice cream section was tucked in the corner. All their flavors were posted on the wall in both French and English, so the language barrier was not going to be an issue this time around. Their "parfums" ranged from the ordinary - chocolate, vanilla, coffee, mango, etc. - to the elaborate - mint peach, gingerbread, honey nougat and white chocolate, just to name a few. Gazing up and down the menu, I realized I wanted to try...well, everything. No dice. Apparently Berthillon knows how good they are because they do not allow ANY sampling. (I have to admit, this was one of the few moments in Paris when I said to myself, "those damn French!") At this point, I was flustered and had to go back to the drawing boards. No sampling? I had never heard such a thing. I was supposed to choose what I wanted without any assitance? What did they think this was, a restaurant? After much debate, I decided upon dulce de leche (supposedly a house specialty) and blueberry. Kelby went with gingerbread and coconut.
NOTE: I have sat in front of the computer screen with my head in my hands, deep in thought attempting to even begin to articulate how amazingly good this ice cream was. I can only muster two thoughts:
1) It was undeniably the best ice cream I have ever had
2) The flavors of the ice cream were so natural, it felt like I was eating a gingerbread cookie. It felt like I had just picked a cocunut off of its tree. It felt like fresh, sweet blueberries were squishing in my mouth, one after another. It felt like Aunt Jamima was in my mouth.
The ice cream was so good that we hadn't even made it off of the premises by the time we demolished our respective flavors. We were still leaning up against Berthillon's window! After much moaning and cup-licking, we looked at each other and simultaneously motioned towards the door. Time for Round 2. As I remarked to Kelby, I felt like an addict going in for another fix.
Even though the untraditional flavors had been a wild success, we decided to share 3 scoops and play it safe with the flavors: chocolate, coffee and mint. The chocolate and coffee were UNREAL, but the mint was in some ways the most impressive. Even though it was my least favorite of our seven flavors (Jesus!) because I thought its flavor was too subtle for ice cream, it truly felt like I was eating frozen mint leaves. My god, it was like eating a frozen mojito.
And don't worry: I made sure to curse at both of the Berthillon Phonies as we walked back down the street.
After Berthillon, we took another look at the Notre Dame Cathedral. Although we had ventured in a few days earlier, the outside was even prettier at night. It was only then that I realized how much prettier the streets, river banks and overall landscape are when they are lit up. It also helped that it was the weekend and there were still plenty of people out, but the ambience at this point was what I envisioned Paris to be.
After walking around for a while and buying a few postcards, we made our way towards a restaurant Let's Go highly recommended. The bad news: this place does not exist. The good news: the restaurant that was there instead was phenomenal. Gli Angeli (5 Rue Saint-Gilles) remains the best meal I have had in Europe. We began by sharing calimari as an appetizer. But this wasn't your traditional fried squid dish. The fish was fresh and was served a little chilled. In a tomato-olive oil base lay fresh tomatoes, artichokes and mushrooms. Yum. Kelby decided to save face by sharing two entrees - linguini with clams and veal scallopini. Double yum.
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