paris, part 2

day 2 (continued from part 1)
more walking, more eating
[arc de triomph, champs elysees]



[musee d'art moderne de la ville du paris]


[walking up to place de varsovie]



[it's garbage but, hey, it's pretty garbage]

[totally unbeknownst to me, the statue is following]

[at the tower]



[this is where the famous ileana arms of steel come in... handy]


[on to the latin quarter - by bus to saint germain des pres]




[saint michel area]




[saint michel station]


it's very weird that i took those photos at the station - we intended to take the metro up a ways but after a few stops there was an accident (i believe the train ran somebody over, no one knew for sure but one guy who was on the opposite platform was screaming, he probably saw it happen - traffic was stopped, the ambulance and the fire department came...)! really terrible and scary; and we couldn't find out anything more.
after that, we walked the rest of the way to passage brady up rue saint denis:




[passage brady]

[then, lunch at pooja]

this was another favorite part of the trip: it lived up to all the expectations, it was perfect: very home-made tasting, lots of vegan options and vegan-friendly in general. and they believed us when we asked for the dishes to be extra spicy! we had a starter platter: eggplant and onion pakoras and samosa, all melt-in-your-mouth tasty, with pickle and mint chutney (i think they were freshly made, they just tasted AMAZING), the best aloo palak ever and super-spicy yellow lentil dal. we drank excellent house-tea (lots of ginger yet subtle and very very good) and fresh mint tea. the atmosphere was great, too, kind of cramped but it felt cozy and nice. i think i just can't convey in words the sheer goodness of that place... upon leaving, we got calendars/maps of india as presents, too. :) and price-wise it was actually the most reasonable of all the restaurants we tried!
then we went out east to the bastille area, and on to the promenade plantee - a park/walk built on top of old elevated railroad tracks, and it is beautiful (even in the winter, in bad weather), and such a great idea and use of space in the middle of the city and lots of buildings, i probably loved it best of all the things we saw and did in paris!




















[then it was on to montmartre]








here we stopped by au grain de folie ("the vegetarian restaurant for non-vegetarians" - not sure what that means, but its other description is "international organic cuisine"); actually, it's a tiny place that's been run by this woman for 25 years... she does everything herself, she seems awesome, she let us in even though it wasn't supposed to be open... and it's definitely as bohemian as it gets (i won't say hippie 'cause i rather liked it). the food was obviously organic because the flavors were really great, but it was kind of unassuming: hummus and salsa and vegetable pate and lentils and salads and such... there was a vegan pear crumble for dessert, which was pretty disappointing, even for a crumble. but we got bottled water as drinks, and it was great because we wanted a second round but she ended up not bringing it to us, and at the end said we'd be better off buying it from a grocery store, 'cause it would be cheaper. pretty cool, overall! it was our pre-dinner meal:

at this point, my sister's knees decided they were entirely done with walking. we left montmartre by way of the abbesses metro station, one of the last remaining ones done in art nouveau style:



and went back downtown (the chatelet station, where it looks exactly like chicago's michigan avenue shopping area - scary places, we passed by as quickly as possible!), and from there on to our last [vegetarian] stop, la victoire supreme du coeur ("creative vegetarian cuisine"® hehe). we had a pretty good dinner: seitan escalope with mushroom sauce and vegetarian "chicken" with scallion sauce; we expected potatoes, but they actually came with a carrot side-dish, salad, and bread - on the health-foody side, but good. though it was rather bland again, the faux meats and the sauces were pretty flawless, and there were little baskets with awesome condiments (anything from nutritional yeast to grinders with different color peppercorns), so that was ok. we got a pitcher of chai with soy milk (i thought it was super-good, my sister found it too sweet), and a great vegan chocolate mousse whose texture and chocolateness came very close to perfection! the atmosphere was pretty much the opposite of that at au grain de folie: all clean-cut, aired-out, yet still earthy in a way; very pleasant, and nothing was over-the-top and uncomfortably "spiritual" - given that it's run by a religious group.


finally, we went to a grocery store next to the restaurant, got fresh juice, spices and two kinds of gourmet mustard (which i ultimately left behind at the airport 'cause it wasn't allowed on the plane and i forgot). and then we got back to the metro, used our paris visites one last time.
THE END
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the following resources helped us out a lot:
- vegetarian restaurants in paris
- a vegan parisian travelogue
- springtime in paris from a vegan viewpoint
- what do i know?: a vegetarian in paris