Food food food

Monday night my dad and I went out to Moroccan food at 404. We were looking up Moroccan restaurants because the one my dad went to in the 90s or whatever had closed. 404 said "cool atmosphere, pretty good food, fashion crowd" and L'atlas was recommended by David Leibovitz for it's vegetarian specialties. I told my dad, the vegetarian, to choose...he chose 404. Anyways, it ended up being quite good. Awesome decor, very low lit, elaborate Moroccan (obviously) themed. The food was not mind blowingly amazing, but all around some very solid couscous and the chicken in my tagine was the most tender I've had in quite a while. Also we had this amazing rosewater cream (like in my specialty rose pumpkin cake!!) date dessert that was to die for.

This morning I met my dad for brunch at Rose Bakery. We got there at 10, but apparently their kitchen doesn't fully open till 11. So he ate what they had already made at 10, and then I ate at 11. Oh well. I had the cheddar and parsley omelet and their amazing organic coffee, he had fruit salad and a root vegetable tart (!) and we shared their salads.

Then I dashed off to a long day of class...there were so many complications filming the project for my atelier. Basically, we're working on a semester long project with French students learning English to make a bi-lingual, five minute film, with the theme "avant-garde". We're doing a parody of an avant-garde cooking competition. It's all well and good, but the teachers are making such a big deal about all the technical aspects of the film. It's like HELLO, I'M NOT IN TISCH. As several people pointed out, we could have done skits to the same effect. So that was exhausting. At least we made some progress without that damned external microphone.

Then at 4 I headed over to musee quai Branly for my Sociology class. The museum turned out to be...an anthropology exhibit about ancient cultural art around the world. Which has NOTHING to do with CONTEMPORARY French Society. I slipped out kind of early. I was so over it. I did not care about the differences between Mayan and Aborigine and Occidental art and their portrayals of the human and non-human. Not what I signed up for.

So because I left early, I had some extra time before meeting my dad, Anne, and her dad for dinner at Laduree. Of course, I decided to wait at the bar for an hour for them. I had a kir royal laduree:

You can kind of see how opulent and princessy the bar is there, which is why I always wanted to have a drink there. While I was drinking, this middle-aged drunk Dutch guy kept talking to me/hitting on me. Thankfully he left before my dad came...he was obnoxious and ignoring the fact that I was turned away from him on my phone the whole time. Anyways, then dinner time. The whole restaurant is amazingly gilded and exactly what you think of when you think of French interior decorating. 

My dad and I split the truffle cupcake for an appetizer...

Anne had a mushroom tarte...with mushroom ice cream inside! That was ridiculous.

My dad was fascinated my the carafe for the water at Laduree. He's been examining all the carafes at every restaurant, but he seemed to like this one the best. So I took a picture.

 Salmon with orange sauce and olive/date things (I forget the more official, culinary name)

Salade Laduree

 And of course, the desserts. That's what you come there for. 

Macaron Pommes Caramel: macaron, caramel cream, roasted apple, more caramel

 Elysees: chocolate cookie, crispy praline, crispy Madagascar chocolate leaves, chocolate cream, chocolate mousse, chocolate cookie, chocolate syrup. 

 And macarons, bien sur.

Also, the Champs Elysee was decorated gorgeously with lights everywhere. And huge ferris wheel at Concord that was pretty but that I am definitely too scared to go on. I tried to take a pic, but kind of failed, so you'll have to use your imagination.

Aix-en-Provence

On Saturday morning I met my dad at CDG airport, he had just arrived from SF. We took a bullet train from the airport to Aix-en-Provence, in southern France (near Nice, Marseilles, etc.), and got to our hotel around 6:30pm. Unfortunately it was pouring rain, and was fairly cold...pretty atypical for Southern France, even at this time of year apparently it never rains nearly as much as it did this weekend. Also I was sick/coughing the whole time -- Friday and Saturday my voice was not normal. Anne kept making fun of me at lunch on Friday because it kept cracking. Ugh.

Anyways, after dropping our stuff off at the hotel, we decided to wander around and find dinner. We got pretty lost trying to find the town center, as all of the streets are basically windy alleyways. Eventually we did find it, and there were fountains around every corner. It would have been adorable if it wasn't freezing and raining.

We decided to go to dinner at Le Cafe Latin, a restaurant recommended by the NYT. I started with an excellent glass of wine, and I got the "Menu Decouverte".

My appetizer: foie gras (maybe the best I've had ever), smoked salmon rolls, chickpea tagine

Then duck for the entree:

And finally, creme brulee, some sort of cheese/strawberry thing, and chocolate mousse:

Very satisfying dinner. Afterwards, the rain had slowed down, so we walked around a bit. We discovered what seemed to be the main town fountain, all covered with Christmas decorations, and there were carousels that were closed. The street, Course Mirabeau, is the main boulevard, and it's got fountains from the 1600s every few blocks and tons of lights.

As we were wandering back to the hotel, I was coughing up a storm, and so we decided to stop for tea. We sat down at a cafe, and the waiter told us they couldn't serve us hot drinks -- it was a law in Aix after 7pm.  Only alcohol. We were like, wtf?? But then we walked passed another cafe/resto that was serving coffee...so either it had a different license or that first place was lying. But whatever, we got our tea.

The next morning we woke up and it was actually sunny! A little cold, but still. We went out onto the terrace of the hotel, which actually had a lovely view.

After brunch, we walked to the major sites in Aix, which are all in the old city and are fairly close together. They are all mostly fountains (it was a city full of them!), churches, old buildings, and a city hall.

Cute dog at brunch

After that we went to Cezanne's atelier. He lived and painted in Aix. He had such a pretty garden. (They wouldn't let us take pics inside). Turns out it would have been destroyed in the 50's if a bunch of Americans hadn't donated a bunch of money to save it. Hah.

As we were leaving, it started thundering and lightning a few miles away...So we went to the one church we'd missed, and then sat down for some crepes as it started to pour. After crepes we debated whether to continue with some further away sites or be lazy. I was looking up these old Roman baths from 2000 years ago, and turns out they've been turned into a spa (Aix has natural hot springs). That perked us up, but of course after a 20 minute trek through the rain...the spa is closed on Sundays. We retreated to the hotel for a bit, then went to see one last sight. It was a castle that this duke had built to hide his mistress. Of course, the garden wasn't that pretty with the rain, and the museum had closed 10 minutes before we got there...

We still had a few hours before our train, so we walked over to the holiday markets. I was going to buy lavender incense, because Provence is famous for it's fields of lavender, but I thought it smelled gross. So I bought cedar instead. Last stop was Les Deux Garcons, a cafe open since the late 1700s, where Cezanne, Emile Zola, Picasso, Churchill, and others used to eat. The food was eh, but it was really pretty.

We took a cab to the train station. We were waiting for our track to come up...and then all of a sudden, one by one, the board changes all the train times to "Retard Indetermine"...indeterminately late. As I said before, it was because of a broken cetenaire. I ended up getting back home at 2am, after freezing in the train station for 2 extra hours. That kind of ruined the trip.

Most discouraging board ever

I'm still kind of sick, I don't have tons of energy. Ugh. Hoping I can better for the rest of my dad's visit and people this weekend!!!