Food Lover's Odyssey

Tastiest Tales of 2011

 

It's been both an amazing and unbelievable year of tasty travels for me.  Before we move into 2012, I'm sharing a few highlights from the year.  Here are my picks for the "tastiest tales" of 2011 from Food Lover's Odyssey.

 

 

 

Chocolate and Pastries - You know I'm a firm believer in starting with desserts, so let's begin with the sweet stuff.

 

This year I attended two of the biggest chocolate festivals in Italy - CioccolaTo in Turin and Eurochocolate in Perugia. Along with tons of chocolate to sample at both festivals, the display of Italy and its monuments made out of chocolate at CioccolaTo and the views of the Umbrian valley from Eurochocolate's Spalm Beach and Piazza Italia stand out in my mind.

And even more chocolate, this time in Paris, Easter chocolates in Paris.

Speaking of Paris, I enjoyed a pastry binge so big that I had to write not one, but two posts about it.

Paris sweets also inspired this chocolate eclair recipe (well, Paris & Mother's Day) and a salted butter caramel ice cream recipe from Berthillon.

There were a few other pastry binges, err, I mean photo journeys I made: one through the pastries of Napoli and the other through the pastries of Lecce.

Again this year, I participated in World Nutella Day, making Nutella Love Cakes for the February celebration.

 

 

 

Carnival in Venice was truly magical and just writing about it makes me want to search airfares for Carnival 2012.  Besides gawking over the costumes & posers in St. Mark's Square, I'm certain I consumed a year's worth of Carnival fritelle & thick hot chocolate. In between sweets, I also went on a fantastic food walk with Monica and ate my way through some of the best cicchetti bars in Venice.

 

 

 

 

Puglia - Another standout in a year of travel highlights was my trip to Puglia. I loved it so much, I actually made two trips this year.  Pasta making with Nonna Vata, a special lunch for me at Cantine Menhir, the frantoio ipogeo (ancient underground olive mill) at Masseria L'Astore, cooking with Chef Paola, making and eating fresh cheese, dining on traditional regional dishes at Locanda Rivoli, and crashing a wedding were just a few of the many highlights from my culinary journey in Salento.

 

 

 

Napoli is a city I love as much as I love chocolate.  I still remember how fat and happy I was after five days of Neapolitan pizza on my pizza lover's odysey.  I met up again with fellow Napoli-philes, Bonnie & Steve from Napoli Unplugged. They took me to some of their favorite dining spots in Naples.  Bonnie & I also attended a class on Genovese & other Neapolitan sauces at Citta del Gusto.  Between all this food, I did do some walking, along Spaccanapoli & Naples' Historic Center, and driving riding, along the Amalfi Coast.

 

 

 

 

Rome - "una vita non basta." And if an entire lifetime isn't enough to discover the city, a few weeks is certainly not enough to eat my way through it.  In that short time though, I was able to eat more pizza, pizza al taglio at Bonci's Pizzarium, take a food tour in Testaccio and sample one of the best carbonara's ever at Da Danilo.  A walk in Rome at night and a day trip through the fountains at Villa d'Este helped me walk off some of those carbs. I'm hoping in 2012 to carve out enough room in my stomach for a month's worth of eating my way through the eternal city.  All the artichokes I had during March in Rome, and elsewhere in Italy, inspired this Artichoke & Spinach ravioli recipe.

 

 

 

 

Paris - Besides all the aforementioned sweets in Paris, I did a little dining in the city that I once called home.  L'Epicuriste was one of my most memorable meals of the year.  Paris & its environs were the scene of two new series here on FLO, Food Lovers' Walks in Paris and the France Blogging Roundtable.  For December's Roundtable blogging theme, I took an Autumn trip to Chateau Vaux le Vicomte.

 

 

 

Dining with a count in Lombardy - A combination of royalty & risotto definitely makes this year's tastiest tales highlight reel.

 

 

 

 

Provence - Although I've only shared photos of  my time in Provence, I have much to write about the good eats and good times there with Tuula.

 

 

 

 

Christmas - I spent most of the Christmas holidays away this year, seeing the Christmas markets along the Danube River.  While I was away, friends from around Italy and France stopped by to share Christmas treats & traditions from Rome, Venice, Naples, Salento & Provence.  A huge thanks to them, and I so enjoyed the posts, I hope to see more like them next Christmas.

 

 

 Wishing all of you a 2012 full of happiness, great food, friends & travel!

 

 

Here are a few things I'm looking forward to sharing with you in 2012:

• Cooking in Puglia - I'll be cooking in Puglia and am inviting you to join me!

• There will be even more recipes from my travels and a new series: Paris Pastry Stories

• So much more to share from my culinary travels, especially those in Provence, Paris - both the sweet & savory side, and Piedmont.

