Wonderful Memories of "Our" Neighborhood Cafes

We got back from Paris a week ago. Seems like another world, or that we were never there. That's the frustrating part of travelling. Thank goodness for photos and this blog!

We had an amazing time and stayed on budget. All in all, with all our shopping, eating, passes, apartment, and airfare, it cost us about $2500 each for two weeks in the City of Light during the Summer. That means if you save $105/month for two years, you're there! This also includes planning ahead and being willing to buy your airfare and pick your apartment well in advance, like 6 + months in advance.

Since we stayed on budget, we ate out the last couple of nights in Paris, not wanting our experience to end and to be sure the fridge was cleaned out. As I mentioned before, we knew we'd get consistently better food and service in our own neighborhood.

Brasserie l'Harmonie

The menu on the chalk board

The first night in Paris, we staggered into  l'Harmonie, sitting our extremely jet-lagged selves in their nice restaurant and was extremely satisfied with the food and the waiter. I'm pretty sure I wrote about this in an earlier blog. One of our last nights, we went back and sat outside. The food wasn't quite as good (but still way better than our dinner near Pompidou) but the waitress was extremely friendly and the whole experience was satisfying.

Cafe le Bistro - our neighborhood bistro

Our final night, we opted for the bistro just two doors down. We'd eaten dinner there before and had a pleasant afternoon snack on another day.

Mike unwinding after a hard day - LOL

We felt like family there, especially since we always got a friendly wave and "hello or "Bonjour" when we dragged our tired carcasses off the subway and walked by the bistro headed for our apartment!

Stefan and Mathieu - the nicest waiters in Paris

So the last evening, I asked to take their pictures. They'd been so friendly and fed us well, I wanted to immortalize them!

Thank you Stefan and Mathieu for making us feel at home and not like tourists. We'll be back!!

For more information about having an awesome vacation in Paris, visit my website: ParisMadeSimple.com.

Dining in Paris

An excellent meal near Gare de l'Est

So, I wanted to say a short word on dining in Paris.

We've eaten a lot of picnics and dinners in our apartment and so have been able to afford more dinners out than expected. We've also found that sticking close to home (the 10th) is more convenient and less expensive. It's also less touristy, in general. We've had three excellent dinners withing a 10 min walk of our apartment, tonight being no exception.

Although we searched our four guides for recommendations, we ended up doing our favorite thing - walking until we found something that looked good.

Tonight we headed up Blvd. Magenta in the direction of Gare de l'Est. And we found a cute little bistro where the waiter was friendly to us as we checked out the menu. So yes, he "caught us in his net" and we were very happy he did.

Jean - Marc, one of my favorite waiters in Paris

Jean-Marc was one of those professional waiters. He knew how to engage the people walking by and handle the entire place himself with the help of the proprietor. We were in the early dinner crowd, it being only 7:15 pm. The sun was still warm on the tables along the busy street next to a bus station. But it was lively, warm, and the food looked typically French. We weren't out for "cuisine," just yummy food.

Right away, Jean-Marc tried engaging us in English, but being shy about his language skills and understanding my French better, we struck up a wonderfully, friendly conversation in French. We were American? From Chicago? New York? In the end, he was fascinated with all the details of Maine and it's coastal culture since he himself was from Brittany.

The meal was good, the owner checked on us and was very happy that we were happy and the whole dinner was "genial."

This is my normal experience with Paris. I have yet to have anyone be rude or anything but fall-all-over-me friendly. Granted, I speak French fairly well (be assured, their expectations are pretty low for Americans) and I engage and smile and ask questions. But, I am NOT eating at some fancy place like Les Deux Magots (definitely worth a coffee if you can spare the Euros) or some other super snobby touristy places. We are dining in "our" neighborhood!


So, I write this with a stomach full of confit de cunnard (duck), a demi-carafe of good house wine and a mousse au chocolate, topped with friendly Parisian service. Life is great in Paris!!

For more information about planning a great time in Paris, visit ParisMadeSimple!