Trip #1: Paris patisseries

Feb 7

Club members count: 73
Nationalities count: 30
Today I feel that it is quite competitive to organize entertainment in Fonty. After the yesterday party in chateau Villicerf hardly a half of people who planned to join the trip managed to get up to leave to Paris at 11 am. So there is 6 of us today. It is chilly and cloudy outside. We are going to visit several Paris patisseries that we’ve chosen from a guide by Jamie Cahill. These are old cafes and shops, each famous for some sweet specialty.

Unlike the rest of the group, I visit Paris for the first time today. I must look funny holding all these maps and guides in my hands… We get out the Gare de Lyon building and take the direction towards Seine to get to the 4th arrondisement. It is around lunch time and we are hungry so our first stop ideally suits us. After some wandering around rue de Barres we finally find L’Ebouillante (6, rue des Barres).

The café is small and cramped. Its 10-15 tables are packed with people (a good sign!). Noisy. The waiter (resembling the owner) tells us that they have no free tables. We wait for around 10 minutes and squeeze into the 4 person table.

This is a creperie also famous for its home made tarte tatin.

Coffee with milk and hot chocolate are incredibly to the point! I’ve never seen the chocolate to be served this way.

Thin and crispy crepes arrive. There are around 10 breakfast fillings available: eggs, vegetable salad, seafood etc.

Tarte tatin served with sour cream is incredibly soft and light. The dough almost doesn’t feel at all. Nothing resembling what I have tried in Moscow.

Lemon cake is presented in the menu in the following way: Tarte au citrone (sans meringue!). Probably most of people expect the Italian lemon cake ordering this, so the strict disclaimer is needed… Delicious sour lemon curd is baked on the thin short dough. Tarte au cannelle is an airy and tender cinnamon cake with walnuts and probably lemon rind and nutmeg.

After all this magnificence we are definitely ready to continue walking. We want to visit several more sweet shops so we start moving away from Seine along Pont Louis Philippe. Boulangerie Malineau (18, rue Vieille du Temple) is the next stop. Small shop with beautiful glass window displaying big round sablés and a line standing outside.

The place is famous for its pain au chocolat flamboise. Though it is best eaten warm, it is delicious even now at 3 pm. By 4 pm it will probably be totally sold out.

Pistachio sablés are tender but still crisp and crumble as they are supposed to.

Further down rue Vieille du Temple we are stuck in front of the crazy chocolate shop window. ‘Cacao et chocolat’.

The fact that we’ve just had lunch doesn’t confuse anyone at all. It is just impossible to refuse this delicious hot chocolate and freshest éclairs…

We turn left to Rambuteau. Pain de Sucre (14, rue Rambuteau) is supposed to be the place selling best guimauves and marshmallows.

Another discovery for me: I’ve never tried anything resembling this soft airy desert in Moscow. The closest sweet there is ‘zephyr’ and it is quite far from what we eat here by its taste and texture. Pistachio and caramel marshmallows are great.

I also buy some macaroons here. Very expensive (€7.2/100 gr). Many tastes: lemon, blackcurrant, chocolate, pistachio again… These macaroons also have nothing to do with what is normally sold outside France. Much finer in texture. Much less dry. Melting in your mouth…

Sebastian joins us here and gives another insight right away. There are two shops considered the best macaroon producers in Paris. Ladurée is the oldest and used to serve the kings in the past. Pierre Herme one is newer, but Sebastian sais that they are doing better macaroons now.
Next stop was supposed to me La Fougasse (25, rue de Bretagne), famous for its sables, but it turned out to be closed. So we decide to return to the rue Vieille du Temple to visit some more places on the Rue des Rosiers. Sebastian notes how lucky we were to choose the 4th arrondisement for today. This is the heard of the old city. Everything began here… Deviating from the subject of the trip we stop in Korcarz that sells sweets from Eastern Europe as well as Arabic sweets.

Strudels and Arabic sweets look so appealing! We’ll probably return here next time.

Sacha Finkelsztajn (27, rue des Rosiers) is the international pastry place.

Quite unexpectedly entering you notice that while displaying pastry on the left hand side of the shop they sell meet and some appetizers on the right hand side. Great crispy vegetable cakes. Cheese cakes. Strudels. I expected to find different style cheesecakes here, but there is the only one (probably Polish style), seems that the choice seriously narrows by the evening.

It’s half past 5 already and we are totally tired. Seems to be enough sweets for today. Apparently we will return to visit chocolate places (particularily Angelina rue de Rivoly, 226) and ice-cream shops including Berthillon (29-31, rue Saint-Louis-en-L’ile) and Amorino (47, rue Saint-Louis-en-L’ile) when it just gets a little warmer…