Paris, Day 1

When my big 4-0 birthday was approaching, Young asked what I would like to do...have a big party, nice dinner with my friends, a small get together at a wine bar? I thought of a few options but then decided for my 40th that I wanted to do something/go somewhere I've never been...Paris! Paris is every chef/pastry chef's "mother land" and I had yet to go. My amazing husband quickly sprang into action and had the trip planed in a matter of days...what a guy! We were able to use his hotel points for our entire stay and airline miles to upgrade our seats!

The plan was to have my parents come out to watch the kids while we took the birthday trip. We had to do a little rearranging to fit with my parents schedule, Young's work schedule and of course, my actual birthday. We were so wrapped up in the planning and scheduling, it didn't occur to me, until about two weeks before we left, that we would be leaving our 3 year old children for 10 whole days!! What were we thinking?? All my worry was for nothing...the kids did great, my parents loved every minute with them and we had an amazing trip...the trip of a lifetime!

So, here we go...I have about 300 pics from the trip but I'll try to edit that number down for the blog (lucky you). Just be prepared for a lot of food photos!

We left on my actual birthday (Nov. 2) and Young had us booked First Class on this sweet double decker airplane. (As hard as it is that Young travels so much, the benefits sure are nice...)
Our seats were upstairs and we basically had our own stewardess the whole time. I think there were 10 of us upstairs. They greeted us with champagne and we settled in for our 9 hour overnight flight. We had a full dinner, able to catch some zzzzs in the fully reclining seats and awoke to a wonderful breakfast the next morning. Happy Birthday to Me!!

We flew non-stop to London and then took the Chunnel over to Paris. We owe a million thank-yous to our stewardess...she gave us so many pointers on how to get to the train station from the airport, we would have been so lost! The train ride was so lovely. We had a nice lunch on the train and saw so much of the French countryside. But after traveling for almost 24hours, we were ready to get to our hotel, shower and rest!

Once we got to Paris it was pouring down rain, dark outside and packed with rush hour traffic. We finally made it to our hotel, Marriott on the Champs-Elysees, and they had us in a horrible hotel room. After calling various managers, they found another room for us but wouldn't be ready until the following day. Even thought my Paris experience was a little dampened to start off with, we made our way to dinner and I remembered why I wanted to come to Paris...the food!

Our fist meal was at a bistro called JosAphine "Chez Dumonet". It. Was. Amazing! Such simple, great bistro food, everything I had expected and more. The pate and foie gras apps we had were huge...I've never seen a foie torchon cut so thick! Young couldn't even finish it all...and that's saying alot. And my steak with sauce bearnaise was cooked perfect with the most yummy garlic roasted potatoes on the side. Perfection!
We were so full by the end but we just had to order dessert. The Grand Marnier souffle was the obvious choice and it did not disappoint. Eating it just took me back to my early pastry chef days in NYC, whipping up souffles ever so carefully...ahhhh. Young could only eat a bite or two while I finished off the whole thing! It was so good. What an amazing first meal in Paris and what a standard it set for our entire trip!