Day 33 - I Heart Paris

I know the restaurant from the Ratatouille movie isn't real, but based on the animated scenes and views from the film the restaurant would most likely be in the Montmartre part of town.  Perched on a hill, the Montmartre area overlooks Paris and has a string of cafes and bistros with spectaular city views, same as the Ratatouille restaurant.  In fact, I found a restaurant sign that resembles the Ratatouille one a tiny bit.

This real-life sign has three little elves around a couldron of some sort...

 

La Ratatouille sign is close. The backdrop city view is similar to the ones from Montmartre.

 

 

 

As I mentioned previously, there’s a bit of a burger fight going on in Paris at the moment and one of the big dogs in the fight is La Maison Mere.  It’s coming up on two years on the scene and it supposedly serves one of the juiciest burgers in town.  It also happens to be in the Montmartre part of town so I headed over there for lunch and to scope out the city views.

Owner and head chef Thomas Kornikoff – a former LA and NY chef – prides his restaurant on simplicity and using the best ingredients.  His burger list includes a hamburger, cheeseburger, and a cheeseburger with bacon.  Each comes with a tomato and pickle on the side.  There is a burger of the day such as with an egg on it or somehting unique, but the everyday burger list is short and sweet.  He claims to use the city's best sources for bread, meat and produce.  He apparently went through six bakeries before settling on the perfect bun. 

I went with the cheeseburger.  The burger is served medium-rare, just the way I like it and the bun is lightly toasted so it has a little crunch.  Catchup is offered, but not needed.  The one hiccup, sort of, was I ordered the cheeseburger, but got the bacon cheeseburger...not sure that's a hiccup or if I just got lucky.  I’ve never ever sent bacon back and I wasn’t about to start now.  I dove into my bacon cheeseburger and after each bite, the juices were dripping on the plate.  It was as advertised.  It would definitely be in the discussion with LA's finest.

La Maison Mere is among the leaders in the Paris burger wars. There are plenty of other delightful things on the menu, but the burger is the main attraction.

 

Juicy! Back-to-basics with this burger - toasty bun, delicious meat, crispy bacon and melted cheese. I added the pickle, but left off the rest.  The fries were solid as well.

 

Along with the food representing a bit of Americana so did their decor. This is the upstairs dining area. It looks more like an apartment than a restaurant, but I think that's what they were going for.

 

I dug the decor. They used bowler hats as bar lamps.

After lunch I climbed the rest of the stairs to the top of the Montmartre area where you get the full scope of the city views.  Even on the overcast day, you were able to see miles into the distance and get a sense of just how big Paris is.

The Paris city view from the top of the Montmartre area. The entire district is on the hillside so there are lots of small stairways and alleys filled with fun little shops.

A quaint walk street in the main plaza of Montmartre. They had local artists along the curbside creating and selling paintings, and I was very close to buying one, but couldn't find anything I liked. 

Like any tourist spot there are street performers, but this soccerball juggler guy was amazing. He stood up on top of this little pillar, which allowed for some great photos of his tricks against a scenic backdrop.

I had to stop half-way up to rest, that big juicy bacon cheeseburger was still sitting in my stomach.

At the bottom of Montmartre is a part of town called Pigalle, which used to be the seedy part of town and home to show houses like the Moulin Rouge. It's a bit cleaned up now, but there are still sex shops lining the streets. 

I continued my city walking tour by jumping over to the St-Germain-des-Pres and Latin Quarter parts of town, which run along the southern part of the Seine River. Since I've developed some sort of pastry habit - I guess being in Paris will do that - I stopped off at superstar pastry chef Pierre Herme's boutique shop and indulged.

 

The way everything was in cases and so elegantly displayed and wrapped, it felt more like a jewelry store than a pastry shop.

This $9 designer macaroon fruit tart combo was a little piece of heaven. It was the size and shape of an ice cream sandwich. 

The narrow cafe-lined streets of the Latin Quarter, which is known for its student life and educational institutions. The University of Paris is located here.

I stopped off at this fromagerie, or cheese shop, and I've never seen so many specialty cheeses. I went with a mild blue cheese to snack on.

 


I got back to the hotel pretty late, like 8:30pm, so it was a quick costume change and then back out for dinner.  Thomas Kornikoff from the burger lunch joint recommended a place near my hotel called Aux Deux Amis, which means With Two Friends.  He said they are doing some really delicious tapas that I'd probably enjoy, and he was right...so right!

I did a quick change from a hoodie sweatshirt to a black collared shirt...got to look a little nicer when going out in Paris.

 

I ordered four tapas and they came out pretty fast.  My first was calamari with green beans in a delicious oily humus paste. The calamari wasn't battered, but nicely seasoned instead.

 

Blast from the past...Tortilla Espanola...I had a few of these in Spain, and it made for a great tapa during this meal.

 

White tuna with a date puree...this was absolutely amazing. I took one bite and had to look back at the menu just to see what I had just experienced. I might go back just for this dish alone.

 

Veal with beats and a very light sour cream sauce.

 

Instead of dessert this time I opted for some formage (cheese) and chorizo.

 

 

While sitting at the bar having dinner I met a nice American girl who lives and works in Paris.  She was kind enough to invite me to her table where her and a friend visiting from America were having a few drinks.  I agreed and after brief introductions I found out the friend was from LA.  I thought that's cool, LA is a big place, lots of people live there, but it's still cool to be from the same town.  After about 20 minutes of travel talk we got back to being from LA and she said she lives in Marina del Rey.  I laugh and tell her I live in Playa del Rey.  But it gets even better.  She then tells me she's from Agoura Hills and went to Agours High School, the one-and-the-same as yours truly.  She graduated two years after me and we know a lot of the same people, but we never knew each other, until now.  This is one of the best experiences of the world being so small. 

 

The three of us ended up bouncing around a couple bars in the area and enjoying another fun social Paris night. 

 

Meg and Lauren enjoying the cafes and brasseries in the Bastille area.

Another great day in Paris.  In fact, I'm enjoying the city so much that I extended my stay a couple days, so instead of leaving Wednesday, September 26 I'll be flying back Monday, October 1.  It's only a couple extra days but I wanted a bit more time to enjoy some more fantastic meals and meet more fun people.  I think I've done most of the site seeing that I wanted to do so the extra time will be just relaxing and hanging out in Paris.  Tres bon!