Day 4 in Paris

Raspail Market is an open market that is only open on Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday mornings. The gariguette French strawberry is famed for its flavor, so we had to pick up a pint at the market. On the way to the market, we stopped by Secco Patisserie, known for its sucre vergeoise (sticky brown sugar) madeleines. The texture is dense and cakey, with a hint of lemon. I forced Angel to eat another bite because she doesn't like it and I didn't want to be stuck eating the whole thing. I think we'll be making these as well, but beurre noisette (brown butter) instead, with lemon zest.


The Raspail Market was a lot smaller than I had imagined. I guess I'm too used to Taiwan morning markets :) But we did score the strawberries, for 3.5 euros, which is surprisingly cheaper than the supermarket gariguette strawberries (4.99 euro). You would think because it's fresher, it would be more expensive.

LOOK at the fat white aspargus! It's HUGE!

There were 3 patisseries and chocolate shops that were on our hit-list for the day. First that came up was La Maison du Chocolat, recommended by Angel's former co-worker, Chris. We bought a passionfruit dark chocolate, a Russian tea Douschka dark chocolate, and a praline dark chocolate, along with a coffee sponge, dark chocolate praline entremet cake. The passionfruit flavor was pretty strong, considering that dark chocolate was used as the base for the ganache. The Douschka was floral and my favorite of the three. They let us try an chocolate-enrobed apricot pate de fruit, dusted with cocoa powder. The chocolate cake is gorgeous, but the ganache needed more flavor, although Angel did like the texture of the coffee cake (reminded her of Marina Food's coffee mousse jellyroll).

Poilane is known for their sourdough bread. I'm not sure why Americans would come to France for sourdough, as San Francisco's climate is what makes sourdough bread have that distinctive flavor. It's expensive as well! 23 euros for a kg! We bought it pre-sliced, for 1.75 euros for half a loaf.

There is a shopping mall with a supermarket that we heard about, but when we went yesterday, we walked through every single floor and could not find the supermarket and went home discouraged. A little online sleuthing turned up slightly different names "Au Bon Marche" vs. "Le Bon Marche" so we were able to find it today no problem. Au Bon Marche seriously stocks every single famous French brand there is... Fauchon, Maxim's, etc. We bought a glass jar of cannelles soaked in rum sauce, parmesan cheese with truffle spread, and Cote D'or nougats. AFTER we checked out, we saw the bakery... stocked with chocolate pistachio croissants, beignets stuffed with caramel and chocolate praline. We decided to walk to Jardin du Luxembourg to eat our picnic stash ;) The croissant and beignets were AWESOME! The croissant was flaky and moist, with intense chocolate and pistachio flavor. The beignets were somehow dusted with sugar on the outside although invisible which gave it an amazing texture, the batter was light, cakey, and vanilla-y, and paired well with caramel and nutella. The caramel was better though than the nutella.



As we were walking to the Jardin du Luxembourg, Angel saw a pastry shop with mille-feuille in the window. Of course we had to stop in to buy one for her (of course we had to run back to the hotel for her to go to the bathroom, of course we had to stop to buy water because she doesn't like French tap water... even when it is reboiled! :P). It was better than I thought a mille-feuille would be (as I'm not a big fan), but Angel thought Sogo's is better.

Jardin du Luxembourg was commissioned by Marie de Medici, but now houses the French Senate (boo, we wanted to go into the Palace, but it's gated off because the Senators work in there). The weather was very sunny (it was supposed to rain today) so I'm happy to have gotten a lot of pictures of this gorgeous place. The gardens are very well planned out, and lined with statues of past French queens ("reine") and duchesses. There is a sculpture of Mary Queen of Scots as well, although she was only Queen of France for a very short time before her French husband died and she returned to Scotland.



Pierre Herme was our last sugar stop of the day (we were pretty sugared-out by then), but I'm so glad we went! There was a line outside the door, and many Americans and Japanese tourists.

We bought the Plasir Sucre entremet cake, Ispahan macaron,

and small jasmine,

rose,

pistachio macarons.

This is hands-down, by far the best macarons we've had! Herme puts so much filling inside the macaron that you can distinctly taste each flavor, and the cookie itself is crisp yet chewy. And Angel actually liked the jasmine and rose! She usually hates floral flavors, but the flavor of the fillings and textures just worked so well together. I LOVE how he puts luster dust on the macarons! From appearance standpoint alone, Herme would have won anyway... without having the taste the flavors! Angel wants me to make them for her when we get home... yet another thing I have to make! We walked across the street to Saint Sulpice to eat our cakes. The church is free entrance and very different from Notre Dame in that it was let to fall apart for the past two hundred years. They are doing major construction to return it to its former glory right now, and you should see what an amazing church it is! My two cents~ I think it's a lot prettier than the Notre Dame, and a whole lot more labor intensive to build. I was just so in awe of the church. It looks straight out of Pantheon Greece.




For dinner, we went to the Monoprix and G20 marche next to our hotel to buy a cheese sampler, Sauternes wine (4.99 euro baby!), and I picked up a rose jelly to pair with brie cheese... or maybe chevre. We stopped by Nicolas wine shop (their window displays imply cheap wine, but when you go in... not really!), where we learned from another American tourist's conversation with the clerk that tomorrow is May 1st. French Labor Day. EVERYTHING is closed!!!! Museums, shops, PATISSERIES!!!! Grrrr!!! US Labor Day everything is OPEN! Dude! We had a whole schedule planned out for tomorrow... but now it looks like we'll be going to the Roland Garros instead (French Open tennis court) and Bois de Boulogne. I'm so BUMMED! Angel plans to exercise the whole day there. I'm glad we finally get a day to sleep in! She's been hitting me awake every single day and it is painful!