We started the day eating a lovely breakfast with an omelet in the basement dining room of the hotel. As best I can tell, Breakfast is included with the price of the room, but two eggs are €2.50 extra.
We paid about 400€ for the three day stay, which ranks among the best deals I have ever found in Paris. I highly recommend Hotel Fertel Etoile.
It is ½ block from the Argentine Metro station which is on the fast and excellent No. 1 line that crosses Paris and go down the great boulevards, Grand Armee and Champs Elysses stopping at the Louvre and other important buildings.
At 11:00 we took the Metro to Rue Bac and walked the two blocks to the Musee Maillol that was showing an exhibit of the work of Alberto Giacometti, the great Modern Swiss sculptor. It was a comprehensive exhibit that included his earliest works from the age of 15 and going through his greatest post war minimalist pieces. I particularly liked his small “Walking Man”.
After we visited the Maillol Museum we walked along Rue Bac past Gallerie Maeght to the Seine and walked along the river to The National Assembly. We stopped at a pop up restaurant on the quai called Mozza, where I ordered a focaccia panini filled ham, cheese, tomato sauce, ham and salad. Suzette ordered the daily salad of spinach, arugula, mixed greens, parsley and a lovely ball of fresh buttera, which is creamy mozzarella within a firmer mozzarella wrapper to hold it together.
We returned to the hotel after lunch, stopping at the Boulangerie/Patisserie at the corner of Grand Armee and Acacias to buy a Royal pastry, which had a crisp thin bottom crust and alternating layers of chocolate mousse and cake. We took a nap until 5:00. Then we rode the Metro to Gard Lyon and after getting lost for a while during which we discovered an interesting restaurant, we found Kathryn’s apartment. We got a tour of her 600 square foot apartment that she has completely remodeled with all the latest conveniences and then sat in her comfortable living room bathed in late afternoon sunlight and she served us Cote Mas Rose and then a light Chardonnay from Pay d’Oc.
We discussed restaurant choices and Kathryn was kind enough to try the restaurant I discovered while we were lost named Au 2 Saveuers on Rue Gilbert about 1 block from Gard Lyon around 7:30.
Kathryn had read several reviews, which were favorable, especially about the fried egg rolls. So we ordered two orders of egg rolls first. Then Kathryn ordered a special dish with beef and sautéed shrimp served on a pile of noodles with a decidedly pad Thai flavor. I ordered the plate of the day that was a fish filet of Durade lightly sautéed and served on a bed of sauce with haricot verts, and around of turmeric flavored rice.
Suzette ordered a sautéed duck breast served with a pile of ramen style noodles tossed with beef also on a sauce. This was a fusion restaurant in reverse. The food was prepared by Oriental chefs who prepare ingredients in either traditional oriental style, or French style, or a mixture of both (fusion). The sauce used with both my fish and a Suzette’s duck was a dark reddish brown color and had an indescribable East Wast flavor.
We loved the egg rolls with their crisp egg wrappers filled with lots of different ingredients served with a delicious dark house made fish sauce that was slightly sweet.
The rest of the dishes were not quite as exciting, but still very delicious. The restaurant is definitely worth another visit to try the entire range of its cuisine and to understand its fusion strategy. I suspect its food could be quite addictive.
After dinner Kathryn walked us to the upstairs dining room at Gard Lyon called Trein Blue that is one of the remaining Belle Époque wonders of France as far as I am concerned , with its rich plaster articulated griffons and beautiful murals that adorn the entire wall and ceiling space depicting areas served by the French railroad and beyond.
It was as lavishly adorned as any room I all decorated to the max. Here are some photos of it.
At around 9:15 we took the Metro back to our hotel, where we packed and went to bed.
Bon Appetit
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