Lucky for us, there was a Saturday street market only five minutes from the hotel. An unexpected but very pleasant surprise, one that I wouldn't have known about if it weren't for the almighty Google.
There were fruits and vegetables, fish, meat, bread, cheese (mais bien sur!), and ready to eat dishes.
Everything looked beautifully fresh and perfectly arranged (not a single blemish on the vegetables or fruits. How is this possible?) Even the fish looked like they've just been pulled out of the water. How do the French do this and why do our farmers' market look so crummy in comparison?
We had quite a field day at the market. Here's the list of our purchases:
- olive bread and bacon bread (olive>bacon)
- Gariguette strawberries from France (pricier than the other variety available, but they looked too alluring to pass on and turned out to be absolutely delicious and very much worth the money)
- Oranges from Spain (declared by one travel companion as the best oranges he has ever tasted. And I have to agree - perfect balance of sweet and sour, and the slices burst in your mouth without the pithy texture)
- Blood oranges (these were just okay and hard to peel. And I feel ripped off by the fact that the flesh was only marginally red.)
- Bananas
- Seasoned olives
One of us, who shall remain anonymous, even wanted to buy a whole rotisserie chicken. Good thing they weren't quite ready yet. Not sure what the hotel or the other patrons would have thought of us carrying a whole chicken through the lobby.
I'll admit. They did look and smell really good.
Maybe next time, if we stay at an apartment instead of an hotel.
There were fruits and vegetables, fish, meat, bread, cheese (mais bien sur!), and ready to eat dishes.
Everything looked beautifully fresh and perfectly arranged (not a single blemish on the vegetables or fruits. How is this possible?) Even the fish looked like they've just been pulled out of the water. How do the French do this and why do our farmers' market look so crummy in comparison?
We had quite a field day at the market. Here's the list of our purchases:
- olive bread and bacon bread (olive>bacon)
- Gariguette strawberries from France (pricier than the other variety available, but they looked too alluring to pass on and turned out to be absolutely delicious and very much worth the money)
- Oranges from Spain (declared by one travel companion as the best oranges he has ever tasted. And I have to agree - perfect balance of sweet and sour, and the slices burst in your mouth without the pithy texture)
- Blood oranges (these were just okay and hard to peel. And I feel ripped off by the fact that the flesh was only marginally red.)
- Bananas
- Seasoned olives
One of us, who shall remain anonymous, even wanted to buy a whole rotisserie chicken. Good thing they weren't quite ready yet. Not sure what the hotel or the other patrons would have thought of us carrying a whole chicken through the lobby.
I'll admit. They did look and smell really good.
Maybe next time, if we stay at an apartment instead of an hotel.
Yum! Looks fantastic! I think it's always(?) good to leave a place with a "to do" list for next time. I'm sure that rotisserie chicken will taste every bit as good as it looks.
ReplyDeleteEverything looked really delicious - you can tell a lot of thought went into the presentation. There were lots of ready-to-eat items too (although not quite ready when we were at the market). Makes me a little sad to think of what's going on in Paris right now.
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