(Good) Coffee to go

The concept of "coffee to go" is not very common in Paris. Of course we now have Starbucks and some cafés around the corner will give you a paper cup if you ask for one, but it's really not usual to see someone sipping his coffee in the metro or his car. Things may change though, thanks to people like Arnaud Viratelle (in this photo) who owns a little mobile coffee stand by the train station at Place Pereire (which is actually called Place du Maréchal Juin). The coffee is organic, not expensive (in Paris, 1 euro a cup, is a deal!) and the service is very nice, like the owner or the place. So, if you're in the neighborhood, pay him a visit.

Dinner at le Bistrot Vivienne

I know some of you think I spend my evenings going from one fancy place to another, but in fact I don't! Far from that, whenever I need to organize a dinner party outside in a restaurant, I never know where to go... Last evening, I was recommended to go to Le Bistrot Vivienne, a restaurant adjacent to the famous Galerie Vivienne and I did not regret it! The place is very very nicely decorated and the food is super good. I had fish and café gourmand (yes, again!) and I spent a nice evening surrounded with friends... Do pay the place a visit if you come to Paris.

It's Okay to go to the café

Very good friends of mine (one is a frequent commenter to PDP...) gathered some friends to celebrate their Pacs (Civil Union) yesterday evening and they did it at the Okay Café, a very nice restaurant located 41 Quai de Loire and overlooking the Canal de la Vilette. So not only can you enjoy a nice drink outside by the water, but on top of that you get to have dinner inside with a view over the canal (see this other photo I took). Pretty cool place I must say... You feel like you're in Venice or Amsterdam but not really Paris! They also have a "recreation" room in which they have this cool zebra!

The place to brunch at

I'm rarely super enthusiastic about a restaurant or a café, but this time I am. Yesterday (Sunday) I went to Coco & Co to brunch with some friends. I loved the place. Not only is it located in a very nice area (Saint Germain des prés), but on top of that it's beautifully decorated (even though pretty tiny) and affordable. They even have a little "hen house" (well, with no hens!) on the first floor (Look on the Making of). "Coco" is child language for eggs in French, so quite logically the place has a specialty of... eggs (have a look at the board also on the Making of)! Just one thing; if you come to Paris and want to go there (look up on Google Maps), make sure you book at least 3 days in advance... They seem to have a web site, but apparently down...

Drink at Café Brébant

When you read this I'll probably be holding a baby over a Baptismal font or something, while eating some dragées (typical French candy you offer at christenings) and admiring the medal the Godmother and I have given to the baby! (See yesterday's post if you understand nothing to what I'm saying!). So let me show you a photo I took last week while I was having a drink with a fellow CDP blogger (Virginia from Birmingham DP - Alabama, not England) and a few other people like Peter (who also has a blog about Paris) at Café Brébant, a nice café near my home.

Guaranteed Good Food

I took this photo at Le café de l'Epoque, a typical Paris restaurant in the 1st arrondissement. I took it because of what a friend of mine told me once: “food is always good in restaurants where they have Vichy table clothes and lace at the window”! I don’t think this advice works all the time, but it surely shows that the place is very traditional and that it should have an influence on the food they serve. In this particular case it worked!

Drink at "La Gare"

Last evening I had a drink with one of my beloved nieces (that I photographed once in the beginning of PDP without telling she was my niece!) at La Gare, an old station that they turned into a bar/restaurant. I usually don't like this kind of places that treat their customers like c... because they are trendy, but this time the service was very good, the price of drinks not outrageous and the atmosphere not super noisy. In short, I had a very good evening. I took a photo of the bar (that actually reminded me a lot of the one of the W hotel in San Francisco. The photo is not very good, but I'm sure you "get the picture"!

Afterwork at the café

I don't go very often to cafés and bars after work like a lot of people do. Not that I don't enjoy a nice beer sipping once in a while at a terrace with friends or colleagues, but I often feel like I have much better things to do at home. Last night though, I made an exception. Why? Because I met with Virginia, from Birmingham DP (not the English Birmingham, but the one in Alabama!) who happens to be in Paris. We had a nice chat at a terrace and she really put a smile on my face when she told me that thanks to her blog she made friends with a lot of people. I'm really glad this CDP community gets people together. Especially since we know now - since yesterday's photo! - that this world may end in 2012!

Café Le Nemours

T
The Obama Family just arrived in Paris (tomorrow they will go to Normandy for D-Day celebrations. Michelle and the kids already visited the Eiffel Tower but I doubt very much they will have time to sit in a typical Parisian café, like this one: Le Nemours, located Place Colette near the Palais Royal. That's all, I just liked the neon sign through the window ;-)

Drink at Café de Flore

Because Bettina (a regular visitor to PDP) was arriving in Paris today, Anne Reeves had organized a little gathering with her at Café de Flore. Alas, Bettina never showed up! I suppose I'll meet her later on, at the picnic on Wednesday 13, but in the meantime we enjoyed a nice little drink at the terrace of "Le Flore", as we call it. Le Flore is famous for having been the HQ of many intellectuals after the war. Now it's a little touristy, very expensive (a beer costs 8,50 €!) but that is what is costs to sit where Sartre and Beauvoir sat 50 years ago!

