Saturday, May 26, 2007

Another day, another photo op

We finally got to Notre Dame yesterday, we and at least 3000 other tourists, on a day that felt like a sauna. Maybe we'll appreciate it next time.

The very moving Memorial de la Deportation just behind Notre Dame is closed for lunch, oddly enough, and so we didn't visit this time.



Instead, we had lunch ourselves, where Ari saw, for the first time, the careful preparation of beef tartare, which fascinated him. We're charged with selecting the perfect restaurant for him to try it before we leave Paris.

The afternoon divided along gender lines: the boys went to see the bones in the Catacombs, the girls went shopping in the Marais. At least one of the boys was thrilled, and both girls perfectly content.



We had planned to go to a book reading last evening in the Marais. Cara Black, whom we know from San Francisco, was reading from her new mystery, Murder on the Ile Saint Louis. Unfortunately, the worst thunderstorm we've ever encountered hit about 20 minutes before we were to leave. Susanne and Ari ran the 3 blocks between our apartments and arrived soaked to the skin, unbrellas having been worthless. We hung their wet clothes to dry, listened to the thunder, watched the lightning and waited a couple of hours for it to pass, which it finally did, but we had missed Cara's reading.

We did however make our dinner reservation at what we thought was Le Petit Pamphlet, after walking up and down the two block street we just knew it was on, several times.
We finally figured out that it had changed names, owners, and chefs, and we were standing in front of it all the time. Nobody had mentioned the changes when I had called to reserve.

It's now called Le Carré des Vosges, and fortunately it's very good!

1 comment:

Jo said...

Sorry the thunderstorm spoiled your plans to go to Cara's reading.

Reading about Le Petit Pamphlet, now Le Carré des Vosges, was a bit of déjà vu. We had a similar experience a few years ago when I called what I thought was the Restaurant Pascal Champ in the 14th for a dinner reservation. We couldn't find it, walked up and down rue Mouton-Duvernet and went into a restaurant to ask if they knew the location of Pascal Champ. Yes, we were there, but it was now Les Fils de la Ferme, a different restaurant with a different chef, but the same phone number. They had our reservation, and fortunately, it too was a good dining experience. We liked it enough to return.