Cooking Dinner again

This is an awesome little bakery that one of the French students led us too. It is tucked in a little alley, and is clearly a local spot. It has the standard backed breads and pastries, but also has bread pizzas and quiche. I tried the bread pizza with ham, potato, onions, and cheese, and it was very good. It tasted almost like a loaded backed potato pizza. The next day I tried the tomato quiche, which was also really good. The kicker was the dijon mustard at the bottom, which(since I love mustard) was really good.

That soda is realllly good too, it tastes like a grapefruit-citrus soda.

Heres a greek salad I made for everyone. We had tomatoes, red onion, cucumber, bell pepper and feta tossed in a fresh made greek vinagariette. The chicken was pan seared with garlic, oregano and lemon zest. Again, per Chase's request, we had dipping oil and bread. 

Later on, for the Euro final, we walked down to the Plaza de Espana, a small little Spanish food/wine shop and cafe. We sat a table outside and enjoyed a few bottles of wine and some really good little cookies and deserts. Other than school work getting in the way of doing more stuff doing the day(only kidding, kind of), I could really get used to this.

Montpellier!

Sure is A nice change of pace arriving in Montpellier. It is a casual beach town full of college students, making it more laid back and relaxing than Paris. First thing I noticed when we got to the hotel was that there was an open market across the street. The market is awesome; it has several independent vendors, including three produce stores, a bakery, a spice/nut vendor, a butchor, seafood shop, coffee shop, cheese shop, wine shop...  makes me wish that it was still like this back in the US(can't be thanks to Walmart, Publix, etc.) We walked around for awhile, went to "Le Comedie", which is the main square, for a while then headed back.

Anyways, the next day, the market just looked to good to pass up, so I went produce shopping. Here is what I decided to buy. (Pictures of the market to come later)

I made a marinara sauce (from fresh tomatoes, not canned), and added ground sausage to make a bolognese sauce.With all the fresh produce, we also made a salad, with a quick balsamic vinagarette.

We grabbed a couple 7 Euro bottles of wine from the Spanish store across the hotel. This unfamiliar "Jumilla" wine was a very pleasant surprise. It was a little dryer on the start, followed by a smooth red fruit flavor, with the slightest bit of oak/tobacco on the finish. I don't care for a strong oak flavor, but this finish rounded out the wine very nicely, showing its complexity and versatility. As it ends up, we were back for more later that night.

Last Days in Paris

After a week in Paris, which seemed like 2 weeks we did so much, we moved down to Montpellier, which is a much slower paced beach town.

Just a recap of what I have been doing the last couple of days:

Thursday. After class, we went to one of the French Supreme Courts. The court was divided into sections, with large intricate court rooms for each division, such as criminal, commercial, family law, etc. This was the family law room I believe.

After we visited the Courts, we had dinner, which was decent but not really worth writing much about. We then walked down by the canal again, and found a little locals bar, where we talked to some french businessmen for a while. With myself, drew, kathleen, and courtney, we split a bottle of red and white wine and had desserts. I orded the chocolate torte cake, which turned out to be rich delicious.



Friday. With a short day of class, we were out in the city by noon. We browsed the shops for a while in the Hotel de Ville area, then sat down for late lunch at a this place.

To start out with, I had a cup of espresso(which is their standard coffee here), and it was phenomenal. It was rich and the coffee flavor was so good, yet it didn't have that hard acidic bite you sometimes get with espresso(or coffee) when it is brewed strong. Of course, we also had wine with our lunch. We had Chardonnay, which also turned out to be good, as it was not too heavy(as some Chardonnays will be), but still brought to the table complexity of flavors and a hint of butter on the finish.

However, the absolute star of this meal was the Penne Carbonara. This was the best dish I had in Paris, without question.

This Carbonara was authentic, with the egg yolk served on top and the hot pasta water in the bottom of the bowl. Once you crack the yolk and mix it in with the pasta, the residual heat lightly cooks the egg yolk. Combined with grated parmesan cheese served on the side, the sauce was creamy and delicious, which large pieces of perfectly cooked pancetta. I wish I could describe through words how good this pasta was, but I just can't. If I ever make it back to Paris, this is the first place I'm going. My only regret is not trying the beef tartare at this place, as I'm sure it would have been amazing.

After a little more browsing the shops, I strolled down the river and met up with everyone for a night by the Eiffel Tower. There's no better way to finish our week in Paris then lounging on the grass with 10 friends and a few(maybe more) bottles of wine. Complete with the sparkling lights on the tower, and cracking champagne at midnight, we sent off our time in Paris the right way.



A few pictures from the Seine River boat tour

Relaxing by the Canal

After a long day at Versailles and the louvre, me and my roommate decided to go down to the canal st. Martin area for a beer. The place was definitely a local hangout, and hundreds of people lined the edge of the river drinking wine or beer and relaxing. Sure was a nice change a pace, and looks like a good spot to spend my last few nights in Paris.

Visiting Versailles!

Here's just a few pictures from the Palace at Versailles. The place was awesome, with very elaborate artwork, architecure, trimming, and gardens.

 Famous Hall of Mirrors

Courtyard

Organ in the Chapel

Top of the Gate

Front of the Palace

Going out in St. Germaine

We decided to go out for a little bit, but ended up just eating then going back to a bar by the hotel, because the metro train closes early during the week. Here's a shot looking down the street.

And another shot, reminds me of Bourbon St. a little bit.