• Sunday's roundup, Italy on a Plate, will continue in 2012.

 

 

 

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What are some of your tastiest tales from 2011?  What would you like to see more of from Food Lover's Odyssey in 2012?

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Paris Pastries Binge - Some of the Best Pastry Shops in Paris

 

 

I know, I've made you wait much too long for the second part of my Paris Pastry Binge, but it's finally here.  Besides the binge at Pierre Herme, I sampled sweets at some of the best pastry shops in Paris.  Major flavor players in this binge were chocolate, caramel & pralinè, but there were also a few citrus and pistachio notes included in my sweet selection.

 

Cafe Pouchkine

 

Foret Noire

Eclair Pur Caramel

Noir d'Or

Silver serving plates & tea pots, a pastry case with gilded ornamention, fine china, marble columns, and a glass-topped bar; its opulence was enough to bring you back to the 19th century and a salon de the of nobility.  I adored this place! If I were ever have a patisserie of my own, I would want it to look like this one.  The pastries, mostly French with a Russian twist, are as fancy as the salon.  Each and every pastry was exquisite and finished with a dusting of gold.  The teeny tiny shop is on the ground floor of the Printemps Mode store. The pastry window looks onto the street and beckons even the most anti-carb person to indulge inside.  We sampled only three patisseries, and it took at least 20 minutes to decide which three.

The Forêt Noire (black forest) had all the elements of a classic black forest cake, chocolate, creme chantilly and Kirsch-soaked cherries. All set inside a chocolate cup.  This was my friend's favorite, and because of that, I think I had only some of the chocolate topping and a cherry.  It's ok though, as I didn't share much of the Caramel Pur Caramel with her.  The eclair, generously filled with a light caramel pasty cream, had an extra suprise inside, thick & gooey vanilla bean caramel.  The choux croustillante, seems to be the trend as we saw the crumbly covering on almost all choux pastries in Paris, added a bit of texture to the creamy eclair; perfect for caramel lovers. (I'll certainly be recreating this one at home!).  Also very good was the Noir d'Or (black gold).  Honey-scented chocolate mousse, vanilla cream, and a very thin layer of crostillante on top of an almond biscuit cake.

 

 

Carl Marletti

 

 

 

  
Aveline

 

Desir

 

Carl Marletti Patisserie is a little pastry shop situated at the south end of rue Mouffetard in the 5^th arrondissement.  A sleek long and narrow shop with the pastries laid out in a case that stretches the length of the shop. I love his choux pastries and must admit that we sampled one not photographed.  Oops, forgetting to take a photo of the Regligeuse Pistache, we devoured the little "nun" filled full with pistachio cream.  The Aveline is a symphony of hazelnuts and praline, with another choux croustillante. It's sliced and filled with two types of pralinè cream, caramel and candied hazelnuts.  The Desir is a chocolholics' dream, chocolate mousse on a chocolate biscuit with a sliver of chocolate croquant adding just a bit of crunch. All of it is coated in a chocolate glaze and topped with cacao nibs.

 

 

 

La Patisserie des Reves

 

 

 

 
Selection of Italian pastries from Patisserie des Reves

 

Viennoiserie and the Limonata

 

Paris Brest from Patisserie des Reves

 

Pastry chef Phillipe Contacini adds much playfulness to his pastry shop of dreams and to his pastries, recreating classics in avant-garde and childlike twists.  We sampled his flower-shaped Paris Brest, named the best Paris-Brest in Paris by Le Figaro. It lived up to its billing. A pralinè coulant oozes out of the center of each ball of pralinè pastry cream.  We also tried the Limonata.  It was better in theory than execution.  A combination of lemon cream and meringue muddled together in the shape of a lemon, it was too sweet and had little lemon flavor.

 

 

 

Hugo & Victor

 

 
Kaffir Lime Tart (combawa) with a white chocolate "cover"

 

Hugo Chocolat pastry

 

Hugo & Victor Chocolates

 

 

Their website states: "Welcome to Haute Patisserie," and the pastry shop is just as haughty at Hugo & Victor.  Pastries sit on stands behind glass casings like jewels in a jewelry shop and the chocolates come in Moleskin-like boxes.  Although you feel as if you must speak in hushed tones in the store, the staff was very jovial and helpful.  The Kaffir Lime Tart (combawa) is a brillant burst of citron in a crunchy, albeit strangely colored, short crust. The Hugo Chocolat  blends tonka bean and lime together with chocolate mousse.  Diced candied lime dot the lime-syrup infused chocolate torte.  I also tried a few of the financiers the size of a 2 euro piece.  My friend laughed at me as I paid 1.50 euros for each.  Except for the little bit of combawa creme on the lemon financier, they were a dry disappointment.

