Just Chocolate and Cheese
While for the past few weeks, my posts have featured all 3 of my themes. However, I’ve been seeing A LOT of churches this week for my final project. In an effort to not have the themes of Chocolate and Cheese completely disappear and to have slightly shorter blog posts than what would inevitably be a marathon and a half trying to get through, I’ve split up the themes this week. Here’s the Chocolate and Cheese of this week!
Chocolate
July 20th
While at Fontainebleau, I caved and went to the pastry stall, even though I had chocolate breakfast biscuits in my bag. I got the chocolate tart. It was quite good! The chocolate was fairly smooth and rich. The crust was quite crumbly. It was a little messy, since it was crumbly. That was my only complaint. I would definitely get this again! I mean, what’s better than a nice day, a beautiful chateau, and a nice chocolate tart?
July 21st
Just had some LINDT chocolate in my room
July 22nd
More Lindt chocolate
July 23rd
In the train station to Rouen, I got a chocolate croissant. It was fairly decent. That was nice chocolate coverage through and the pastry was flaky. However, the croissant was sticky with some sort of glaze. I prefer my croissants with a glaze and I prefer my hands not sticky! Therefore, while I would get it again, I would probably try another croissant from another place first.
July 24th
I’m not sure which ice cream place we went to near the Centre Pompidou, but the flavors I got were chocolate and coffee. This was good ice cream! It definitely hit the spot due to the heat! I don’t like coffee, but I do like coffee ice cream! I think it has to do with all of the sugar in the ice cream. Yet, I don’t like putting in sugar when I do have coffee-I just put in milk. Maybe that’s also why I like coffee ice cream-there’s dairy in it.
At the restaurant we went to for dinner, Viet Thai, I got a chocolate fondant for dessert. Chocolate fondant (chocolate lava cake) is my favorite dessert so I wanted to try it. It was quite good! However, it wasn’t really a lava cake. It was a soft, warm cake with melted chocolate on the top of the cake. The cake didn’t have a liquid chocolate center. I’ve noticed in France that “moelleux au chocolat” just means a soft chocolate cake, but this cake was specifically “fondant au chocolat”, which implies a liquid center.
July 25th
In Monmortre, we went to the Maison Georges Larnicol and Dr. Smith got some chocolates for us to try. I’m not sure which chocolates they are. Looking on the website for Maison Georges Larnicol, the last chocolates are “Mistinguettes“, which have crispy crepe and milk chocolate in the center, with the brown balls the ones covered with dark chocolate and the white ones are the ones covered with white chocolate. The first picture, of the really dark colored chocolate, I think was mostly just chocolate. The second one, the light colored one, had chocolate and caramel in the center. All three were good, though I’m partial to dark chocolate. They’re good quality chocolate too! Maison Georges Larnicol is actually one of my header pictures on my blog (you can’t see it on the class blog post website, just on my actual blog).
At La Mère Catherine, I got the chocolate mousse for dessert. I have gotten chocolate mousse several times at various cheap tourist places in the Latin Quarter, so I wanted to try a nicer chocolate mousse. This is definitely the best one of the trip up to that point! The texture was very smooth and had a nice rich flavor. The only downside was that it leaves your mouth feeling somewhat… weird? I’m not sure what the word is to describe it. In any case, I would definitely order it again! (though, not often, considering this one dessert costs as much as the whole, three-course for 10 euro thing in the Latin Quarter where I got the other chocolate mousses)
July 26th
On the way to Disney, Dr. Smith got us pain au chocolate. It was nice and flaky (and still warm!). It had good chocolate coverage too. It’s not as good as the one I had before the Père Lachaise Cemetery, but still one of the better ones of this trip. The fact that it was warm helped!
