In the land of fabulous food...

This past Saturday, I had the best meal and restaurant experience of my life, thus far. Two pastry students and I went to L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon, a two Michelin starred restaurant in a very upscale neighborhood of Paris. The restaurant is known for it's food but what really sets it apart from other restaurants is the seating arrangement. You won't find the ordinary tables and chairs at L'Atelier; everyone sits at a "bar" surrounding the open and therefore relatively calm kitchen. From where we were sitting, we had a perfect view of the chef thinly slicing fresh Iberico ham with such concentration that you would have thought he was serving the President himself. 

The menu at L'Atelier allows you to pick several tasting size dishes, a full sized portion of meat/fish or a menu "decouverte" with 9 courses (the best choice). I decided to take a brief day off from being a vegetarian (my apologies to those of you who are strict veg) so I could taste some of the more interesting dishes. My classmates responded with, "Do you even eat fish and seafood?," a very valid question seeing that everyday for lunch I eat a huge plate of vegetables with an overgenerous side of carbs. The servers in the cafeteria can't believe that I don't eat meat or fish ("That's all you want?)  and always compensate by giving me a gargantuan portion or rice,potatoes or pasta. The French don't quite understand why anyone would willingly stop eating meat. Back to lunch...

I ordered an eggplant millefeuille, langoustine/truffle ravioli, and sole with celery root and truffles. I could go into a million details about every dish but I won't tease you. To put it simply, each dish was composed of fresh and perfectly cooked elements that presented beautifully and left you wanting more and anticipating the next course. 

My favorite course by far was dessert...les tartes. L'Atelier has managed to take a simple and classic dessert, a tart, and turn it into a conceptual dish that you will never forget. I was presented with five miniature tart slices, each of a different flavor-chocolate/caramel/macadamia nut, apple, chocolate, lemon, and cinnamon. Before I even took a bite, my classmates and I had a discussion about the plan of attack - with five different tarts, some of which had very strong and distinct flavors, it was necessary to figure out which to eat first so as not to "pollute" the taste of the others. Pastry chefs and foodies...we're an interesting bunch! Wonsang and Désirée didn't even have to ask me how the tarts were, the look on my face and my loss of words said it all. 

I could go on and on about the food, excellent service, and interesting policies (dogs are allowed!) of L'Atelier but I'll spare you and give you what you really want...photos!

This week in class has been kind of slow as we've started to prepare more classic French pastries (babas, Mont-blanc) but we haven't finished anything yet because today...we have our first restaurant service! The ESCF houses two restaurants that serve the public and are staffed by the students and tonight is our turn to prepare desserts for one of the restaurants. I'm both nervous and excited; I've never worked in a restaurant before so I'm not sure how timing plays out, but I'm excited for the new experience. I'm on the plated dessert station with Aurora and Desiree which is a blessing because one of them has previous restaurant experience and the other has previous pastry experience. We're preparing a chocolate tart with chocolate sorbet and tuile cookies and an orange/raspberry molten chocolate cake. We go in at 1pm today to prep everything and will hopefully be done by 11pm...I'll definitely write about how it goes! 

New places that I've tried out recently: 

• Jean Charles Rochoux - 16, rue d'Assas - A chocolatier that is known for his chocolate figures/sculptures, truffles, and caramelized almonds enrobed in dark chocolate (absolutely delicious!)
• Pain de Sucre - 14 rue Rambuteau - My new favorite pastry shop! They have very innovative desserts, delicious macarons (try the lemon/lime, chocolate mint, and griotte/pistachio), homemade marshmallows and so much more.