Less taxes, more cafe?

Good news, prices in restaurants and cafés should drop a little from the 1st July onwards. Why? Because the VAT (Value Added Tax, a sort of sale tax) will drop from 19,6 % to 5,5% after this date. This long time demand was granted yesterday (May 28th) by President Sarkozy to the restaurants and cafés trade unions. This will cost 2.5 billion euros to our government! As a counterpart, the unions committed to hiring at least 40 000 people. As for the prices, even though they may drop the first 2 months, I'm pretty sure they will go back to "normal" afterwards. (BTW, don't forget the PDP picnic on May 13th. FYI, I've added last years videos in the the Facebook event page)

Les "trenties"

Last evening I had a drink with a few friends at Bertie's, a pretty trendy, chic bar/restaurant located at rue Edouard VII, a pedestrian area located between Opera and Madeleine. On Thursday nights they have what they call "The Trenties" night - a play on words with 30 (trentre, in French) and trendy. And apparently, it works; the place was full of, what would certainly qualify as "Young Urban Professionals"... what we used to call BCBG (for Bon Chic Bon Genre) in the 80's. As for me, well, I felt a bit misplaced, I don't know why!

Café Limonade

It's my last day down under. Pretty soon I'm going to give up pubs and go back to little cafés, around the corner ;) This one says "Café Limonade" on its awning. Limonade was imported to France by the Italians during the 17th century and the places that would sell it became known as "Limonadiers" and would also sell liquors. Towards the end of the 17th century coffee became more popular than limonade and soon awnings would show Café or Café-Limonade. This one, called le Café Brébant, does not originate from the 17th century; it's a brand new place that was decorated the old fashioned way on purpose.

Quiet Please!

One of the side effects of the smoking ban in cafés and restaurants is that smokers feel compelled to go outside in the street to have their shoot fix. And what happens when they are outside altogether? They talk, laugh, chuckle... drop their cigarette ends on the ground and trigger much anger from the neighbors! The problem has become so important that the town hall had to react and launched a massive campaign. The photo I took shows one of the posters you can now find outside many places. It says "Outside, let's talk quietly" and the little shoeshine box on the left is, in fact, a portable ashtray that is provide for free to cafés and restaurants so that they can give them to their customers.

Le Zinc!

Here is another typical Paris scene! We often call the bar that can be found in cafés, "Le zinc", after the name of the metallic chemical element (even though, and I'm sure it will be a surprise to all my French readers, I found out that no bars have ever been made out of Zinc!). The little red and white napkin under the glasses is also very French: the red and white motive (which can also be green or blue) is called "Le Vichy" because it was originally made in Vichy (in the South center of France) - It was Brigitte Bardot who made it famous when she got married in a Vichy style dress in 1959!

G'day mate!

You're looking at a little piece of Australia in Paris! No, this is not the Australian embassy, but one of the famous Café Oz's in France, true Aussie bars, where they sell Australian beer, show rugby matches and speak with a funny accent! Why am I dealing with Australia today? Well simply because after Cheltenham and London, the Benauts are in town and I just had a wonderful dinner with them (for those of you not familiar with the Benauts (Ian and Andrea), let's simply say, they are regular visitors and commenters to PDP, true francophiles and genuinely nice people.

If the shoe fits

I met up with some friends the other night to catch up after vacations and drown a few sorrows for the upcoming rentrée, and discovered this bar called La Cordonnerie. Located at 142 rue St Denis, this former shoemaker's shop now boasts some of the cheapest beer and happy hour in town, along with what I'd consider to be the aged clientele where those points are extremely important!

Everybody's welcome!

To prove to you that Paris is such an open-minded city, I wanted to show you this woman and her dog who decided to take a stroll between the revelers of happy hour one evening. I realize that for some of you, you'll be disappointed to notice that it's not a "French poodle", but therein lies our diversity. We welcome most any animal and their owner when it comes to sharing mojitos in the 2nd arrondissement!

Garçon !

One job I've never done and I'm quite sure that I wouldn't be very good at, is that of a waiter. I took this shot at the Häagen-Dazs off the Champs-Elysées (see it in video here then click on Champs-Elysées) where this hard working garçon was doing a great job. Perhaps he is in training for the annual Course des garçons de café (et des serveuses) which is held in Paris and in many other cities around the world.

Have a drink!

Wow, "ça chauffe sur PDP!" (I'm talking about yesterday's photo comments!). Let me buy you all a drink to cool off a little. And don't start commenting about me advertising for Cuba and the Castros (Fidel and Raùl!), I just like the colors of this photo. Besides, I understand Havana Club is a brand owned by Pernod Ricard (the company that makes Pastis a very French drink that you find mostly in the south) and yes, also by the Cuban State. Have a nice Sunday.