July 27th
I had dinner with my family, who had just flown in. We went to a restaurant named La Fontaine de la Mouffe, a restaurant near their hotel. For dessert there, I got the chocolate mousse. When in doubt, chocolate! This mousse took over the spot of the best mousse of the trip so far. It was smooth and had great flavor. The texture was nice and thick while still mousse like-it definitely wasn’t cake or fudge. The mouse was definitely made out of very dark chocolate-it was not sweet at all. I love dark chocolate, so I liked it. However, if you don’t, beware! Also, at 5 euro, is was half as much as the chocolate mousse at La Mère Catherine, and it liked it more. I would definitely go back to La Fontaine again, even just for the mousse!
Cheese
July 20th
I had a ham and cheddar cheese sandwich, the prepackaged kind from Carrefour. It’s interesting-the only cheddar I see is from the supermarket, not typically on menus (I haven’t look closely when it comes to restaurant burgers, maybe they have it). That seems like one cultural difference between France and the US. In the US, cheddar is everywhere!
July 21st
I had no cheese on this day
July 22nd
I had no cheese on this day (I have no idea what I was eating these two days!)
July 23rd
In Rouen, we went to JM’S Café for lunch. I got pasta with Gorgonzola sauce. It was good, but the Gorgonzola wasn’t very strong. This sauce was more like Alfredo sauce than the strong blue cheese sauce I was hoping for. I do love Alfredo sauce, though, so I wasn’t mad. Maybe, if I want a strong blue cheese sauce, I would need to go for a Roquefort sauce, instead.
July 24th
I’m not sure what restaurant we went to for lunch, but I got penne in a 3-cheese sauce. Pasta two days in a row! I’m not sure what cheeses were in the sauce. It was good, though the sauce wasn’t very smooth. I probably would try something else from the restaurant before getting this again.
July 25th
For dinner in Montmartre, I got mini ravioli in Parmesan cream. The raviolis came with a layer of melted cheese on top, too. Pasta three days in a row! This was very good. It was very cheese-heavy, particularly Parmesan, so if one doesn’t like cheese, they wouldn’t like it. It’s interesting. The other ravioli I got was also tiny. I’ve never seen tiny ravioli in the US. Maybe it’s more of a Paris thing?
After I finished my dessert, Claire offered me the blue cheese that she had gotten on her cheese board. She didn’t want it and she knew I like blue cheese. Here’s how it arrived to me. No, I did not eat it that way! I tore the bread and spread the cheese on with a knife, like a civilized human being. It was actually fairly good blue cheese-pretty strong flavor. Maybe since it’s a not a sauce, just plain cheese on its own, the flavor isn’t made less weaker due to the presence of other things, like perhaps what happened with the less-strong Gorgonzola sauce.
July 26
At the Disneyland in Paris, I got mozzarella sticks as part of my lunch. Disney food isn’t cheap but I just really wanted mozzarella sticks. They weren’t very good. The breading didn’t have any flavor and the cheese was not melted and stretchy, like a good, fresh mozzarella stick should have. I wouldn’t get them again.
July 27th
For lunch, I got a chicken and cheese crepe from that crepe stand right outside the university. As with all the crepes from that stand, I don’t know what cheese is in it. Whatever it was, it paired nicely with the seasoning on the chicken. I’m so glad such a tasty and inexpensive crepe stand is so close to the dorm!
July 27th
At La Fontaine de la Mouffe, eating dinner with my family, my mom and I got fondue (its required for 2 people to get it-you pay separate for each person but share one pot of cheese). I had expressed an interest in getting fondue, which is my mom had found this place. This hit the spot! I could not imagine eating something hot like this on Thursday, or even Tuesday or Wednesday, but thankfully it had cooled down on Saturday. I’m not sure what type of cheese was in this fondue, but I know Emmental is common in fondue, and it also seems common in France, so I’d say there’s a good chance there is Emmental in this fondue.
Overall, for Chocolate and Cheese this week, there were some highs and lows, some days of eating no Chocolate and Cheese and some days with some pretty good Chocolate and Cheese. I think the latter half of the week was very strong!
For more churches, chocolate, and cheese, check back in soon!
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