Crema catalana, Crème brûlée & Crème caramel

Traveling around France and Spain, having 3- or 4- course meals are very typical.

Crema catalana or Crema de Sant Josep, Barcelona, Catalonia in June 2009


Crème brûlée, Lubron, France in May 2007


Crème caramel, Valencia, Spain in June 2007

Salade Català

In Cabaneros near Barcelona Sants, the price looked decent. Aranell vi de Taula from Vins Padró, 6 euros for a 75cl bottle, was surprisingly good. Another surprises are Salade Català and Tarta de Santiago (Pastís de Santiago or Cake Santiago) with some heavy liquor. Costillas Cordero (lamb chop) was so so.

Jamón Ibérico cortado a mano y pan con tomate

Walking into Carmen Restaurante, then the hostess and I can not communicate with each other either in Spanish or Catalan. After struggling with menu, I pointed to Paella and started with hand gestures. Eventually, the hostess sent in a 250ml red wine "RIOJA 2006 Crianza" which came from CALIFICADA (California), @#$%. As I walked to washing my hands, a display interested me and after another finger gesture with the hostess, half order of "Jamón Ibérico cortado a mano y pan con tomate" showed up my table, plus huge pot of "Paella de marisco".

Louvre is free!

Surprisingly the sun comes up and I took the opportunity for a good walk. First walked around Notre Dame. No matter where I headed, Mr. & Mrs. Yes-We-Can just seemed to bump into me. Certainly, they got all the right of ways, so I had to keep turning around. It's a long journey, Luxemburg garden, Latin quarter and Museum d'Orsay. After watching a parade of bikes on the right bank, I finally arrived at Louvre. It's first Sunday of the month, Louvre is free. First I walked into North wing, Richelieu, which we missed in January. Sit with Sculptures and thought about some Physics. Eventually, I walked into Near East area and read a few paragraphs of quark scattering in front of a pillar with bull heads at "Capital of Apadana" exhibition. On my way to lunch, I made a quick run on sculptures in the south wing. The sky turned gray and cloudy, so I called it a day. A surprising long walk!

Carnard in Paris 7

Just arrived at Paris this morning with a red-eye flight, the weather was miserable and I was very sleepy. After struggling to wake up from a nap in Hotel Daguerre, I took Bus 28 (first time in Paris) to Rue Cler in Paris 7. The bus vented all passengers at École Militaire which invited lots of complaints and @#$. Lucky or not, Mr. Yes-We-Can and Monsieur l'Américain were in the neighborhood; and security were established near Eiffel tower. Commander War and Peace (aka Admiral's thesis adviser) and I enjoyed a decent meal at L'Aubergy du Champe de Mars. I picked warm goat cheese salad (entrée), carnard (main), and Pruneaux à l'Armagnac from the three course menu (20 euro), and shared a bottle of red Bordeaux. Just walked out the bistro, police started to block parts of rue Saint Dominique. Lots of suited secret service agents trolled around La Fontaine de Mars, across the street at the corner of rue de l'Exposition and rue St. Dominique. We guessed Mr. real and wannabe America were gonna dine at La Fontaine de Mars. Folks commented that there are tons of places around with better dishes. We stayed around with the crowd and hoped to see them, but polices just kept pushing us away without any chance of peeking at these two presidents.