If you know me, then you know that I went to France with the top priority to EAT. I chose to go eat, over going into the Eiffel Tower. Yea, I know, terrible.
Lets talk about charcuterie. I love it. The first “french” food I had when I got there, was french bread and charcuterie. This is pretty much a plate of meats. Hams, sausages, bacon, and pate. Sometimes you can get it with cheese, and little pickles. It is served with butter and french breach. This was my staple. I wanted it all the time. Too bad that I came back to America and am prepping for a cleanse, because I would eat it all the time here too.
The cheeses, the butter, the mayo, the baked goods…everything smells so heavenly and tastes even better. If I had to pinpoint what France smells like, I would say butter and cigarettes. Here, ketchup isn’t left on the the table with the salt and pepper. You can get freshly whipped mayo to dip your fries and anything else into.
In my opinion, everything is expensive. And not just because the dollar to the euro is pricey, but because food in general is expensive…except foods in charcuterie! A lot of the restaurants have only prix fixe menus. It is much cheaper to hit the market and cook at home. But if you are a Parisian in the middle of the city, your kitchen is pretty much non existent. My cousin eats a lot of simple foods that can be prepped without a stovetop, microwave or oven! Crazy. I know. Lets just say we had a lot of charcuterie…and I loved every minute of it. Brie, camembert, pate, these were much cheaper than they are in America…probably because we have to import it. For example, a wedge of brie is $8-14 but in France 1 euro! I definitely ate a LOT of cheese while I was there, what lactose intolerance?
For breakfast, we went to Chez Prune, where for breakfast you got a basket of breads, a plate, and a dessert.
For Dinner we had more charcuterie. And a really hard to open bottle of wine.
We went to their Japanese town for ramen and bubble tea. The ramen still can’t touch Toki Underground, and the bubble tea is a lot different than I expected…it was actual tea, with a mango syrup for flavoring. The balls were delicious though.
I waited my whole trip, for moules-frites. Mussels and french fries. And what better place to have it than at the south of France? For 14,50 euros we got this…
I’ve never had such tasty mussels in my life. The french fries were scoop shaped, so I got a good amount of mayo on every fry. Crisp outside and hot mealy goodness inside. The mussels themselves were perfection. Provencale herbs, right amount of seasoning, creamy, buttery and the touch of lemon and wine to freshen things up. It was unfortunate for my belly that it wasn’t any bigger. The pot alone had at LEAST a hundred mussels and I could only fit half of it. If we knew the portion was going to be so large, we would have shared. I was so sad to waste it. They don’t let you take food in doggie bags by the way. In case you were wondering. Anywhere in France actually. Maybe even Europe.
Here’s more pictures of food to make you hungry. I want to go back and eat.
