Believe it or not, I did eat a few things other than Ladurée pastry/macarons while in France. While I’ll admit that sweets did make up the majority of my trip, there were a few non-sugary gems that must be highlighted.

The first, is the semi-fancy, semi-traditional (I’m big on the fusion, as you can see) French meal that I had with my new friend Kaitlynne from the US. It was the last night in Paris for both of us, so we decided to wander over to the St-Michel/Notre Dame area and find a cute place for dinner. We settled on Bistro 30, a cute little French restaurant that thankfully had a very affordable, three-course menu.

To start, Kaitlynne and I both went with salads. I think hers was a traditional garden salad with walnuts and some other flourishes. Mine was a salad with baked goat cheese rounds. As you can imagine, I was sold the second the ingredient “goat cheese” was included in the dish. It was awesome.

Delicious as it was, I felt like I really psyched myself out of trying some real French cuisine… ahem…

I was so close (I swear I’m not lying) to getting escargot, but in the end I chickened out. This photo was courtesy of our kind restaurant neighbours, a Russian couple who were also taking photographs of their food. You can find kindred spirits everywhere, apparently.

For my main course, I decided to try duck for the first time. Also having chickened (ducked?) out of trying foie gras, I went for something a little more safe and just got duck confit, which was absolutely incredible. They served it with some sort of amazing sauce that just made it so moist and salty.

OH NO, being kicked off the computer in the hostel. No more details for you…

I went to a cafe in Luxembourg Gardens (it replaced the one that Ernest Hemingway used to go to!) and got the house quiche with chicken, mushrooms and mesclun. Obviously I got more Fanta.

My visit in France ended with a short trip north to Arras to visit Natalie at Vimy Ridge. The night I arrived we had delicious pizza and I was in good company.

And because it’s so pretty, here! Have a picture of the Eiffel Tower. Until next time. Gotta run!