Third time's a charm

Our third trip to Paris was one of our favorites yet. We're starting to get a feel for the city, know what neighborhoods we like, and, for the first time, we did our research in advance and found great places to eat. Normally we just show up and hope to find something fabulous, but we haven't been that impressed with the food in the past. This trip made up for it. Ric found some amazing places for us to eat including:

Le Cristine - had a late dinner on Friday night when we got in. Really nice people and yummy food. This was in the St. Germain neighborhood, walking distance from our hotel and was a tiny, cozy little place.

L'Epigramme - we found this in Conde Nast Traveller for lunch on Saturday. It was also just a short walk from the hotel. The restaurant is relatively new and has the feel of a sunny back porch at a French country house. It was a set menu and we weren't 100% sure what we were ordering, but we took our chances and ended up loving it. There were only about 10 tables in the whole place, but, in true Paris style, every single one of them was drinking wine with lunch.

Helen Darroze - this was the super star of the weekend. We chose the tasting menu, but even before our bread came out they wheeled over the meat slicer right next to our table. Then proceeded to cut the thinnest, most delicious slices of Spanish ham that we've ever tasted. This was only the first cart of many, with the bread cart, the cheese cart, and the sweets cart all to follow. There were also two kinds of butters on the table, which I love. One was from the south of France and one was extra salty. Each course was delicious, but my favorite part about this tasting menu was that they didn't overdo it. We didn't feel too full at the end. They didn't serve a huge meat course after we had already eaten 4 other courses. It was the perfect amount and a really well-balanced meal with a little fish, pasta, and ground meat in a tomato at the end. Plus dessert of course.

The food was the highlight of this trip, as you can tell, but we also loved just wandering around St. Germain on Saturday (after the long lunch) and we rented the Ve'lib bicycles again on Sunday and rode around most of the city. That is definitely the best way to see Paris. One of the places we really wanted to try, Spring, was booked until November, so that gives us a great excuse to go back!

Here are some photos: