FoodMeetsLifestyle.com

For our wedding anniversary I surprised Simon with a short trip to Paris. We take turns in organizing something for our anniversary weekend each year, and this time the task was mine.

I chose Paris not because it is considered to be the epitome of the "ideal place for a romantic getaway" (that would rather have been a case against…), but because to us it was a revival of the very "early days" of our relationship, when I was studying in Paris and Simon often came to see me on the weekends. Against all clichés, I must admit that I really didn’t like everything about Paris – for every day life the terrible housing situation, bureaucracy and frequent strikes can be rather troublesome. But our weekends were always blissful, totally relaxed and full of culinary delights – and this is indeed what remains most memorable to me when thinking back to my year-long stay in this city.

All the little bistrots, wine bars, and delicatessen shops all over the place are just fantastic. Once in there, the hasty air of the city suddenly disappears. "Quaint" is really the perfect word to describe these places – tiny and rustic, charismatic and somewhat quirky... I was pleased to find so many of the places I used to frequent back then packed and bustling as usual. So we spent our weekend wandering from one bar to the other, with some nice city walks in between to recover from all the eating and drinking.

Having had only a few bites of pre-breakfast at the airport, we went straight to the "Baron Rouge", a cute little place where on weekend mornings all sorts of people – serving every cliché, some of them even carrying a baguette under their arm – come to draw their wine from big barrels on their way from or to the nearby market, and by the way take a little break to slurp some fresh oysters with a sip of white wine, or taste some bites of "charcutrie" with a glass of red.

For the evening I had booked a table at what used to be our favourite bistrot, the "Virage Lepic" up in Montmartre, which is so small you should really like the person you’re going with as you can’t possibly avoid touching each other’s legs under the table. We extremely enjoyed this evening – the two hosts Rino and Maurice (who by their appearance remotely remind me of Asterix and Obelix) charming and and joking as ever, and the food was just delicious – starting from the saffron-spiced endive cream soup, to the very juicy chicken in a strong morel sauce, the extremely tender duck breast topped with foie gras, and finally the thick and creamy crème brûlée with its perfectly crunchy crust. Heaven…

Not much has changed at the Virage Lepic since I last went there, except that they now have an English translation to their menu as more and more foreigners appear to have spotted the place - but this has obviously done no harm whatsoever to atmosphere or quality. And then the crooked little streets of Montmartre up to the Sacre Coeur are really a beautiful venue for an after-dinner walk...

On Sunday we stumbled into the delicatessen shop "Da Rosa", which sells a great variety of first-rate Serrano ham as well as a selection of other specialties from different European regions. As we were surprised to see, what used to be a shop with two or three tables to sample some of the delicatessen has developed into a full-blown little restaurant. Coming straight from brunch (including some lovely almond croissants…), we unfortunately had just no space left to give it a try (though it was tempting…) – but this is definitely on our list for next time!