The Art of Eating in Paris, This Strange, Strange City

(La Defense's skyline; wikipedia)

Judging from the sizes of our breadbasket (that's slang for 'tummy', by the way), Shah and i obviously don't have any problem with food here in Paris. Even though we're in a strange city, in a strange country, surrounded by people who speak a strange language (and apparently don't think too highly of the English language - which i suspect is veeery slightly mythical), we have too many reasons to not complain:

- There are two halal places literally two minutes away from our apartment, with a halal fast food joint in Les Quatre Temps, the mall that's less than 15-minutes' walk.

- Monoprix, the supermarket where we do our shopping is half a minute away and is stocked with enough ingredients to make breakfast, lunch and dinner. If anything ever runs out there, Auchan supermarket (the Giant Besar of La Defense) can be found in Les Quatre Temps. Seriously, it's so near that if this were Petaling Jaya, i would go there in my jammies. 

The nice jammies from Peacocks, of course, not the ones you get in Pusat Pakaian Hari-hari. No offence, PPHH, i did get my leopard print leggings from you guys, i wear them every day here, serious.


- La Chapelle, or Little India as we call it, offers daun kari, serbuk kari, cili kering, and almost any spice my mom and mother-in-law use to create their infamous lauk i can never replicate.

- Paris has its own Chinatown too. I found petai there the other day. PETAI. In PARIS. And the only reason we didn't buy durian there was because there was no space for a durian-filled plastic in our daun kari/bendi-ladden hands. There was space for the petai though, and kailan and sesame pau.

- Holiday Villa Hotel is here and they come with a halal restaurant. A halal Malaysian restaurant in fact. With nasi lemak, mee mamak, kari laksa, the stuff. Unfortunately, my mom's rendang tastes ten times better than their rendang. And even my ayam goreng is more edible than theirs. But on those lazy days when i want kari laksa - something i cannot whip up in my  "aparthotel"'s minuscule kitchen - i know where to go.

- Shah tried Googling 'halal restaurants in Paris' and about a few hundreds restaurants came up. So many that we didn't even know where to start. So we simply didn't.

- My families and friends might know about Shah's infamous Caca/Mama. To those who are clueless, he's a personal chef to a VVVVVIP; a P so VI that i'm not allowed to broadcast who he/she is. And when Mama was here last year, he gave us free food, like, every night (i shan't mention how many kgs i clocked in, shall i?). Well, Mama said he's coming back to Paris. In May/June. I use every ounce of my willpower not to shake my fist and holler "YESSS" whenever he says (on the phone) he probably will see us again soon.

So there you go. We're not going to complain. But if anyone is kind enough to send us a few bottles of kicap manis cap udang, that would be splendid.

By the way, if anyone bothers to ask us, "So what French food did you try in Paris? Besides the breads and pastries?", be prepared for exchanged glances between us. Because our only possible answer is "Raw salmon salad with crevettes".

Which YUHM-MY, by the way. Pret A Manger serves the salad with mustard sauce.

Besides, people come here FOR the bread and pastries. And cheese. It's more appropriate and makes more sense than ever to add the word 'breadbasket' to our vocabs now. 

And hello, let's not forget the desserts. I found possibly the best chocolate cake i've ever eaten in my life at Dalloyau. It definitely rivals the chocolate pudding with milk in Christchurch's Le Cafe (look at that. a French name. how coincidental). Macarons here are like biskut Marie in Malaysia. Angelina's Tea Room's line always snakes up five shops away (in case anyone is interested, i read that one of their branches was where Sarah Jessica Parker's Carrie ate those desserts in the last episode of Sex and the City series).

Shah and i are still looking for a set of garlic escargots. Anyone knows any good place in Paris that serves suspicion-free escargots...?

(thestar.com.my)