Musée National Eugène Delacroix

After the disappointment of having to pay for a museum on what should have been a typical First Free Sunday (see also: Château de Vincennes), we sought vindication in the form of another museum visit, this time to the Musée National Eugène Delacroix.

Occupying the former apartment and atelier of the über-Romantic painter, the (smallish) museum showcases many of the famous artist's lesser-known works, as well as a number of sketches and personal items collected during Delacroix's voyage to North Africa. The only major works on hand was an early draft of The Death of Sardanapalus, and completely missing were any references to a work we'd learned about through the "Jeunes ont la parole" program - The Women of Algiers (in their Apartment) - or my personal favorite work in the entire Louvre - Liberty Leading the People.

We were in and out in under an hour, but that shouldn't diminish the importance of the museum's collection. If you love any of the works above, the Musée National Eugène Delacroix offers many equally delightful gems. And even if you find the museum itself disappointing, at the very least the garden separating apartment from atelier provides a fantastic refuge for the weary First Free Sunday aficionado.

Homage

In our day-to-day lives, Notre Dame de Paris didn't have much of a presence. But as the central monument of the entire country - did you know that all distances in France are measured from Notre Dame? - no visitor escaped being brought there. Consequently we've amassed quite a collection of shots of the place, and it's high time we posted a few.

Think About It

We've always been aware of the differences between French and American concepts of "personal space," but one particular example really drives the point home. Here's something that would never fly in American public transportation:

I'm curious whether anyone can provide an example of a public transportation seating arrangement in the States that puts people in such close, face-to-face contact. (Amtrak's facing seats with tables in between the people don't count. We're talking knee-to-knee tactile communication here.)

Sure, people on the NYC subway crowd into cars and end up doing an unintentional bump-and-grind, but they're standing, and have the option of facing away from each other. On the Paris métro, if you want to sit on something other than a strapontin (foldaway seat normally placed near the doors), you've gotta get up close and personal.

Not that that's always a bad thing . . .

Château de Vincennes

To celebrate the end of our time here, we'd like to ask a favor of our readers: take a minute to read back through your favorite posts, and send your "top 3" list to panda.a.paris [at] gmail.com. We'll be collecting your submissions throughout the week, and next week (our last in Paris!) we'll post the results. Thanks in advance, and happy browsing!

For our last free museum Sunday, we set our sights high: the Château de Versailles. But then we found out that it's only free the first Sunday of the month between November and March, so that was a no go. We decided to substitute one château for another, and with Becky and Élodie (Maggie's conversation partner/our new friend), we headed instead to the Château de Vincennes.

From the outside, we could already tell we were in for a treat - this is an honest to goodness castle, with high, often crumbling walls, a moat, towers, and drawbridges!


A slight let-down once we got inside: like Versailles, the Château de Vincennes is only free on the first Sundays of November through March. (Clearly we should have checked our own post on this very subject from way back in September. Stupid, stupid, stupid.) On the bright side, the woman selling tickets took pity on us and let me and Becky in for free (because I'm 26 and she's 25 - although technically 25 is the cutoff, and you're supposed to be a resident of the EU). Maggie and Élodie, on the other hand, got stiffed with a 12-euro tour fee. Eek.

You can technically enter the Château de Vincennes for free and walk the grounds, but you can't go in the buildings, and you certainly can't benefit from the excellent tour. Our guide discussed in detail three highlights of the Château and led us through one of them. First, we learned about the Tour du Village, the only remaining tower of the original six constructed in the 14th century:

Second, we spent about an hour walking in, over, through, and under the landmark that Céline correctly identified to win our last Photo Challenge: the Donjon de Charles V, constructed between 1337 and 1373, is the highest medieval tower in Europe.

It began as the stronghold of French kings during the Hundred Years' War, then became a prison that held such luminaries as the Marquis de Sade and the Comte de Mirabeau. In addition to its historical importance, the donjon is something of an architectural marvel for its time, and many of the monument's details struck us as both brilliant and beautiful.




The two columns in the bottom row constitute the main supports for the tower - they're actually stacked on top of each other through five 30-ft-high floors. You might just barely be able to see the colors painted on the column on the right, which give a faint indication of the riot of color that these rooms originally boasted. (Another great place to see "authentic" medieval interior design: Église St.-Germain-des-Prés.)

And finally, the Chapel, designed after the much more famous La Chapelle of the Île-de-la-Cité. It doesn't quite measure up, but only because the stained glass hasn't been preserved as well. On the bright side, with fewer heavy panels of stained glass, there's tons more natural light, such that the ceiling seems to float above your head. Bonus: When we visited, there was a nifty temporary exhibition on medieval musical instruments. Score!


Unfortunately it wasn't possible to visit several of the 17th-century additions to the château, which now host archives of the Defense Ministry. But we'll see plenty of 17th-century interiors when we visit the Château de Versailles later this week with Maggie's mom. Stay tuned!

Kiwizine: The Final Reckoning

To celebrate the end of our time here, we'd like to ask a favor of our readers: take a minute to read back through your favorite posts, and send your "top 3" list to panda.a.paris [at] gmail.com. We'll be collecting your submissions throughout the week, and next week (our last in Paris!) we'll post the results. Thanks in advance, and happy browsing!

As many times as we've gushed over Kiwizine, one of our favorite restaurants, we've never actually shown you a characteristic meal. A quick refresher on how it works: they're only open Friday and Saturday nights, serving drinks from 4-8 pm and dinner from 8-12. Each weekend at Kiwizine means a completely new menu, which is the only option both Friday and Saturday nights. The menu is composed of three courses (entrée, plat, dessert) which cost 17.50 euros, total. This makes Kiwizine the best deal in town even before we consider the quality of the food. Here's what we ate two weekends ago, when Becky was in town:

Entrée: Salade d'encornets avec croutons

Squid salad with croutons (which you often don't get on French salads)

A beautiful dish (as you can tell) with various textures for your mouth to enjoy. Even though we knew that these tiny squid were coming, they still surprised us with every bite. We can't remember what the dressing was like, but if we had to guess, we'd say it was a zesty vinaigrette.

Plat: Filet du jour accompagné de tapenade, de poivrons grillés et des pâtes aux épinards

Fish filet of the day topped with tagliatelle, grilled peppers, spinach, and tapenade

It's too bad that the tapenade looks less appetizing in our photograph than it did in real life, because this was an amazing - brilliant, even - combination of tastes. One of the things we love about the French cuisine we've eaten is that everything tastes best when you get a little piece of each element in every bite. Here we had bitter (the tapenade and spinach), sweet (the pepper), and a touch of salty (the fish) on the pasta base. Regarding the presentation of this dish, we recognized the personal plating style of the chef, Jono. He loves stacking layers of different colors and textures and tastes, as we've seen before: a lamb shank on a bed of puréed sweet potatoes, or another fish filet over grilled zucchini, or tomato-and-basil gambas over toast.

Dessert: Carrot cake

We know what you're thinking: carrot cake? So what? Just remember that this basically doesn't exist in France. In fact, for the most part, the only soft cakes to be had are chocolate (which makes banana cake an even bigger hit here than in the States). So a soft - but not melty - sweet cake with even sweeter icing turns out to be kind of a big deal. And as the lemon garnish might suggest, this carrot cake was a refreshing end to one of the lightest three-course dinners we've had in Paris.

Kiwizine (92, rue Rébeval, 75019 Paris, 06 50 41 61 07), you win.

Photo Challenge #5

Name this medieval fortress located just outside the city limits of Paris, and win a prize!

We're only going to be able to send Parisian goodies for another few weeks, so get in on the action while you still can! (Ineligible for participation: Becky and Élodie).

Mon Oncle le Vigneron

You know what they say: don't judge a restaurant by its façade. I say that, anyway. And Mon Oncle le Vigneron, where we dined last Friday night, proves the validity of my invented saying.

We first wandered into Mon Oncle le Vigneron (which translates to "My uncle, the vintner") while on a search for quality duck rillettes, which we ended up buying there. They also clearly served food, and we were intrigued by the set-up of the place: You can actually watch the owners/cooks at work in the kitchen, which is cordoned off by a glass partition but otherwise shares the same space as the dining/store area.

Not quite a restaurant, not quite a store, Mon Oncle le Vigneron is what you'd call a cave à vin or a table d'hôte. It only has seating for about 20, and on any given night, it serves the exact same thing to everyone. No choice. So it'd better be good. And it was. Especially since a lot of what they serve is what they sell - artisan-produced "produits de terroir" from the southwest regions of France.

A funny thing about serving the exact same thing to everyone: no matter how good the food is, you also have to like it/want to eat it. When booking our reservation, I made the mistake of saying "no" when Madame asked if there were any dietary restrictions she needed to know about. I didn't really consider the possibility (make that probability, given that we're in France) that two out of the three courses we'd be served would derive from pork. Luckily we stopped in a few hours before dinner to check out what was on the menu, I realized my error, and upset Madame by informing her that at least two out of the four of us couldn't quite stomach pork sausage and pork tenderloin. (She was upset because they had already bought all the ingredients based on the number of reservations they had taken.) Ever the gracious hostess, she suggested they whip together vegetarian alternatives. Crisis averted.

And so it was that our first appetizer came to be goat cheese topped with red pepper, olive oil, and spices. True to the original menu, the second appetizer was a plank topped with Basque charcuterie, with some goose rillettes on the side. Food doesn't get a whole lot simpler than this, and it doesn't get a whole lot better, either.

For the main dish, Maggie and I enjoyed a tasty cochon aux pruneaux (literally pig with prunes, it reminded us of tajine, which would never be made with pork) while Becky and Gladis received a "Basque omelette." We're not exactly sure what made it Basque (maybe the fact that it wasn't cooked to dryness like most omelettes?) but whatever it was, it was delicious.


In this next shot - of the palatte-cleansing, classic simple salad we enjoyed between the main dish and dessert - you can just make out the the shelves full of honeys, rillettes, olive oils, wines, and other products sold at Mon Oncle le Vigneron. We cannot stress enough how excellent it all is. If you can, go buy something off those shelves, now.

Finally, the dessert. There was a plate of brébis (sheep) cheese served without bread, our instructions being to spread out-of-control black cherry jam on each slice; a caramel flan; a chestnut "cream" with a dollop of crême fraîche; and the only bitter taste of the evening, a "no pets allowed" curtain (!) inconveniently placed right next to our table. (This is offered in place of Gladis's un-photographed dessert, which was yoghurt covered with honey that actually tasted like the field of flowers the bees had raided before producing the golden stuff).

All of this almost proved too much to handle, except we couldn't help but finish everything, because how could we waste such delightful food? And that, of course, is a philosophy that gets you in trouble, especially on number four of five consecutive gastronomically-rich evening meals at Parisian restaurants. Oh well, we all have to make sacrifices here and there.