Dejeuner

I arrived first thing in the morning in France which would be around lunchtime at home. But since I had been traveling the whole night and apparently, by the ripe old age of twenty-one, you get creakier and more cramped in long flight plane rides so it gets harder to sleep (it doesn't help that anticipation and excitement gets you too jazzed to sleep), the first thing I did was to take a nap. A nap where I apparently snored. I'd be embarrassed but, well, I'm not. I was exhausted! Hauling luggage roughly your size is enough to make you curse the dickens out of a holy man. No offense.

So of course I woke up, feeling like hunger and the sweetest guy in the world decides to take me to a restaurant to kick of french cuisine the right way. Unfortunately, I was a little too overwhelmed looking around and breathing french air and seeing french things (which is quite different from breathing philippine air and seeing philippine things. trust me. you're in paris? you're in movieland.), that I didn't catch the name of the restaurant. 

So I ordered le welsh, upon Baptiste's recommendation. It was yummy and heart-burny, a combination of fromage, jambon, oeuf et pain. and, oh, biere. I'm just showing off. It sounds better to say I was eating cheese, ham, egg and bread. and, oh, beer. Yes, there was beer in that dish. So it was all oozy and so good, with the slight taste of boozy. Believe me, I recommend it. Unfortunately, it also felt like you were going to keel over from richness. I would totally understand if the highest percentage of gout sufferers lived in france.

Baptiste had the day's special, I think, which was beef and pasta in this really great cream sauce. Oh yeah, this French restaurant also had condiments with names. Weird, childish fun.

Baptiste gave me a crash course on french dining. One, the concept of takeaway? weird! never do! which to my tiny asian stomach was kind of like the starving children of africa were going to starve even more. The servings were huge! I don't think I was ever able to finish a meal (except if you were in a fancy restaurant, which meant smaller servings for higher prices. Which restaurateur God meant to say that fine dining prices matches small artistic looking meals that you feel slightly abashed to attempt eating? In Abbi world, big prices means big food. True dat).

Second, on top of the ginormous food sizes and the richness of the food, there are stages of dining. First, you have salad. Then you have the appetizers. Then the entree. Then the dessert. Then the bread. Then the coffee and tea. Skipping ahead to the end of my trip, when Baptiste and I gained ten pounds and pork bellies as a result of his mother's fine cooking, kebabs, restaurants, pastries I just had to try... well, suffice it to say, I ate real well. 

Third, don't mix courses. I learned this the hard way when Baptiste cooked for me and the salad he made was so good, I kept going for seconds and thirds, while eating my main dish. Which I got a stern lecture and serious eyeballing, but more on that in another entry.

Fourth, well, there's a reason why Europeans never eat out all the time. Because the prices are cuh-razy!!! Geez louise, a dish costs maybe, optimistically, six euros to topping off at closer to twenty euros? And if you order a fixed menu, you can maybe pay thirty euros per person.

Anyway, recap. Food is many, rich, comes in an order, and pricey. And damn it was delicious.