Paris Un

One night at dinner we sat next to this lovely couple.  

Bob is British, Ghislaine is French.  They've been married 50 years this October and divide their time between England and France so Ghislaine speaks fluent English.  That, and the fact that they are both extremely kind, made for an enjoyable conversation over dessert.

While sipping some Izarra, Ghislaine pointed out that it wasn't so long ago when French was the international language and English speakers had to struggle along with phrase books when they travelled abroad.

"Yes," I concurred, "I remember visiting Europe in '87 and spending a great deal of time consulting Berliz."

"Indeed." she sighed.  "Somewhere along the way we French just...lost."

Mihai, Bob and I consoled her with the fact that the emergence of English probably has more to do with the proliferation of computers into every day life rather than any specific failing on the part of the French.

"And" I pointed out "Not everyone needs computers" (so I tell myself every time our internet goes out) "but everyone needs to eat and you French have nailed that."

And that is probably the biggest understatement I have ever made.

How do they do it?

Take the restaurant where we were eating and conversing, for example.  
Le Volant was merely a restaurant close to our hotel that we checked out as we walked past. Although it was closed for the day, the chef saw us looking at the posted menu and came out (wearing red shoes, a black beret and holding a wine bottle in his hand-I kid you not).  We asked him for a recommendation on where to eat for dinner that night and he suggested this place:

which, besides being a cured-meat-lover's paradise, was warm and inviting and absolutely perfect for a cold Sunday afternoon.
An Irish/Welsh rugby match was on, the patrons were all shouting and cheering and we sat in a back, cozy corner and felt like we could stay there for hours.

which we did because no one was in a hurry to give us the bill (I love that about Europe) and they seemed content to let us linger as long as we wanted over dessert and coffee (which, in general, was the only thing that wasn't stellar in Paris).

Eventually our butts grew numb and we had to head back out into the city where we passed any number of these:

as well as grocery stores filled with clementines and wine and cheese.
Since we had a fully functioning kitchen in our hotel/apartment, we stocked up in anticipation of breakfast the following morning which looked like this:

We were so in love with the bread and cheese and other delights that we ate far more for breakfast than we should have.  That resulted in us not being hungry at all for lunch which wasn't too great a problem except for the fact that it was fiercely cold so we frequently were in need of shelter from the weather. A nice, warm restaurant usually fit the bill quite nicely.

So in we would go.

And there the food would be so good that we would order course after course even after we promised ourselves to eat lightly.
Near the Siene we were feasting at a place where one of the waiters spoke no English.  But it didn't matter, he stood behind the bar and asked for thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs neutral with each dish that came out.  How can you resist gorging in this type of environment?  You can't.  So we ate and kept our thumbs up.

By the time it was nearing the supper hour we were in a food-induced, bloated stupor.

But we had to go back to Le Volant.  After all, the chef was so generous with his recommendations, how could we not go back and try his restaurant?  And he even checked to make sure we had gone where he had suggested (how relieved we were that we could answer yes).

And that was how we met Bob and Ghislaine.

You see?  English, French or Japanese, in Paris it all really comes back to food.