Corcoran Street Kitchen: Whitney and Pete do Paris

My friends, Whitney and Pete (that's right, Pete...now Whitney gets top billing as my friend and you are now "coworker") recently went on a trip to Paris. I told Pete that they should try and get to Le Timbre if they could because we loved it so much. Other than that, I was pretty worthless on the Paris suggestions. I've only been there for a total of 72 hours on two different trips, so my Paris experiences have been a bit hectic. They took their time and had a great week in the city of lights and they are here to tell us all about it.

Whitney and Pete do Paris
Recently my boyfriend and I went to Paris on vacation. Trekking all around the city to see their beautiful sites can certainly work up your appetite. The food there is, of course, top notch, but we had a problem finding a restaurant that was open on Mondays. And after trying Emily and Mark's recommendation of Le Timbre, the restaurants had a lot to live up to. Yelp to the rescue! We found a cute little restaurant that was inside a wine shop called Juveniles. All the "real Parisians" recommended we eat at the smallest of restaurants, apparently the smaller it is, the better the food. The locals were on to something because this place was small and delicious. And bonus: it's open on Mondays, when most Parisian restaurants shut their doors.

We started with a cheap bottle of french red, because in Paris, wine is cheaper than water, and we were eating dinner in a wine shop. They served it in a carafe, which just made it feel more authentic. (Editor's Note: Whitney had a nice, clear picture of this table scene, but I thought this blurry one was more artsy)

The restaurant offered a prix fixed menu for 35 euro, but too many other things on the menu called to us, and we decided to order off the menu. We started with the house made pate, that came with toasted bread and gherkin pickles. It was smoky and sweet in just the write combination, and certainly chunkier than any pate I've had in the States. It was delicious, and I couldn't get a picture before we had dug in.

For dinner I got the duck that came with mixed greens and some sort of potato and local cheese stacked casserole dream. The duck was cooked in honey, but otherwise had no accompanying sauce. The meat was cooked to perfection, and it really balanced the richness of the potato-cheese casserole thing. It was quite tasty.

Pete got the french sausage (after I nixed a stinky German sausage made with intestines) with a fruity salsa for dipping. The sausage was a mildly spicy, savory pork similar to a bratwurst that was perfectly complemented by the sweet and spicy salsa. Rounding out this delicious plate was a pile of perfectly lumpy, buttery mashed potatoes.

For dessert, I had the homemade apple crumble with vanilla bean ice cream. It was so delicious, not too sweet, and the apples were the main flavor, the crumble just sort of accenting it. YUM.