romanian vegans go to paris

or,
crazy vegan-heavy tour of paris in 2 days
at the end of which (some) knees stop working

day 1
we stayed somewhere close to the forest de vincennes, out east and pretty far away from downtown. so on the first day, we took the metro and started out with the louvre - but didn't go inside, the lines there were mind-boggling, which is generally the case: unless you have days and days to spare, i'm pretty sure that in paris you can either spend the bulk of your time standing in line or walking around and actually experiencing the city! we did the latter.



[walking on, crossing the river at the pont des artes]

[pont-neuf]

[sainte-chapelle/palais de justice]

[at and around notre dame]








then, since we were already in the vicinity:

we had lunch at a vegetarian (macrobiotic-ish) restaurant called le grenier de notre-dame. my sister almost got proposed to by our waiter - an interesting, if not exactly comfortable (or, i'd guess, macrobiotic), experience; the food was ok (we had some root-vegetable soup, a couscous with breaded seitan and a tofu paella), but super-bland! super, super bland. on the other hand, both the regular and the caffeine-free coffees we got were quite good, and we were given a water carafe for the table (although maybe that was a special favor, i can't be sure). it's an extremely small place, between nice and fancy.
[slightly to the north, centre pompidou and atelier brancusi]


one place we did go inside was the brancusi studio - of course! it was beyond awesome, one of my favorite stops; no line, free entry, and inside...:




















the studio was also hosting a special (mathematically-inspired) sculpture exhibition by hiroshi sugimoto, with pieces like this:

i loved all of it!
[then from les halles area on to the marais]


we reached rue des rosiers, the jewish quarter, where we were looking especially for kosher pastry-shops (aka a quest for vegan croissants and such). it's a beautiful area, and we did run into lots of kosher stores - but unfortunately we were only able to score some almond cookies (everything else seemed to contain eggs). oh, and we bought extra-yummy poppy seed bagels. we then failed to get either the "best falafel in the world" or "king of falafel" - not that we weren't tempted (i really wanted to do a taste-test between the best and the king!), but, alas, we'd just eaten. we did stop for some coffee and tea at a non-jewish cafe that was slightly creepy (kind of dark, perplexing decor featuring dying bell peppers) but for some reason inspired my sister who decided that's the look she wants for her future restaurant (one more guarantee that my restaurant-cum-bookstore will be way better)!


[des vosges]

[place de la bastille via the metro]

[on to montparnasse]

we did lots of walking around among cafes and little shops in this generally very eclectic, artistic yet slightly rundown neighborhood, and we stopped at an algerian pastry shop where we found one vegan item (don't know what it was, but it was very doughy and dense and bell-shaped) and GREAT coffee and fresh mint tee (my new drinkage-related obsession).


then we walked for a super-long time around the luxembourg park and the southern part of the city, to place d'italie and on to chinatown (at one point we got slightly lost and walked quite a ways by the elevated train tracks - that totally reminded me of some places in chicago). i was looking SO forward to chinatown after being deprived of good chinese food options for more than a year, and we found a place with several tofu dishes, but what we got (spicy veggie soup, tofu with woodyear mushrooms and a clear sauce, a mapo tofu-like dish with spicy sauce, and for dessert a coconut gelly and coconut dumplings with nut filling) wasn't amazing or anything... as everywhere else in paris, the food tended towards the bland and the portions were quite small. plus, we had to order rice separately (what - at an asian restaurant?!?).


[and back on the metro - from the bastille station]




... to be continued