NYT hearts Paris

This morning, the lead story in the Travel section of the New York Times addressed three topics close to our hearts: Paris, history, and food. In the article, Tony Perrottet walks in the (massive) footsteps of famous gourmand Alexandre-Balthazar-Laurent Grimod de la Reynière, who reviewed all of the most famous establishments of the early 19th century - including the newest kind of eatery, the restaurant - in a series of food "almanacs." Only a few of the places reviewed by de la Reynière remain today, but most that do are still high-quality (and high-price) institutions on the Paris food scene. Le Grand Vefour, in the Palais Royal, is one of them.

Alas, most of Paris outside the first six arrondissements didn't exist when de la Reynière wrote his guides, so Perrottet can't help but perpetuate the canonization of the city center as the best/only place to find good food. (See, for example, the interactive map the NYT put together to accompany the article.) Luckily we're here to set the record straight! I'm pleased to present our very own gastronomic map of Paris. It's a work-in-progress, and we'll keep adding restaurants, boulangeries, and purveyors of fine food and drink as we hear about or visit them. Feel free to send along recommendations!

View Eat, Drink, and Be Merry: Paris in a larger map

In other news, the NYT has devoted at least five articles to Paris just in the last week. Does that feel like a lot to anyone else, or do we just notice more because we're here? The NYT writers must be looking for excuses to travel . . . just like musicology grad students . . .

This is Cool/Dorky

Saw this on one of 3,406 "American in Paris" blogs (Maitresse to be specific). One day I hope to understand all these anagrams, but for the moment I'll just be impressed by the idea and execution.

For a larger version: http://www.gef.free.fr/metro.html