We woke up early! And then we realized that this had no benefit, as random stores were open but most were closed, and restaurant weren’t open for lunch until after 12pm. Oh well, we tried. We walked around Marais until Briezh Café opened. This was a place with highly rated reviews, and almost every tourist website listed it as a must for crepes.
I still have to say that I prefer Café Imogéne but Briezh Café was good in its own right. I had some sort of crepe which I don’t remember but it was pretty good, and I had a chocolate crepe with chocolate ice cream. The place is always super busy which is partly b/c of all the good reviews, I’m sure, but also b/c there are only about 10 tables in the place so it fills up quickly.
After lunch, we took a long walk towards the Opera area to Hard Rock Café to pick up my souvenirs. We stopped in a few shops along the way, and got some nice bath salts from Switzerland and some bath fizz balls and bath cupcakes (they melt to make a milky bath) from Belgium. The shop owner was a super nice man and even gave us a canvas bag since he knew that our items would probably not hold in a regular paper bag.
Along the way, we passed by a ton of Afro-hair salons. It was a strange street to walk down since it felt like a different country and almost a time warp as well.
We finally made it to Carousel du Louvre but everything was closed, including the bathroom. I’m sure Duke will have his own rant on this one, but this is really the most ridiculous thing. The shopping area closes at 8pm but the food court remains open until 11pm. This is a major tourist attraction as it connects directly into the Louvre. There is one bathroom in this public area, and it is a pay toilet…and it closes at 8pm. I even asked one of the food court employees about the bathroom, and they looked at me like I was an idiot for thinking a bathroom should stay open after its closing time…
Anyhow, we headed back to the hotel to use the facilities, and then decided to find a Vietnamese restaurant. It’s the one type of Asian cuisine we hadn’t yet had and Vietnam was a French colony so we figured it would be good. We went to Dong Phuong which was completely packed with people, and it’s a rather large restaurant. I had some pho and Duke had some chicken soup. We started with some spring rolls which were really good, but the pho had much to be desired. Their sriracha sauce has a goose on it instead of a rooster. At first we thought that was just an emblem thing but no, it’s much sweeter and not very spicy at all. Most of the food we’ve had in France has been very bland, and this was no exception.
I was pretty disappointed, but I can’t really judge the place since I don’t know if this was just bad for my taste buds or bad in comparison to other Vietnamese restaurants in Paris.
After dinner, we had a 2nd dinner at Leon. Yes, this is the 3rd time we’ve been to the place. It’s not –that- good but at the same time, it’s really hard to find fresh mussels in the US, and they’re my favorite shellfish. Duke doesn’t mind them either.
This time, I tried the mussels in a curry sauce which was pretty darn tasty – probably the best cocotte I’ve had out of all the times we’ve been there. For dessert, I had a waffle with powdered sugar and chocolate sauce which was ok.
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