Paris

We were in the mood for oysters so we had lunch at L'Atlas on Rue de Buci.  They also had some great French onion soup, which we wanted to get a dose of before we left Paris.  I ordered my steak bleu (very rare), and it came out just the way I liked it.

We walked along the Seine and around Paris after lunch.  We had hoped to do some window shopping but being a Sunday, everything was closed on St. Honore and Place Vendome.

Instead, we sought some shade in the Tuilieres Gardens and had a lazy afternoon in the park.

One thing we wanted to do before leaving Paris was to try some more of Pierre Herme's macaroons.  We walked to Saint Germain des Pres to his shop on Rue Bonaparte and got jasmine, olive oil & vanilla, chocolate passion fruit, and caramel macaroons to take back to the hotel for dessert.  We ate them later over a game of pusoy dos but they still weren't nearly as good as the macaroons at Laduree.

We tried to go to the Michelin-starred L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon for dinner so we went to the restaurant at 7:30pm, which is extremely early for a Parisian dinner.  However, the place was packed, and we weren't able to get a table.   As luck would have it, we asked the hostess if La Table de Joel Robuchon had any tables for dinner.  La Table is Joel Robuchon's nicer restaurant in Paris and has 2 Michelin stars.  As luck would have it, they had a table for us at 8pm so we jumped on the metro and headed across town.  Our meal was beautifully presented and impeccably prepared.  To top it all off, we even had a chance to try some of Joel Robuchon's famed pureed potatoes.  When we made them in class, Chef told us that the ratio of potatoes to butter is one to one.  Our waitress confirmed that fact when she served them to us along with our main course.

The perfect way to end the night... pusoy dos and macarons!