Food, glorious food (otherwise known as the raw and the cooked)

In preparation for my trip to Paris, I did revise some of my high school french.  Needless to say, it was mostly appropriate words to use in restaurants.  I do think that if you can speak food in another language you are making a good start.  Add in please and thank you and the tourist battle is half won.

Interestingly, Paris became a little bit about my flirtation with raw food.  Raw milk cheeses - because I could - and raw beef.  Carpaccio and steak tartare to be precise.  I've only ever dabbled in raw beef dishes before.  Nibbled bits from the plates of friends or sampled trimmings while preparing steak.  Enough to know I liked it.  Not enough to know whether when faced with a large helping of chopped raw meat if I could actually eat it all.  (For some reason, carpaccio is not as confronting as steak tartare.  Maybe it is to do with the meat being pounded thin and then hidden under a pile of nicely dressed salad leaves.  I didn't even think twice before ordering and eating carpaccio.)

So, when my friend Perry and I found ourselves in a restaurant in Montmartre that served steak tartare, it was time.  Perry is a raw meat connoisseur from childhood, so I am told.  I pretended to be.

Asparagus risotto took the edge off (helped by a very nice glass of champagne), and then it arrived.  Beautifully hand chopped, accompanied by some lovely salad and roasted potatoes.  Fortunately not dressed with raw egg yolk as is sometimes the case.  But quite a large serving.  I only flinched a little bit, and then dived in.

It was so good.  Washed down with a riesling from the Alsace, which was a great accompaniment.

I nearly ate it all.  But in Paris, the wise woman leaves room for dessert.

There were other meals that were wonderful for other reasons (location, food, flirtation...).  But this was the most memorable because it ended up being about the adventure, and pushing my own boundaries (and the great company, but that's another story).  It was Paris, on a plate.