Even though I am off my cleanse, my Dr. still wants me to lay off the sweets and I also want to maintain my new svelte figure (this is the thinnest I have been in 20 years) that I worked so hard to get. So now I have to be super discriminating about my Dessert of the Month since I will only indulge in dessert a few times a month.
Les Philosophes is a popular Marais cafe that I frequent which serves good, solid food with a versatile menu of salads, sandwiches, eggs and omelets, breakfast, and main courses. Smack in the heart of the Marais, it's a mix of Parisians and tourists and terrific for people watching with its long outdoor cafe. I have salivated over their specialty dessert (it says it on the menu), the espresso cake on other people's plates for ages but have never ordered it. Yesterday it was down to business and I ordered the cake to share with Vincent, who was my dessert accomplice. He was on the same cleanse as me and is adapting the same healthy but sometimes boring new eating habits and I roped him into joining me. It wasn't hard, he has a bigger sweet tooth than I.
I first had a tomato tart tartin served with an arugula salad so my palate would be ready for something sweet after the bitter taste of the arugula. Now I was ready and the cake was impressive looking standing four layers high: The top a creamy frosting with slivered almonds, the next layer the cake, the following a ganache infused with coffee liqueur, and then another layer of the cake decorated with a ring of custard cream around the rim of the plate. Beautiful to look at but was it as beautiful in the taste department? YES! It attained that rare dessert feat of being rich and light at the same time. The cake layers were airy and light as a feather while the ganache was not super dense and the intense coffee liqueur taste sustained a few seconds afterwards. Vincent chickened out and only had a few bites. Never wanting to see a perfectly good piece of cake go to waste, I polished it off. I didn't have a sugar rush or high afterwards which is a good thing and didn't have an ounce of guilt: I earned that luscious Espresso cake.
Espresso cake 7.50 euros
Les Philosophes
28 Rue Vieille du Temple,75004
Open 7 days 9AM to 2AM
Metro: St. Paul or Hotel de Ville
I thrilled that I have won an Easy Jet Blogger award for my September post, Quirky, Charming, 5th Arr.
Click here to read.
Eye Prefer Paris Contest
I realize it's been a while since I have had a new subscribers contest and figured it was time for one. I know many of you forward my blog posts to friends, family, and fellow francophiles and many thanks for that. The next logical step would be for them to subscribe.
I am obsessed with increasing my subscriber numbers for a myriad of reasons but one big reason is to attract advertisers. Right now I have 5522 subscribers and my goal is 6500 subscribers by the end of the year. So please support my obsession and subscribe everyone on the planet you know to my blog.
I will make it simple for you: Please send me a list of the e-mails you want me to subscribe and I will personally subscribe them. My email is rn88@rcn.com. Once I sign them up they will receive an email saying this:
Please check your inbox for a verification message from “FeedBurner Email Subscriptions”, the service that delivers email subscriptions for Eye Prefer Paris. You will need to click a link listed in this message to activate your subscription. If you don't see a confirmation e-mail in a reasonable amount of time please check your bulk/spam folder.
The winner of the contest is the person who has the most people click the activation link. The grand prize is a copy of The Bonne Femme Cookbook: Simple, Splendid, Food that French Women Cook Everyday by Wini Moranville. I just received a copy of The Bonne Femme Cookbook and I have not been this inspired to cook again since my catering days in New York before I moved here. I spent an hour looking through the surprisingly easy to execute recipes that are the staples of most French women. I highly recommend buying this cookbook with 250 mouthwatering, no fuss recipes which are easy to prepare with ingredients that are readily available at your local market.
Wini Moranville, is a food and wine writer and restaurant reviewer. She has spent over 20 summers in France learning the art of simple French cooking which she lovingly shares.
Click here to order from Amazon. Also check out Wini's yummy blog http://chezbonnefemme.com/
I will announce the contest winner next Wednesday, so send me your list right away.
Love the cover
In addition to my Eye Prefer Paris Tours, we now offer Eye Prefer New York Tours, 3-hour walking tours of New Yorkís best neighborhoods including Soho, Meatpacking/West Village & Tribeca. Tours cost $195 for up to 3 people and $65 for each additional person.Come take a bit of the Big Apple on an Eye Prefer New York Tour!
Come experience my blog ìliveî with my Eye Prefer Paris Tours, which are 3-hour walking tours I lead. The Eye Prefer Paris Tour includes many of the places I have written about such as small museums & galleries, restaurants, cafes & food markets, secret addresses, fashion & home boutiques, parks, and much more.Tours cost 195 euros for up to 3 people, and 65 euros for each additional person. I look forward to meeting you on my tours and it will be my pleasure and delight to show you my insiders Paris. www.eyepreferparistours.com
New! Eye Prefer Paris Cooking Classes
I am happy to announce the launch of Eye Prefer Paris Cooking Classes. Come take an ethnic culinary journey with me and chef and caterer Charlotte Puckette, co-author of the bestseller The Ethnic Paris Cookbook (with Olivia Kiang-Snaije). First we will shop at a Paris green-market for the freshest ingredients and then return to Charlotteís professional kitchen near the Eiffel Tower to cook a three-course lunch. After, we will indulge in the delicious feast we prepared along with hand-selected wines.
Cost: 185 euros per person (about $240)
Time: 9:30AM- 2PM (approximately 4 1/2 hours)
Location: We will meet by a metro station close to the market
Class days: Tuesday,Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday
Minimum of 2 students, maximum 6 students.
Click here to sign up for the next class or for more info.
I don't know how I can resist to that cake even if I am on a diet. Sweets are my biggest weakness, probably I need to find diet will a lot of chocolate.
Posted by: holiday rentals london | October 14, 2011 at 09:54 AM
I very much like the cafés in the Marais. This is the kind of cake I would expect there, yum!
Posted by: Lemon | October 14, 2011 at 08:05 PM
I'm fascinated by your blog, even the links are so interesting!
Your blog posts always leave me craving for this and that, as I have a ridiculous sweet tooth! I'm envious of your cleanse because I can never do that, and I need to lose the pounds I gained from our trip to the British Isles
Posted by: Jean Marie | October 16, 2011 at 07:50 PM