We planned very little to do in Paris except eat and drink. Ducks confit and magritte, wine, pastries, chocolate, steaks and more pastries. More wine. The occasional sliced fruit or glazed berry that came glistening atop whatever tarts caught my eye. It was Paris. Even if we died from heart attacks, they would be the most delicious heart attacks in the world.
Tom and I had both been to Paris before. I first visited with my parents in spring of 2005 (when, thanks to my father’s adventurous tastes, we dined at the same Chinese restaurant twice)and again with my cousin Karen at the start of 2010. Tom had traveled there just after college with an ex-girlfriend as part of a five-week EuroTrip. “I was poor as fuck the first time I went to Paris,” Tom said, “It’ll be nice to not have to eat only baguettes and cheese with Vegemite, though even that was super delicious.” I pitied his girlfriend at the time. Though unemployed, I don’t travel with people who are poor as fuck (PAF). It just isn’t fun, you know? Thankfully Tom is no longer PAF, and I went about trying to secure some restaurant reservations. I considered too, implementing a few cultural things on our itinerary, but our time was short. The first most highbrow thing we did was stand in front of the Centre Pompidou on our first night there.
“I’ve never been inside,” Tom said.
“It’s nice,” I murmured.
I snapped a photo and we went on to dinner. A la prochaine, Pompidou. The second most highbrow thing we did in Paris was stand in line for the Catacombs on our last morning. The line was very long. We had both a lunch reservation and a train to catch. We bought sandwiches, ate them in line, then checked our watches and decided we had to leave for lunch. A la prochaine, Les Catacombs! While Paris captures hearts, it seduces stomachs. And we – certainly I – pretty much let ours rule. So we ate. We ate, and then we walked. And then we ate some more.
On the Eurostar, I, hungover from Tom’s company holiday party the night before, napped. When I woke up, Tom had placed before me a ham sandwich, orange juice, and champagne. “Let’s celebrate! We’re going to Paris!” Thus was born a new train tradition (a drink and a “sando” as Tom calls it) and one of our favorite memories of the entire trip.
The cheery, well-appointed lobby of the Hotel Observatoire Luxembourg, in the Latin Quarter. Big beds, small rooms, good location. My policy is never to stay in the same hotel twice, but I’d recommend this one.
We both agreed this was way better than looking at art.
Dinner at Le Barav. A wine shop cum bistro. Buy the wine next door and bring it to the restaurant to have with your dinner. That is duck confit and a prosciutto salad with cheese medallions. Coming from London, where food is getting quite good if not already there, we still cried a little.
For those who ask, “Who took this?” I did! It’s a photo of our reflection; my phone is on the table.
Drinks atCandelaria, a taqueria and bar. It’s a speakeasy type place with the bar hidden behind the taqueria. A pretty young, international crowd as it’s opened by some NYU grads.
I showed this photo to my mother, because I thought both the red door and Tom were very handsome. She said, “He looks like a beggar.”
Brunch with friends at their brightly lit studio in Le Marais, my favorite neighborhood. This photo was taken a bit early, before the entire spread was laid out, but there was champagne, Badoit, croissants, cheese, prosciutto, a tart and amazing tea from Mariage Freres. After the brunch our mission was to find the tea.
“Excuse me? Could you please take a photo for me?”
Tom took the task quite seriously and took many shots of her.
I asked her to return the favor. Tom is holding the bag of tea, for which we hunted high and low. When we returned to New York, we realized a.) Tom’s roommate had the exact tea because b.) “You can buy it at Dean and Deluca.”
Our last dinner at Au Pied du Sacre Coeur, located at…the foot of the Sacred Heart in Monmartre. That is lamb on the bottom and another duck under Tom’s knife. So many ducks, so little time.
[…] opportunities to return came every two or three years, with cousins, girlfriends, and of course, with Tom. And I still do much of the same marveling, drooling and ogling as I did on that first trip, though […]
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VERY HIGHBROW 
[…] opportunities to return came every two or three years, with cousins, girlfriends, and of course, with Tom. And I still do much of the same marveling, drooling and ogling as I did on that first trip, though […]