30 Sept 2012

Away Days #3: LA CUISINE FRANÇAISE

well well, I promised to post about the french food so here it goes.

all of you who read my last post about france know what I did there other than eat. so if you haven't read it and you'd like to know you can read it now or after.

well of course I ate more than those things that you will read about and see after but they're not all worth posting about or just not french. 
we had some amazing BBQ's with everyone and I really enjoyed it but I wanted to write about french food.



one day we went to this medieval town called Provins and in this little ruelle by the church we discovered a cute little shop which sells all things with honey (miel) and roses which seem to be a specialty of this region.
in this shop they let us try this thing they called honey bread, it's not really bread and to me it tasted a bit like gingerbread (which technically isn't bread either so I guess it fits) and it was really nice so we bought some.
it looks a lot like bread but it tastes sweet and there are spices and honey in it which I really enjoyed, it didn't remind me of christmas as much as gingerbread does so it was fine.

so if you find yourself in this town I recommend you having a look at this shop, they have lovely honey stuff there.


Pain d'Epice au Miel found here


on our first day in Paris we went to the Charlie Winston gig, and before that we went to Hard Rock Cafe Paris for a lovely lovely meal. I love HRC and I love their food, no matter where you go the food is always good there and the people are just amazing.

well I usually have a Burger or something like that because they are just legendary but this time I thought I'd try something else. 
they had this grilled salmon on the menu and it just sounded really nice so I got that.
and it was amazing. it came with this herb and wine butter and lovely green beans and rice. just great! and not too much either. it was a rather big piece of salmon but it wasn't too fat or anything so it was the perfect size really. I could have eaten more rice but I always eat too much rice so it probably would have been perfect for everyone else.

lovely meal and the perfect choice if you don't want to feel too full after a meal at hard rock. we had this apple cobbler as a dessert which was amazing! it was warm and served with vanilla ice cream. I forgot to take a picture because it just smelled so good and we just started eating. but it was gorgeous!


Grilled Salmon found here


the second day in Paris was the day after the gig. we didn't get to bed early and we were pretty tired in the morning.
so once we had all our stuff together and left the appartment it was probably around 10:30 or so so it was a bit too late for a proper breakfast. well we just decided we'd have something french anyway.
luckily, we found this cute patisserie right at the corner of the street we spent the night and they had a lot of stuff there. I chose this lovely little quiche which tasted amazing.
with all the ingredients it probably wasn't completely french more of a french-italian-greek thing but it just tasted amazing! we ate our things on the pont des arts, you probably know it, it's the bridge with all the locks on it. and you can see the eiffel tower too. perfect breakfast!


Quiche Feta, tomate et basilic found here


on the same day, after we got back from Paris we went to Disneyland where we met with everyone to go to this chinese place for food.
the chinese restaurant we went to was somewhere near the Val d'Europe but I don't know exactly because it wasn't exactly the place you'd expect a restaurant to be. but if I find out I'll let you know because it was really really nice there.

they had this giant buffet with all kinds of stuff, not only chinese but sushi and french stuff and ice cream and desserts and fruit and salad...

well a lot anyway. I took this picture of these mussels in white wine sauce with chips because I wanted to talk about french food didn't I? and this is something very french.
not sure if it even is typical for this region (probably not, since they don't have the sea near them) but when I was at the Côte d'Azur last year they had it everywhere and it just reminded me of that. plus I love seafood. 

and I have to say I wasn't sure whether they would be good at a chinese place but they obviously know how to cook french stuff there. I guess everyone who cooks in france knows how to cook french food. 


Moules-Frites
I hope I'll find the chinese soon so I can tell you where.



and last but definitely not least...

I tried my first macaroon this week. I know I am 20 years old and I should have had one before but they don't really make them here in Austria and whenever I'm in the UK there's just so many other things I have to eat.
plus now I can proudly say that I had my first macaroon in france which can only be a good thing because after all that's where they come from, so they have to be good, and everything sweet is good in france anyway.

so I tried my first macaroon off this plate with loads of different little sweets, it was a raspberry flavour I think and it was just really nice. so after that we just had to find more.

well first we tried to find some in Paris, but we didn't really have time so we ran around looking for them somewhere near the eiffel tower and there were just no macaroons there.

(if you know a good place to find them in Paris please let me know!)

then, the day after we went to Coulommiers which was the next town from where we stayed and of course they had patisseries everywhere (one thing I really love about france!) and they did have macaroons!
so we got a few of them there (the blue one, the green one and the light cream-y coloured one).

later that day we went to a supermarket where we found some aswell! (red, yellow, dark and light brown).

well the day we found them was our last day and I wasn't feeling too well so I didn't eat any of them that day, that's why we put them in a box so I could take them with me. I had some at the airport and they were all really nice! the supermarket ones and the patisserie ones (of course the patisserie ones were a bit better).

but the one most important thing I realised was that I had to try and make some myself.
some people seem to think that it's really difficult to make them but I really want to try it anyway because I liked them a lot and I just don't think I can get them anywhere in Austria. plus when I make them myself I can choose the flavour and everything!

so if I find the time my macaroons will be up here soon. fingers crossed!


Macarons found here and here




Magdalena.




3 comments:

Unknown said...

best macaroons are at La Duree! soo good, but expensive...worth it though!

Unknown said...

best macaroons are from La Duree! expensive but so worth it!

sana awad said...

glad you had a wonderful time,waiting to try the macaroon recipe and tell us the result or feed back!