Day 6 (Monday, November 18th, 2024)
And we finally got our re-do for the Louvre.
Obviously, this is one of the most popular museums in the world. Millions of people come through the doors a year. It was packed. It's also a confusing mess of a layout.
We spent a large amount of time trying to figure out where we were in the museum while dodging a billion tourists trying to force their way to the front of the line to see the Mona Lisa.
It was a very cool museum. There were some beautiful works of art here. I'm glad I did it, but I understand why a lot of our friends said there were cooler museums in France.
Obligatory picture of the Mona Lisa.
After leaving the museum we took a stroll to the Arc De Triumph.
We didn't have a gameplan for the rest of the day. Sal had found this awesome place called Freddy's while I was feeling sick. The ethos is that the owner wanted to have a friendly place for people to have a leisurely chat. They specifically didn't take reservations so that Parisian's couldn't book the place solid and tourists and locals would have a place to meld.
It was so chill. We just had a couple of drinks while we figured out the rest of everything.
We stayed at Freddy's for a while and then went back to the hotel to get ready for Le Cheval d'Or, a place my buddy Sean recommended.
I have to admit, I was a little suspicious of getting Asian food in Paris, but this place was out of control. We did the six course meal and everything was incredible.
- Total steps: 17,138
- Total miles: 8.15
Day 7 (Monday, November 19th, 2024)
It was raining, dreary, cold, we didn't really have any solid plans during the day, so we went shopping. We went to the famous Shakespeare and Company Bookstore. It was definitely cool, but way too cramped. And since all the books were the English prints, there wasn't anything specific that I wanted to get.
We also walked around trying to find a store we saw a few days before where they were selling hand transcribed books. We wanted to get some Christmas gifts for people and see if we could buy one of their favorite books hand transcribed in French... but we couldn't find this magical store again. 
Monday night however, we went to L'Ambroisie, a 3 star Michelin restaurant. We didn't know what to expect, both never having been to a place of this caliber and not being fluent in French.
First thing to plan for, you will spend about 500€ per person. You need to accept that, get over it, and don't think about it to enjoy your meal.
Second, dress code. I had trouble really figuring out the dress code. We were there for dinner service in November. Every man had a suit jacket or sport coat, nice trousers, and shoes, but didn't see any ties. All the women had dresses with nice sweaters.
Third, there is no English menu. I was prepared for this, but a guy at a table near us (who I will call Captain America for the rest of this writeup) did not and was angry about it.
Forth, when I've gone to fancy dinners in the past, Sal and I typically share an appetizer, cheese plate, and dessert. The main course is the only thing we each get our own. At L'Ambroisie, each person picks something for each serving.
Now that we have that out of the way, what was the experience like.
If you take the metro, there's no direct way from the station to the restaurant. It's sort of tucked in a palace courtyard. So you'll have to do a sort of left turn, right turn, right turn, right turn strategy. There's a lot of little shops in the courtyard, L'Ambroisie was tucked in the far corner with two lights lighting the entrance.
When you walk in, someone will immediately ask if you have a reservation and someone will take your coat and umbrella. (Probably purse if you had one as well)
We were shown to our table where the server first pulled out a chair for my wife and once she was sat, came around to pull my chair out as well.
We were immediately brought a wine menu that was frankly overwhelming. But these are pros, so we asked for a champagne by the glass suggestion to start the night. We got gougeres (cheese puffs) with our glasses.
The room we were in was one large table for 6 in the middle with four smaller tables for 2-4 people in each corner. A large chandelier hung above the large table. The walls had these cool red backlit textured panels.
I was wondering what the protocol was at this point, so I started watching other tables that were already seated to see what they were doing. Captain America asked for a cocktail menu and was informed they didn't have cocktails. His night was ruined from here on.
The other table was one step ahead of us and appeared to be pros. I watched them the rest of the night.
We were soon asked if we had any thoughts on starters and mains.
We then picked wine. The sommelier was incredibly helpful. She already knew what we ordered for food and when we said what sort of wine we typically like, and she picked a lovely bottle of white.
The starters came out and we're huge. Sal's got this lobster sesame cracker thing that was delicious. Mine was interesting. I thought we were sharing, but the server looked at me confused, asked something I didn't really understand, but ultimately brought me a soft-boiled egg, with croutons, and some frothy broth as a starter. The mouth feel was airy. Almost as of the food wasn't touching your mouth in any way. Leaving a trace of itself on the way down.
They then brought out some delicious bread. This might actually be the highlight of the night for me.
After a bit of talk, the main came out. My lobster was incredibly juicy. They mostly had shelled it for me, but as part of the presentation, left some meat in the shell and gave me a plate to discard the shell. The meat fell right out. I didn't have to do any of the normal cracking. The sauce the lobster was fricasseed in was incredible. Had a beefy, mushroom sort of taste. And to even out the sauce, there were pieces of pumpkin, chestnuts, and peas in the broth.
For the main, Sal chose the scallops in a nice saffron sauce and I chose the fricassee blue lobster. The saffron was perfectly balanced and played off the scallops nicely.
Both ways of preparing the lobster and scallops were not ways I would've thought of before, but worked really well.
Captain America and his partner had not talked for at least 30 minutes at this point. He was the angriest man to ever drink a glass of wine. And his partner seemed enthusiastic about doing every possible course. So she ordered every course while he just seethed and got angrier and angrier.
While we were eating, our wine was never empty. Someone was always filling it. A warning though, very European, but you will be paying for any water you drink. We rang up €30 in just water.
Then came the cheese tray. This giant tray with some of the nicest cheese I've ever seen. Again, this is something I would've expected to share, but you each pick four cheeses. The cheese monger was very knowledgeable and was able to choose four options based off our preferences that were great.
We paid the tab at the table, then wandered to the entrance where someone was already waiting with our coats.
Captain America was in the bathroom while his partner sat in a chair near the entrance. I hope his night got better.
I don't know that I would do a Michelin star restaurant again. It would have to be something a little more warm and modern. This meal felt like the French stereotype of them being snooty. Sal and I had not experienced that until this meal.
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