Parisian Food Tour with Le Food Trip
- Lucy and the lens
- Sep 11, 2018
- 2 min read
On our first visit to Paris we took in all the main sights, climbed a lot of towers, stood in a lot of queues. This time, though, we we wanted to focus on one of our favourite things...food.
We discovered a company called Le Food Trip, which offers a self-guided food tour with the help of a 'Food Passport'. Our passport had 12 slots, where we could visit 12 of the listed cafes or independent food stores, sample some of their specialties, and get our passports 'stamped'. It was a great idea, as it led us to food places we wouldn't normally have stumbled upon! I won't reveal the names of specific stores - you'll have to buy a Food Passport for that! - but here's a rundown of our Food Passport adventure.
-We started by sampling foie gras, served at the shop on mini toasts
-A glass of pastis, an aniseed flavoured aperitif drink from Provence. It's clear when it's poured, but when you mix it with water it turns cloudy! It was served with traditional Provence biscuits.
-Sampling a range of sweets, including calissons (candied fruit mixed with almond paste with wafer on the bottom and icing on the top), macarons, salted butter caramels and, weirdly, a pastel de nata, all at different shops.
-Caneles - a rum and vanilla cake that is soft on the inside but crispy on the outside. The ones we had were also stuffed with a variety of sweet fillings.
-Wine! Plenty of wine! There are two different wine stores on the list, and we tried both of them. It was nice speaking to the owners who talked us through our tastings.
-And where there's wine...there's cheese! You can either sample Comte or Beaufort cheese at two different stores.
-Merveilleux. This is a super-light soft meringue cake covered in chocolate or crushed nut flakes. There are all kinds of flavours available and it disintegrates in your mouth like a cloud.
-And finally, Lozere honey, the most generous store who let us try as much as we liked from four different types of honey. Most stores are very specific with the amount of food they give you (usually just one piece each) but we were allowed to go to town on the honey!
The tour also took us to areas we wouldn't usually have stumbled upon. Opposite one of the stores in our Passport, we also discovered a chocolate shop called Le Petit Duc, that was selling mysterious real eggs that had been emptied and refilled with praline chocolate.
All in all, I'd recommend Le Food Trip because if you want to try local food but don't know where to start, the passport helps give you direction and purpose, and you can be confident that the products you're trying have been vetted by the company, so you don't waste time trying anything disappointing or too tourist-trappy!
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