this past week, Brendan and I headed down to Nashville for a daytrip. we visited once before when we first started dating and we had a blast but I’m gonna venture to say this trip was even better! we started our day at Biscuit Love which was super yummy and since it was a monday, we got a seat in about 20 minutes, which was nice compared to the two hour weekend waits I read about on yelp. I had shrimp and grits which has been a favorite breakfast dish of mine lately and it was excellent! after breakfast, we headed to the Opry Mills Outlet Mall to escape the heat and do some shopping. we got some seriously good deals so I didn’t feel too guilty we went to an ordinary mall instead of site-seeing. next, we went to Crema, which I can honestly say I’ve been looking forward to visiting since we left the last time. they have this amazing concoction called coffee soda which is basically exactly what it sounds like: carbonated coffee! Brendan got a condensed milk latte which he assures me was great (I don’t like condensed milk but I’ll trust him).
we still had some time to kill before dinner so we headed back to the opry area to check out the Grande Ole Opry theater, which was closed but we wandered around anyways. i read on a travel blog that the hotel next door, The Gaylord Opryland Resort, had an indoor garden so we thought we might as well check it out. it was free to go inside but the parking was pricy so we opted to park at the mall and walk instead. it was a little bit of a hike, especially in the burning heat but WOW was it worth it! the gardens were beautiful and massive and the air conditioning didn’t hurt either. it was truly a phenomenal hotel! finally it was time for dinner at Rolf and Daughter, which I’ve literally been waiting years to try! we didn’t have reservations so we sat outside in the 100° heat (at 10pm!!) but the ambiance was so nice outside and the food was so good, I didn’t mind it much. I had the squid ink linguine, a dish I first tried while living in Nice at a wonderful restaurant on the beach, and I am happy to say this dish was just as yummy! we didn’t order drinks or dessert, which I’m regretting now but at least we have another reason to go back now.
this past friday, i trecked down to los angeles along with my mom and another food-loving mother/daughter duo to try the new joan’s on third, which opened recently in studio city. i already know this area well because it is the home of my favorite vegan restaurant, sun cafe, as well as many other cute shops and eateries so when i found out joan’s was opening its second location here, i was over the moon. the grand opening was while i was in ohio but all semester, i was looking forward to visiting when i got home. the space is much like the third street location but seemed much more spacious and airy. the food was wonderful as always and we walked out with a few extra treats and last minute christmas presents for friends and family. so happy to see my favorite LA eatery growing and thriving and fingers crossed they open a store in orange county soon
on our last night in paris, after a busy day of sightseeing and exploring, emily and i ate at le pure cafe in the 11th arrondissement. its adorable and quintessentially french but what makes it truly special is that it was the location of one of my favorite scenes in before sunset. i was so starstruck just by being there and i completely lived up to my expectations. it’s small and quaint but really comfortable and the food was so delicious! i had the most amazing crab cakes i have ever encountered. if i had to pick something for my last meal on earth, it would be those wonderful crab cakes. yum! emily and i really embraced the experience and stayed late into the night, drinking and eating and chatting. it was magical! and here ends my paris series. sorry it was so long but i really wanted to do justice to how wonderful of an experience it was.
while researching places to go in paris, ten belles came up again and again. everyone seemed to be raving about the adorable exterior, friendly service and most of all, the great coffee. the coffee truly was worth the hype. i still don’t think it was quite on pare with intellegensia and some of my other favorite los angeles joints but it was rich and delicious and just hit the spot after wandering around all day. the cafe is tiny inside but we were lucky enough to snag a seat upstairs to people watch and enjoy the environment. after our coffee break, we took advantage of the surrounding area and explored this hip, up and coming district. the people here were probably the most stylish i saw in all of paris! i will never forget the girl i saw wearing striped ankle socks with mens pants and tank top looking oh so stylish with a cropped parisian haircut or the guy who looked straight out of the 1900s with round glasses and a baguette under his arm. if i ever get the chance to live in paris, the tenth arrondissement is definitely where you’d find me.
//around the 10th arrondissement//
i have realized that as i have gotten older, most of my old sweet vices have slowly gone away. most baked goods are off limits because of my gluten allergy, ice cream because of my dairy aversion, candy seems too sweet, chocolate too rich, etc. but i will never tire of macarons. they are light and gluten free (usually) and when done right, just the perfect amount of sweetness and richness. so since paris is the macaron capital of the world, i couldn’t go without trying as many as possible. i was fortunate to go to paris with emily, a fellow macaron lover. i have a theory that people either adore macarons or detest them and we are definitely in the first camp.
one afternoon, we decided to stop by the two macaron kings in town, ladurée and pierre hermé, to test each and see which actually was the best. after spending a pretty penny (those things aren’t cheap!) and having the hardest time finding the pierre hermé shop on the champs-élysées (it was in a high end pharmacy… who’d have thought?), we finally settled in the jardin des tuileries to test our purchases. there weren’t as many flavor overlaps as we had expected but we tried a chocolate, pistachio, lemon and rose from each store, as well as many other unique flavors. overall, the pierre hermé flavors were stronger and more unique while ladurée’s were more delicate and simple. i preferred pierre hermé while emily liked ladurée but we came to a consensus that ladurée has the best rose, pierre hermé the best lemon and the chocolate were too different to even compare. my favorite flavor of the day was vanilla bean and marie antoinette from ladurée and passion fruit and pistachio from pierre hermé but honestly, almost every flavor hit it out of the park (except for licorice and salted caramel… never again). our taste test in the tuileries is definitely one of my favorite (and yummiest) memories of the trip.
when I was 11, I went to montmarte with my family. I was young and completely overwhelmed but the bohemian vibe with artists painting everywhere and beautiful views was indelibly marked on my mind. so when we were planning where to go this trip, I knew I wanted to re-experience montmarte again through new eyes. montmarte was close to our hotel but it took quite a few days to actually get over to that part of town. after getting lost (typical), we finally saw sacré coure beckoning from afar. probably in all of Paris, montmarte is where we felt the least safe. there were tourists everywhere and people haggling us to buy things and guys telling us we’d be prettier if we smiled (so odd) and honestly, it was pretty stressful. we were beginning to feel like montmarte was a lost cause when we began to descend the hill and stumbled upon the cutest cafe I have ever seen. they had the largest array of gluten free treats I had seen yet in Paris and conversation cards (in English!) and glorious lemonade and seemed like an oasis after our hot and stressful bout. we stayed for hours and people watched (all the customers were intimidatingly cool) and chatted and enjoyed the good food and decided our trip to montmarte was pretty great after all.
