Delectable Eats in Paris: Brunch at LaDurée, Korean Food at Dawa and Verjus Bar à Vins

LaDurée Brunch

While I have been busy with school, I have escaped to Paris to enjoy some delicious meals. My classmate planned a really sweet all-girls brunch at the LaDurée on Champs-Élysées. There was a fire last year at this location and they just reopened in October. We were lucky to sit upstairs and see LaDurée in all its remodeled splendid glory.

I call the picture on the right: “The leaning tower of treats.”

For 36.50 euro, you get orange juice or grapefruit juice; fruit salad; hot chocolate, tea or coffee; three pastries; bread rolls; three macarons; yogurt; two mini sandwiches AND scrambled eggs. Talk about a ton of food! Everything was so incredibly good and I especially loved the pastries. I had a moment at the table with my almond croissant. The only thing that was lackluster (besides the not-so-great service from our waitress) were the mini sandwiches. They were dry and pre-made. But, I definitely wasn’t running short on food. I think we all rolled ourselves home after that brunch. I know LaDurée is so touristy, but I would say it’s worth going at least once and getting the brunch. It’s a real Parisian experience sitting in this gorgeous room and drinking your tea out of delicate, pastel-colored china.

Korean Food at Paris’s Dawa. Are you salivating just looking at that bibimbap?

I’ve been craving Korean food and my blogger friend, My Red Kitchen, was kind enough to introduce me to Dawa, located at 5 Rue Humblot in the 15th arrondissement. I had high hopes and Dawa met expectations. It’s a small restaurant owned by Koreans and it’s got that hole-in-the-wall feel to it. MRK and I shared hot kimchi stir-fried with thin slices of pork (also served with a cold side of tofu), japchae (stir-fried noodles with beef and vegetables) and we each ordered our own beef bibimbap (stone pot rice). I am literally obsessed with japchae and bibimbap and both dishes totally satisfied my craving. I had zero complaints about the kimchi too. We demolished our food and ate every last grain of rice and leaf of kimchi.

Bar Food at Verjus

24-Hour Layover in San Francisco

So you have 24 hours in San Francisco and your mission is to eat. This is the exact predicament I faced last week when one of my closest and dearest friends, Tricia, came to visit me in San Francisco. I usually see Tricia once a year (maybe twice a year if I’m really lucky) because she’s getting her PhD at Johns Hopkins. It’s difficult when one of your best friends is located on the other coast of the country (Geez, Tricia. Selfish much?). Even though her family is based in the South Bay, she rarely comes up to San Francisco. On this trip home, I convinced her to take Caltrain and spend a whole day with me.

Since Caltrain is in SoMA, I wanted to explore lunch options that I had never had the opportunity to even fantasize about (SoMA is a little too far from the Financial District for a 1-hour lunch break). As soon as Tricia arrived in SF at 11:40 am, I asked, “What are your thoughts about getting fried chicken first and then getting grilled cheese sandwiches afterward?” She gleefully agreed (I consider this to be the true definition of friendship) and I whisked her away to Little Skillet. I had been DYING to try the fried chicken and waffles at Little Skillet ever since they were listed on 7×7′s “100 Things to Try Before You Die” in 2010, but they were only open for lunch and the lines were too long to be conducive for a lunch excursion.

Tricia and Little Skillet

For $6, we got 1 piece of fried chicken and 2 waffles. The fried chicken was DELICIOUS! The skin was so crispy and piping hot, but the breading wasn’t too thick. The chicken actually had taste and you could tell that it had been at least marinated in salt. I’ve eaten Tyler Florence’s fried chicken at Wayfare Tavern for $22 and it was a total letdown (I’m sorry, Tyler. Your chicken doesn’t hold a candle to Little Skillet’s chicken). I’m not a huge waffle fan and those didn’t impress me terribly. I actually thought they could have been cooked a little bit longer and been a little more crispy. I did find it interesting that the waffles actually weren’t too sweet, which I liked.

The next stop was The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen. In the eloquent and poetic words of Drew Hoolhurst from Rocket Shoes, San Francisco is home to a “f*cking artisan grilled cheese store.” I know. The man can say so much in so few words.

A view into the kitchen

Mushroom Gruyère (Left) , Smoky Tomato Soup (Middle), Mousetrap (Right)

Our Food Finally Came!