Sadly for me, but not for my wallet or waistline, the Paris pastry binge of 2011 has come to and end.  I'm sure I'll have more pastries to share with you on my next visit.

 

Addresses of patisseries visited:

Café Pouchkine
64 Boulevard Haussmann (8th arr.)
in the Printemps Mode store
+33 (0)1 42 82 43 31

Carl Marletti
51 rue Censier (5th arr.)
+33 (0)1 43 31 68 12

Patisserie des Reves
93 rue du Bac (7th arr.)
+33 (0)1 42 84 00 82

Hugo & Victor
40 Boulevard Rasp ail (7th arr.)
+33 (0)1 44 39 97 73

 

 Join me in Provence for a French Pastry Culinary Vacation 2013 and learn how to create some of these and other classic French pastries! Details here: Pastry-Making Vacation in Provence

 

Related Posts:

Paris Pastry Binge - Pierre Herme

French Pastries and Ten Top Patisseries in Paris

Paris Walks for Food Lover's - Rue de Seine and Bonaparte

Journey Through the Pastries of Paris - Part One

Journey Through the Pastries of Paris - Part Two

The Dish from France: Viennoiserie

Cooking Classes for the Culinary Traveler in Paris

L'Epicuriste - Dining in Paris

Fraisier

Chocolate Eclairs with Chocolate Pastry Cream

Meyer Lemon Tart Topped with a Lightened Lemon Cream

Four-Spice Palmiers

Croustade aux Pommes - Flaky Apple Tart Inspired by Lunch at Pavillion Margaux

 

Paris Pastries Binge - Pierre Herme

 

 

Paris pastry samplings are one of the things I most look forward to whenever I visit the city.  This trip I binged sampled so many I felt a sugar coma coming on. The samplings started and ended with Pierre Herme.  Although some of my friends complain about Chef Herme's higher prices, his pastries and macarons never dissapoint.  Simply and impeccably decorated, the flavors are as flawless as each little pastry jewels' appearance. There is a reason he's the highest priced patissier in town. The problem is that when you start a Paris pastry binge with Pierre Herme, it creates a high standard for the other pastry shops to live up to.  And, many of them don't.

We started with some from the current "fetish" line or special of the season: vanilla and ended with macarons.  Right now Chez Herme has an array of Infiniment Vanille (Intensely Vanilla) specials on offer. We tried two, and each lived up to its promise. All of the various creams in the pastries generously use three kinds of vanilla; from Madagascar, Tahiti and Mexico. I also really wanted to bite into one of those fat vanilla eclairs, but that will have to be for the next PH pastry binge. 

 

Infiniment Vanille selection of pastries from the rue Vaugirard shop

 

Tart Infiniment Vanille

 

This tart starts off with a crunchy pate sable (shortbread crust) at its base, giving some crunchy texture to balance all the creamy vanilla-ness that follows. On the tart's crust lies a vanilla bean and white chocolate ganache. For more vanilla, a lady-finger disc is soaked in vanilla simple syrup and nestled into the ganache.  At the very top, rests a thick disk of vanilla and mascarpone cream.

 

Infiniment Vanille pastry

 

A dense and slightly crunchy almond-vanilla macaron cake holds a layer of vanilla mousseline cream (pastry cream, butter and vanilla) and a layer of the vanilla and mascarpone cream.  It has less textural contrast than the tart and wasn't as powerful on the vanilla flavor, even though each cream again has a combination of the three types of vanilla.  What it lacked in vanilla overload, though, it made up for in creaminess.  I liked the pairing of almonds and vanilla together, too.

 

 

The thing about macarons are that they can be too sweet, as they already have a lot of sugar in the cookie, which is egg whites, sugar and ground almonds. When the filling is jam, more sugar, the entire macaron is much too sweet for my palate.  Pierre Herme understands how to perfectly balance the filling and the cookie. Although sometimes a bit odd or avant-garde, his fillings contrast use flavors that are fatty, creamy, salty and sometimes savory to create macaron bliss.  These were my favorites from his selection (from right to left):

Infiniment Chocolat - Intensely chocolate filling made with a single origin Venezualan chocolate for the chocolate ganache filling. 

Infiniment Vanille - Again for lovers of all things vanilla, there is the infiniment vanille macaron.  White chocolate and vanilla bean ganache is the filling, and I would say this macaron is more intensely vanilla flavored than the tart. 

Huile d'Olive & Vanille - Olive oil and the white chocolate & vanilla ganache pair to make the filling for the green macaron. I preferred this to the infinement vanille because the olive oil offsets some of the sweetness of the white-chocolate based ganache.

Infiniment Caramel - Still my all-time PH macaron favorite. This is for lovers of caramel, especially the salted-butter kind.  A buttercream of caramel and salted butter is the perfect salty, fatty foil to the sweet macaron cookie.

