Favorite Things

For the first in a series of "these are a few of my favorite Parisian things"-themed entries, I'm focusing on cuisine.

The BEST tea parlor (salon de thé) in all of Paris is Ladurée, family-owned and operated from 1862 to 1993. Hélène and Clément introduced the place to me in 2006, and I brought Maggie there in 2007. And if you come visit us, we'll bring you there in 2009-2010! 

Here's my journal description from 2007: 

"La Durée Salon de thé is one of the oldest and most reputable of its ilk in Paris. They offer not only a wide and excellent selecton of both cold and hot drinks; their desserts are legendary. Maggie and I both ordered Réligieuses - her violet, me chocolat. Based on empirical observations while trying to make the delectability last as long as possible, I can tell you the following: A réligieuse is a pastry where soft dough encloses not ice cream but just cold cream - it's so much creamier than ice cream. Coating the pastry's outsides is more of that flavor in icing form. A smaller pastry is stacked on top of the bottom one, but its composition is pareil [the same]. Pictures may help.

We almost expired from extreme culinary pleasure, these réligieuses were so good. Wondering about the name, our conclusion was that eating these pastries constitutes a religious experience: ecstasy in the original sense."

Here's a link to their website - I've only ever been to the Left Bank (21 rue Bonaparte) location, which is apparently the newest one, even though it looks old. Along with Berthillon Glace, this is my favorite dessert source anywhere. So tasty!

So proper!

So, so good.