Days 2-5 in Paris - A Few Museums, Lots of Eating

Tuesday - Visited the Musee d'Orsay and perambulated through the excellent collection of impressionist painting. Afterwards, we took a stroll through the Tulleries Gardens. Then it was home for some cleaning up and preparing for our biggest dinner in Paris at the famous Joël Robuchon's L'Atelier. The wait, we were told, was one hour, but we got there at 8:00pm only to find out that the wait was 2.5 hrs. We went over next door to a hotel and got drinks at a posh hotel, where Diesel spotted a small mouse scurrying across the lobby. Upon being notified of the unwanted patron, the hotel staff seemed quite disgusted. However, after a brief, failed search, they simply gave us as if it wasn't a big deal at all.

At 10:30 we finally sat at the bar (the whole restaurant is all bar seats, with the kitchen in the middle). We did the 9-course tasting menu. I can't remember the names of any of the dishes; all I know is that was really the best meal of my life.

Wednesday - We woke up early for the Louvre. Despite being able to skip all the lines by using our museum pass, we were surrounded, choked in fact, by the large crowed of tourists. Not the art-loving kind, mind you, but the breed that only goes from piece to piece taking pics of themselves with famous works of art and intend to bore their friends with those stupid shots. We met up with Nath after the museum, as she had arrived from Lyon the previous evening. The threatening clouds turned into downpour, and we ran through the streets to find a good neighborhood restaurant--with only 4 days in Paris, we wanted to make the most out of every meal. We picked a small family-owned restaurant, where we ordered steak and frites. That's right. I had RED MEAT. And it was GOOD.

In the evening we had dinner at Marie-Pierre's house. MP is a co-worker of Nath's whom I met while she was traveling through Seattle/Vancouver. Her friend Isabelle, who was traveling with MP was also there.

Thursday - We slept in till 11 and met with Nath for lunch at La Tete de Grouchin or something like that. The food was really good. We then made a stop home and the two decided it was in order to take a nap. I was a bit impatient and wanted to walk around, as we had been lazy all morning. We finally made it out and took a stroll through the streets of Paris.

That night, Nath got a reprieve from us and met up with her friends at a restaurant. We didn't go to far, and went to the restaurant next door (literally), where we enjoyed some hearty Provençal food.

"She Eats Well!"

After a hard 19-miler on Saturday, Diesel took me to one of our favorite restaurants, the Harvest Vine, in Madison Park. It's a very small neighborhood restaurant that serves the most delicious tapas. Diesel and I like to sit at the bar to watch the chefs cook and annoyingly ask questions about what this and that is and how this and that is made.

I got all dressed up even though I was about to crash, but I figured the fabulous meal deserved some serious celebration, and by goodness, I was going to celebrate it with a cute outfit.

We sat at the bar as usual, and the ordering started: perfectly cooked octopus on potatoes (I'm not a fan of octopus, but this was really good) and bonito with braised leeks. Then it got better, much better: pimientos stuffed with blood sausage, eggplant with tomatoes and cheese, suckling pig, spinach with pine nuts and cream sherry. It was during this episode of utter gluttony that the chef turned to Diesel and said: "Wow, she eats well!"

I know it was his way of saying that I was being a pig, but oh well, it was all damn good, and I'll be damned if I had let all that good food go to waste.

You Know the World has Gone Awry When...

..you see a minivan parked in front of the Tamarind Tree. Formerly regarded as just another hole in the wall in Chinatown (aka International District for those who wish to be PC), SOMEHOW, this Vietnamese restaurant got written up on the NY Times. And that was the beginning of the end...

You see, when a cheap, but good eats place like that gets written up on a mainstream newspaper, it becomes a mainstream phenomenon. Not only that, it attracts the white peeps; in special, the white peeps that live in the suburbs. In this particular case, it attracted two distinct groups: the hipsters and the soccer moms.

Like it or not, the white peeps ruin the ghettoness of such places, therefore driving up the prices of the food. It's supply and demand. Market economics, call it what you want. No, I'm not trying to be racist. For places such as the Tamarind Tree, gone are the days when one would walk in and be greeted by the smell of moth balls. I'm serious, I've BEEN to those places. My peeps (meaning the Asians) would just shrug it off and say nonchalantly: "Ok, so there are some cockroaches here, but at least they are dead." Not so with a white peep. He/she would FREAK OUT. And I mean FREAK OUT. In the olden days of these places, the customers would not be bothered, and in fact, even expect getting dirty plates, having somebody throw utensils at them and yell at them when taking too long to order.

However, when these places start welcoming the Caucasian clientele, one witnesses some dramatic changes: All of a sudden they try to change the decor, wean out the bad service, and worse: they try to PASS THE HEALTH DEPARTMENT INSPECTION. These little updates produce all sorts of ridiculousness. In the case of the Tamarind Tree, this entailed the following:

1) Change in decor: the addition of a water fountain, where the water cascaded down so fast that instead of a soothing feeling, it had the exact opposite effect. Not to mention the giant tile pieces that were missing from this fountain.

2) Marketing: neon signs advertising the said fountain (something along the lines of "Tamarind Tree: with its famous fountain")

3) Menu overhaul: all of a sudden things such as chicken feet and cow tendons do not make for appetizing entrees anymore. Beef with broccoli and some kind of meat in a sweet and sour sauce sound like a much better idea!

Bear in mind that Jen, Chris, Tim and I went there before I knew about all of this. But as soon as I saw the hipsters hanging out outside and the Chrysler van pull in, I knew I was in for quite an experience.

The food was alright. I would have to give it another try, as I had been sick that day. Service. Well, our waiter started out describing the menu with a lot of fair. We ordered 4 dishes. Out of the 4 dishes, he got one of them wrong and never ordered the 4th one. When we politely brought the incident to the manager's attention, he said he would "take care of us by giving us free dessert." Free food has an effect of making you greedy and order more than you would otherwise. We each ordered something different. The waiter ractified what the manager had said: "So, I know there was some miscommunication, but seeing that you guys waited, etc, etc, I am giving you ONE free dessert." We were like: "ONE?" He's like: "Yeah." We were like: "ONE for the FOUR of us?" He was like: "Uh-huh." That was it. At that point I knew that no matter what, hipsters, minivan, tacky fountain, sweet and sour pork and all, that was still, at heart, an Asian restaurant.