Lunchtime in Paris

I give up on salad...

Despite appearances to the contrary I am not French bashing in this post, it's just that...I really, really wanted to find some good and delicious and under 20 EUR  salads for lunch and apparently it's impossible to do this in the 8th arrondisement of Paris.

Check out today's entry:

9,90 EUR for a chicken curry salad, a slice of chicken curry tart, a piece of bread and a diet coke...this is not expensive by Paris standards as the least little sandwich will set you back 3 or 4 EUR, if not more, but it still seems like a lot for what I actually got.

I guess the salad looks ok in the photo but...the chicken was tough, the pineapple was canned and oh...the horror, the horror...it had chewy pieces of canned corn in it, hidden under the chicken. It was also watery because of the carrots or something. And the raisins were all clumped.

The ideas behind this lunch are all good but the execution is just "lamentable". I'm from Massachusetts and we grow good corn there...believe me it's not supposed to be chewy and tough. The French, what can I say...perhaps they like tough, chewy corn.

Moral of the story, Don't order salad in Paris.

and I'm going back to sandwiches even if that means you're going to get 45 consecutive ham and cheese on baguette photos...at least it's good and that is what counts.

So, have a good lunch, please!

ps. if you've ever had a good salad in France (that you didn't make yourself) please let me know, I don't give up so easily and I love to be proven wrong.

Search for the perfect lunch salad

I've  been eating a lot of sandwiches since I came back from vacation...but now I'm bored with ham and cheese and I've decided to look for the perfect lunch salad.

Today's post has two lunches, one for yesterday and one for today. Both have salad and both have tartes (one tarte sucré (sweet) and one tarte salée (savoury)).



Monday's lunch was a salade de terrine de poisson (fish mousse salad) with a tarte tatin (upside down apple tart) and a diet coke. This cost 9,50 EUR and I got it at the boulangerie where I usually buy my sandwiches.



Today's lunch cost 9,90 EUR and included a salade d'endives au Roquefort...my favorite cheese. My first remark about the salad lunches are that they cost more than a sandwich. Eating healthy is expensive.



This salad started off excellent, the fish terrine was really nice and light.



Unfortunately, this is what I found underneath the terrine...cold canned corn and some cold canned bean salad...this is a weird and frequent thing in Paris. I hate it and that was the end of this salad, never again. I couldn't even eat the lettuce underneath because it had a horrible canned vegetable taste although I will admit that people must like this because you see so much of it around. Go figure.



Happily today I had a salad I could live with. Endives, roquefort, walnuts, apple and raisins...delicious! and nothing was from a can.



Tarte tatin, very nice.



This is dessert so I should have saved it for last but it did go with the first salad so here it is in order on the inside.



With the roquefort salad lunch for 9,90 EUR I had a choice of salad, sweet or savory tart and a drink or a yogurt or a fromage blanc (sort of soft cheese  dessert). I chose to have a savory tarte, this one is spinach. I liked the little seeds on top.



A lovely spinach tart. Happy lunching!

Antipasti salad for lunch

Today I went back to the place where I got the fajita. The restaurant is named "Be Well" and it's located in the 8th on rue Miromesnil. It's new management so I'm testing to see what's best and they are pretty friendly too, the guy at the counter made a point of remembering me from the last time.

So, for 9,90 euros here is what I got. An antipasti salad, some bread, a diet coke and a slice of cheesecake. The normal salad menu is 8,90 but that only includes certain deserts and since I wanted the cheesecake I had to pay 1 euro extra.

This was a good salad. Aside from the green lettuce there were some lovely cherry tomatoes, radishes, sundried tomatoes, fresh mushroom, pickled artichoke hearts, pickled eggplant and parmesan shaving. Everything was fresh and good. The only remark I have here is that perhaps a simple vinaigrette would have done instead of whatever mustard color thing they serve.  It would be nice to have a choice.

My salad beckons...

And here's the cheesecake. Be Well does good deserts; my chocolate cake from the last time was delicious and this cheesecake was good too. There was something in the crust that reminded me of home...

So, my boss is away for the next two days and I've got a three day weekend coming up. I'm actually toying with the idea of cooking something...perhaps I should give this more thought.

Happy lunching!