Paris

Last week I went a little MIA on the blog front. I popped over the waters to Paris to eat lots of eclairs and plenty of chocolat chaud.

Here's my round up of my favourite foodie finds. More of a picture heavy post than usual, I hope you don't mind.


After an early start for the Eurostar and navigating the Metro with our luggage, boy and I were nothing other than starving. After checking into our hotel, and a quick change into cooler clothes, we set off on a sandwich hunt.

At home I'm not a massive sandwich maker, but I always look forward to visiting boulangeries in France.

We found a great one round the corner from our hotel (on Rue Saint-Lazare) where locals were queuing down the road for their lunch, always a good sign. I opted for this selection of mini brioche rolls with fillings of smoked salmon, ham and chicken. 

Monmarte is always top of my list to visit, especially Sacré-Coeur and its impressive views over the City. Best seen from the top of the Dome, which can be found by walking up more steps than I care to remember. It was hot, the stairways were narrow. But the views were totally worth it.

And so was the Nutella crepe that happened to 'fall' into my hand after a short walk in the shade to see Moulin Rouge's windmill.

We found a local restaurant for dinner, a quick pit stop before our next adventure. A night time walk up the Eiffel Tower. Again, more steps, enough to persuade me that I really needed to purchase a more sensible pair of shoes the next day.

The next day we stopped off for a quick croissant fix before a visit to the Louvre and a stroll through the Jardin des Tuileries. Although not exactly French, the Amorino ice cream stand is a good stop. With an unlimited choice in flavour combinations they make you an ice cream rose. I went for Speculoos, tiramisu and caramel. 

Our stroll through the gardens, lead us the the Champs-Élysées just in time to take shelter from a massive downpour. Here I found some Pierre Hermés macarons in Publicis Drugstore. I went for his Jardin Mystérieux flavour. Each month a new mystery flavour is created and the secret is never revealed. This month's has a berry taste, but I couldn't work out the other flavour. It is meant to be a mystery afterall!

On our last day, we enjoyed Angelina's for breakfast. Extremely decadent, it set us up for one last day of walking round the City perfectly. 

Surprisingly, hot chocolate and eclairs for breakfast are quite filling. Although we did manage to purchase some treats to take home with us too. When a shop looks this impressive, its hard not to. I wanted everything!

Unfortunately, we had a lot of rain on our last day so needed somewhere to take shelter.

Found in the Marais area, Merci is a great shop to while away an hour or two. We stopped in the used book cafe. They also have an old cinema cafe too and a shop for all things homely. 

After the rain subsided we took one more stroll around and a quick trip on the Metro to find Blend. (Although there is one just down the road from Merci, we wanted to try their original shop). Not too far from the Louvre, Merci is almost a Parisian combo of our Honest Burger and Patty & Bun. They do a great lunch menu with a burger, fries and drink for €15. I went for a cheesy, beef, cheddar, bacon, homemade ketchup, fried onions, zucchini pickles and iceberg.

On the way out we stumbled across Rue Montorgueil, a whole road dedicated to all things food. Well worth a wander.