Caraquillo - One of the new flavors for the September re-entry from vacation line, this ganache filling blends together chocoate, coffee and anice flavors and definitely puts this macaron in my top three of all of them. 

 

Other selections from the Pierre Herme pastry case

 

I'll soon share more pastries from my pastry binge at some of the other best pastry shops in Paris.

 

Pierre Herme - There are several locations in Paris - These are the patisseries I visited:

185 rue de Vaugirard - Metro stop: Pasteur

72 rue Bonaparte - Metro stop: St. Sulpice

Macarons and Chocolates only: 4 rue Cambon - Metro stop: Concorde or Madeleine

Most indivudual pastries cost 6 to 6.50 euros and mini macarons cost 72 euro a kilo (I paid 8.50 euros for the 5 above)

 

 

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Where is your favorite pastry shop, Paris or in another city?  What is your favorite pastry?

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Related Posts:

French Pastries and Ten Top Patisseries in Paris

Paris Walks for Food Lover's - Rue de Seine and Bonaparte

Journey Through the Pastries of Paris - Part One

Journey Through the Pastries of Paris - Part Two

The Dish from France: Viennoiserie

Cooking Classes for the Culinary Traveler in Paris

Fraisier

Chocolate Eclairs with Chocolate Pastry Cream

Meyer Lemon Tart Topped with a Lightened Lemon Cream

Four-Spice Palmiers

Croustade aux Pommes - Flaky Apple Tart Inspired by Lunch at Pavillion Margaux

L'Epicuriste - Dining in Paris

 

Those of you who follow Food Lover's Odyssey on Facebook have had a sneak preview of my pastry binge sampling in Paris.  That's not all I've been sampling though.  I've had a few fabulous meals, too.  My dinner at L'Epicuriste was one of the best of those meals. Making it even better was the very reasonable price.  Serving "bistrot classics revisted" according to Gault-Millau, a friend and I had a 3-course meal priced at 34 euros per person.

Once inside, the interior doesn't make you think French bistrot.  The dark wood tables, metal accents, and modern lighting could easily make you think you're dining in any U.S. city.  Well, that is until they set the chalk board at your table with the evening's fare listed solely in French.  The couple next to us saw us struggling with a few words and happily went through the entire list of dishes.  They also mentioned that the wine list was great.  When our very warm and welcoming waiter suggested a red from the Rhone, we went with it.  It paired perfectly with our meal. 

 

 

 

For the starter, I dove mouth-first into their terrine of foie gras.  A thick slice of it is served with a quenelle of fig, raisin and apricot jam.  Creamy, rich and always a must for me when in France.  My friend went with a lighter pumpkin soup, which he devoured faster than I did my dish.  Between slurps he mentioned something about crunchy bits of bacon/lardons in the soup that made it very nice.

 

 

My main course was a classic French dish, paupiette de veau. Traditionally the veal is pounded thin, stuffed with sausage and seasonings, and wrapped with a thin lining of caul fat.  It's then seared and braised.  This version was a lighter one, stuffed with a mix of parsley, garlic and breadcrumbs and instead rolled and tied at each end.  Served on a bed of potatoes and carrots with a veal sauce. It was cooked perfectly to a beautiful pink color and so tender I was tempted to cut it with my fork. Bliss. My friend took the recommendation from our dining neighbors and had the porcelet (baby pork) confit on a bed of daikon radish.  A little twist on the classic sausage and saurkraut Alsatian dish, the radish was served in the Alsatian "choucroute" style.

 

 

 

 

The dessert was a nice ending to an already great meal.  I had the "mi-cuit chocolat." The molten chocolate flowed out of the cake and into a "soup" of pineapple and passion fruit juice. I've seen the molten cake a lot, but it's usually paired with whipped cream or creme anglaise.  I especially liked the acidity of the soup, which played nicely against the very dense dessert.  Again, my friend was extremely happy with his dessert, devouring any before I could get a taste.  His was a rice pudding with a fruit compote at the bottom.

Classic dishes (sometimes with a little twist or addition), simple preparations and perfect execution, the meal was also a very good value for the price. The foie gras was an extra 5 euros. Our half-bottle Hermitage appellation wine was 22 euros.  Both my friend and I agreed that this was one of the best meals of our week in Paris.  So great, I might be back again before I leave Europe.  

 

L’Epicuriste
41 Boulevard Pasteur - 75015
01 47 34 15 50
Metro: Pasteur
Closed: Sunday & Monday

 

 

Related Posts:

Dining Solo at Mon Vieil Ami

A Night at Atelier Joel Robuchon

Paris Food Walks: Rue de Seine and Bonaparte

French Pastries and Ten Top Patisseries in Paris