Happy Birthday Mom!

During my practical class today, I grilled tournedos, made potatoes Pont Neuf, turned some artichokes, and made Bearnaise sauce.

• The tournedos were cooked quickly on the grill, and we were tasked to cook 3 pieces; each piece was to be cooked to a different level of doneness (bleu-very rare, saignant-rare, and a point-medium rare).


• We used the deep fryer to make the potatoes Pont Neuf, which are basically just evenly cut steak fries. Pont Neuf is my fav bridge in Paris, but primarily because it's the bridge closest to home. The fries were once sold on Pont Neuf by street vendors, which is where they got their name.


• We learned that turning artichokes would be the technical skill we would be tested on during our final practical exam.


• The Bearnaise sauce is made with the same method as Hollandaise sauce but includes a reduction of other goodies.

We were surprised when we first came to Paris and discovered that there were so many Japanese restaurants. In particular, there is a concentration of Japanese restaurants on Rue St. Anne, which is only a 10 minute walk from the apartment. For dinner, we headed in that direction to dine at Akita to satisfy our sushi craving. I was searching for recommended sushi restaurants and found some good online reviews for Akita. As I was searching for more information on the restaurant, Google brought me to a web page for the Akita Restaurant in my hometown of Escondido! Akita (in Paris) had a good ambience and the food was decent. It seems that in Paris, the majority of Japanese restaurants serve a very similar menu of sushi boats, skewers, and chirashi bowls. Our expectations for the sushi weren't high since we knew it wouldn't come close to being as good as Okoze back in SF.

Quinn and I shared a sushi boat filled with sashimi, nigiri, and maki as well as some yakitori of chicken and cheese skewers.