They Don't Teach You This in French Class

Before I begin raving about our restaurant, I gotta give it up for our hotel.

The Westin was in a perfect location- right near the Louvre/Tuilleries... and with preferred status we got an upgrade to a $850/room night. (the price was listed on the door).

So while this isn't a "money saving blog", when you pay less than a quarter of the price and get a view of the Louvre, Eiffel Tower, and all the big must-sees... well, I have to advocate the Starwood Credit Card.

Views from our hotel: (there was a mini balcony)

And a view of the Louvre from our hotel room during the day.

A gray day in Paris is better than... ___ (fill in the blank)

Okay. Dinner. First night of dinner, we were a bit jet lagged and took a much needed nap beforehand.

We found this place from Mr. David Lebovitz. Who's kinda like the shit. (Excuse my French... HAH- GET IT?! And it's not French at all!) I think I'll take another post to write about David later.

Aux Lyonnais

Reading over the menu.

Oh Le Shit.

I definitely don't know French.

We didn't want to be *those* Americans and have the waiter translate every item (don't worry we eventually gave in a couple dinners later) so we did our best with my mini English/French Dictionary, my 5 years of French 8 years ago, and Mr. Broad's fluency in Spanish which is kiiiinda similar to French. We tried.

So let me explain what we ate in our English terms cause that's what I know.

Pig something. It came in a jar, was spreadable, and I'm pretty sure it was innards, pate, yet creamy. Mr. Broad chowed down. Il l'aime.

A creamy bacon leek tart

All I knew was that I was getting something with leeks. Yum. But helloo cream! I was getting flashbacks to Meryl Streep adding cream to her dishes a la Julia Child. I never saw the movie but saw enough of the trailers to get the picture. The French like cream.

Blood Sausage

...Sorry Mr. Broad, I didn't know how to say bone marrow (which our neighbors got). No loss though! This blood sausage was easily the best he's ever had. Oh and with amaazing apples on the side. RIGHT! Pomme de terre is potatoes but pommes is apples. I totally knew that. Oops.

Quenelles- fish dumplings. The waiter explained what it was and it was in my mini dictionary so it had to be popular.

An odd texture if I do say so. A dumpling- a creamy one- and my guess was it was like a gefilte fish but well, without the jelly part. (It was just Passover, give me the comparison...) And I don't even like gefilte fish! But this, creamy and really good. Just a bit different.

Dessert. EVERYONE orders dessert. We were stuffed (CREAM much??) but decided to split a dessert (Helloo, it's France) and got the "Areyousureyou'reSPLITTINGadessertandaren'torderingyourown?!" look from our waiter. Yes that's a look.

Introducing the souffle.

The most airy and creamy and soft and delicious souffle I've ever had. Not that I'm a souffle expert but if I was, this was the one. It came with some orange soaked grand marnier thingy which we eventually incorporated.

Mr. Broad and I were adamant that we wouldn't go to any touristy like places. We wanted to go where the locals went- no English menu options and just damn good food. (And wine.) The restaurant lived up to expectations. I think I would brush up on my French if we were to go back. Way too much food envy.