After writing so much about the Europe trip, I figured it was obligatory that I mention about my food experiences on this *food blog*!! I have a lot to say, and at the same time, I am not sure if it will actually be interesting for people who read this food blog to get recipes or to read travel experiences. So, I will try to make this blog post as appealing as possible. These are almost all the food pictures that I could find from my trip album.

Paris: The day we reached Paris , we had dinner at Saravana Bhavan. I was aware of this restaurant as I had visited this place back in 2012. This restaurant specializes in South Indian food, but serves many other kinds of vegetarian Indian food as well. The servers, owners, diners, ambiance, cutlery everything screams Indian! Now, the first question that will pop in your head (I think) is, why would I eat Indian food after going to Paris on the very first night? I have sufficient reasoning for the same. We had reached Paris in the evening of Bastille Day. We did not want to travel far from our hotel and this was the closest restaurant. I had Onion Rava Masala Dosa, and just look at the happiness on my face 🙂

Every day, we had a heavy breakfast in the morning before we toured Paris for the entire day. This helped us to get energized enough to travel and be touristy the whole day. A typical breakfast would include an omelette, coffee, fresh orange juice and a Croissant. Delicious!! simple mais délicieux. This would cost about 8 euros.

I tried Crepes in Paris whenever I spotted a shop. I can highly recommend the Nutella/Chocolate Crepe selling in front of the Eiffel tower, by the Seine river. It was delicious and worth the price (4 euros). We noticed that Crepe prices differed, so did the nutella filling techniques; hence the quantity and amounts oozing from it would differ. I didn’t feel ashamed while licking off nutella on my fingers 😀

There were many varieties of Crepes. The chef seen here is adding almond dust in the crepe ordered here. I even tried to search in vain for a wooden crepe making spreader in markets.

We had kept the first whole day in Paris to enjoy the Hop On-Hop Off buses from La Open Tour company, and their river cruise at night. That day we had Pizza for lunch. I kid you not, it was one of the most delicious looking pizzas I’ve had in a long time. Here are some pictures!! Also, to my Indian friends – just to be aware, these Pizzas are never pre-sliced. In fact, all over Europe I have noticed this trend.

We also tried Gaufre i.e. waffles @Boulangerie Saint Michel. I don’t have pretty pictures from this stunt. I am not sure if they were meant to be that incredibly chewy. I hadn’t imagined them to be such. There are many varieties of Gaufre again and we found chocolate dominating varieties as the safe bet, for example. the one with nutella or nutella+coco powder mix. Besides Sarvana Bhavan, we also tried its neighbouring Indian restaurant – Sangeetha Vegetarian restaurant. This restaurant was more relaxed with excellent food. The owner took active interest in talking to the diners and ensuring we were well fed. I was surprised that the decor was very Indian, but in a good sense. Not overboard with elephants and colours, as usually are the Indian restaurants abroad. It was more describing the likes of the owners. He had a picture of a very famous Indian vocalist M.S. Subbulakshmi hanging in the dining area. It was refreshing. The servers looked like family members of the owners, hence the responsibility seemed to be shared. May be it led to limited seating but it is nice to have a quiet place in Paris for an Indian dinner.

On the second day when we were at Eiffel tower, we had our lunch on the tower itself. I have to say this: don’t carry your water bottles while visiting the Eiffel tower. They will make you throw them away at the security. Once inside, you are expected to buy bottles from the shops in there, a little inconvenient but necessary I guess. Food on the tower is a little expensive and moderately good, nothing exceptional about it. Anyway , you don’t go there to drink or eat. You go there for the view and it’s worth the money.

On the third and last day, we visited Montmartre. One needs to pass through a street full of food and souvenir shops. One such sweet shop that I visited was this one La Cure Gourmande. It had exceptional amounts and varieties of French sweets.

I wanted to try macaroons for a very long time now. I noticed numerous macaroon shops in Paris. But it is difficult to determine which will be the best place to buy them. It takes immense self control to ignore their existence and to avoid getting in one of these shops while concentrating on tourist attractions. I finally succumbed and had different kinds of macaroons from Maxim de Paris at Place du Tertre. I enjoyed eating them thoroughly.

Place du Tertre is a cafe lined square where painters hangout. Yes it is exactly that. Artists and painters sitting in this square are amazingly talented. There are few painters making general Paris architectural kind of paintings, while others are making live portraits and some other artists are drawing caricatures. We had our lunch at a cafe here, and as you can see, there are no regrets. Food was great.

Finishing this post with an image of Chhole Bature that I devoured at Saravana Bhavan on last evening in Paris. Did I regret eating so much Indian food during this Paris trip? Not really! It was Paris exploring trip and not a food related trip. I tried my best to experience some local yet easily available food options while keeping the focus on visiting tourist attractions. I couldn’t get time to enjoy the classical french savoury food. I think the limitation of being a vegetarian also posed a problem. I ate typical to-go french desserts and had no regrets. Finally, we left to visit Colmar town in France after this amazing Paris experience. I hoped to eat more french food down there.. 🙂