Paris

Mr F-P and I went to Paris at October half term and it was jolly nice, but I have to say that despite no shortage of vegetarian restaurants, the food was pretty poor. Unless you really, really like shredded and grated raw vegetables! We stayed at the Hotel California St Germain, which was.... I have to say functional. Our room was clean, comfortable and warm (too warm!). It was also miniscule and we had to hang out of the window and peer upwards for about 4 floors to see the sky, as both windows opened into sort of ‘chutes’. But it was quiet at least!

We didn’t have breakfast at the hotel as they were charging €12 each. We found a sweet little cafe nearby where we could get a really good cafe au lait and either a croissant or bread and jam, and freshly squeezed orange juice for €6.90 each. The first morning it was so mild and sunny we were even able to have this sitting outside at a pavement table! The cafe, much to Mr F-P’s amusement, was called the Best Monge.

Our first evening we ate at Le Grenier de Notre Dame, where we’ve been a few times before, and we had the seitan steak, which is fabulous. As I am now ‘an intuitive eater’, and the portions were not only humungous but stupidly expensive, I made Mr F-P share with me, which he wasn’t very happy about. I obliged the manager by having his homemade chocolate mousse and it was lovely. Didn’t eat it all though!

The second evening we ate at an organic place very near to our hotel (the Phyto Bar), and were served much in the way of shredded and grated raw vegetables. Mr F-P was true to form and had an omelette with his, but I opted for the seaweed caviar, which was delicious, a spring roll (mediocre) and there was also a ball of some kind of nutty paste stuff which was really, really delicious, but I can’t remember what it was.

I also obliged with the homemade chocolate mousse again (aren’t I kind?) but found this one too sweet.

Night three found us in the Potager du Marais, behind the Centre Pompidou, facing more shredded rawities. Or at least Mr F-P was. He chose the tofu medallion, which was coated in almonds and was very tasty, but not only was there red cabbage on his plate (horror!), there was also, oddly, half a pear. I thought his head was going to explode! I had the seitan bourguignon, which looked unappetising, and didn’t taste of much. At this point Mr F-P said a few choice things about the quality of French vegetarian restaurant food, and vegetarian restaurant food in general and threatened, randomly, to email Jamie Oliver on our return to tell him that I am the best veggie cook in the world. We were both pretty horrified at the prices too!

Anyway, we drank a lot of cafe au laits (at €4 each a pop!!) and I had hot chocolate a few times as well, because they serve it as a little jug of melted chocolate and a larger jug of hot milk and it’s so much nicer than the stuff we get here made from powder and usually tasting of nothing much at all.

We did have a fab time, and the weather was cold and bright. We visited les Invalides and looked at Napoleon’s tomb and an exhibition of stuff from the 2 World Wars, which had Mr F-P make a few more choice comments, this time about surrender monkeys! We walked in the Jardin du Luxembourg, where the leaves were turning gold and red and orange, and we pressed our peasants’ noses up against the shop windows in the ultra posh shopping district between the gardens and the river. We went up to Sacre Coeur and watched the lights of Paris come on, and saw some juggling lads and a football skills artist.

I'll pop some more photos on here in a bit but Mr F-P needs to use the puter to send some football emails now.