shalom!

our journey today began with a trek out to the Jewish Quarter in the 4th arrondissment. using chrichelle's walking tour gift, we strolled down rue de rivoli, and just before we entered into the heart of jewish town, we found ourselves staring at a chocolate joint, that was serving... what else... hot chocolate. this... we could not pass up.



after downing what may be the BEST hot chocolate i've ever encountered in my entire life (seriously, imagine melting a big bar of chocolate, and putting it in a cup. that's what you're looking at above), we strolled down and made our way to the heart of the jewish quarter, where we came across two of the best falafel joints in paris (per besteats.com) and i can attest, they were delicious!

well actually, there are 3 of them, but since there were only two of us, we could only try out two, since of course 1) we each had to have our own falafel (looking back... we probably should have shared), and 2) since there were two of us, obviously one of us had to try one from each place so we could kill two birds with one stone... or in this case, 2 pita/flat breads with one falafel ball?)

yours truely went for l'as du fallafel. actually to be honest, i got suckered into it. l'as du fallafel and mi-va-mi were right across the little pedestrian road we were on, and there's this guy who comes up to you and in a 'invading your air-space' sort of way, asks/demands if you want to have a fallafel. feeling obliged, i got one from l'as while grace was able to get away and went to mi-va-mi across the road.


hers was parisian style, while i guess mine was more authentic. personal opinion? her's kicked mine's butt. but for 5 euros a piece (5 euros!!!) i'd have either one any day of the week! and of course we're going to have to go back and try the third place, chez marianne, but we'll save that for another day (when we aren't about to explode already).


being tired from walking 18 miles in 3 days, we decided to make the trek home (of course, being guy, i got lost, refused to ask for directions, and ended up adding 1-2 miles to our walk... oops...), and currently, although the day is still young at 3:30PM, it's time for us to take a break and relax. it's amazing how nice it is to be able to experience paris this way instead of a 1-2 week blitz package!

until next time!


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addendum!

and we're back! after a nice rest, we decided to make our way out for a pain aux chocolat, and then off to an ice cream joint as recommended by david lebovitz.

apparently, stohrer is supposedly this famous bakery that served the french king back in the day. we had their pain aux chocolat, and... eh. but we had it at 8 at night, so we're willing to give it another try in the morning when the goods are nice and fresh :)



ms. lontok was feeling a little ice cream kick, and to justify the ice cream, we decided to take another walk to the david lebovitz recommendation called pozzettos. this got an 'overrated' in our book, the ice cream was good, but not mind boggling, and we were a little disappointed by something that got such rave reviews. this will have to compare with berthillion, which is supposed to be God of ice cream/gelato. stay tuned.