An introduction to French Cuisine - L'Arc - Paris Part 2

Emi and I have never been to Europe before and wanted to make sure we maximized all of our "eating" time. Emi spent the past few months reading and salivating about all of the food we hoped to enjoy in Paris. Instead of picking out restaurants to visit, we made sure to educate ourselves on what is "French Cuisine." We rarely eat French food, so wanted to make sure we would fully appreciate all of the amazing food we knew were were soon to enjoy.

Emi's aunt proved to be an amazing hostess who narrowed down the list of places to visit and guided us through the city during our three days in Paris. She also brought us to amazing restaurants throughout the trip. Our first stop we ended up at by chance. L'Arc was conveniently located next to our hotel so we decided to enjoy our first meal there. Emi's aunt thought it was interesting because most cafes do not have a full menu or food of the quality we ended up enjoying.

I ordered my very first boeuf bourguingnon (French beef stew, popularized in the US by Julia Childs) which was chewy, flavorful, savory, and the reason why I flew across continents. One of the things we read was that the French enjoy their meat a little chewy which can be strange to Americans who appreciate and worship their tender meat, but I have to admit working at the chewy flavorful meat was a great experience and made me appreciate the flavors more. Also I don't think anything makes my mouth water like a red wine enhanced stew with red meat, potatoes, and carrots.

Emi's mom went with one of the best French onion soups any of us had ever enjoyed, creamy and unique. Growing up I was used to salty, cheesy, "Red Robin" variations of French onion soup. I enjoyed it and still do, however like most things French, this was more refined. We were surprised to find French onion soup on the menu because typically this is considered a winter dish.

Emi's aunt ordered the fried potatoes and duck confit. The potatoes tasted like they were deep fried in goose fat and were rich and delicious. These weren't your average American Jo-Jos.

Emi's dad ordered his favorite; fois gras pate on toast. I think we ended up eating this dish another five times or so throughout our 3 days in Paris.

Emi ordered the French scrambled eggs with fresh porcini mushrooms, the special of the day. A little too mushroomy for Emi's liking, but when in France you might as well try the special.

Now that we were filled up with a light lunch or in my case a heavy lunch we were ready to tour the city. Since this is a food blog, we'll focus on the food, but the sites were amazing and more than one could ever hope to accomplish in a quick 3 day trip, so hopefully we'll be back soon.

- Kyle