Food and Drink, or "I'll have the jalfrezi muffin please."

Fourth in a series about Europe

Given their stature in classical gastronomy, I had very high hopes for Parisian cuisine and figured that the Brits would, erm, come through with a good ale or two. For the most part, these assumptions were accurate, with Paris serving up consistently excellent meals with London dining being a bit spottier. At any rate, I proudly waved my tourist flag and took photos of most of my meals (who wants to see the Eiffel Tower when you can look at this gorgeous steak tartare?). Without further ado:

We begin on the Aer Lingus flight across the Atlantic, where passengers were offered the scintillating choice of chicken or beef. The beef ravioli seemed like it could be the riskier choice, but after overhearing from a stewardess that the beef was better, I decided to take a gamble. Here we have a pretty decent carton of ravioli topped with cheese, a roll, a side salad, a piece of cheesecake, and a plastic cup of water. I was so hungry by this point that everything tasted terrific, and I was only slightly bothered by the way the ravioli pieces had all stuck together. After finishing my meal, I proceeded to carefully stack and place everything on the tray into the ravioli tin. When the flight attendant came by to pick it up, she exclaimed, "This is the tidiest tray I've ever seen! I wish they were all as neat as you."

Our free breakfast at the Clink hostel consisted of toast and the worst cereal I have ever had in my life. They had combined rolled oats with some cocoa crispies and other stuff, which resulted in a not quite granola, not quite oatmeal amalgamation. Plus, the milk was warm and tasted like 10%. At least they had a nice, tart blackcurrant jelly.

London definitely wins over Paris for greater diversity of food offerings. Though the restaurant scene is dominated by pubs serving pies and chips, Asian and Middle Eastern restaurants abounded on every street corner. Pictured above is the commonly seen genre of Sushi Deli Cafe. If I had more time, I would have definitely tried eating at Wok in a Box, purely for the ingenuity of the name.

Haché Burger in Camden Market bills itself as London's favorite burger (as awarded by TimeOut London) and offers a menu of upscale burgers. The name comes from bœuf haché, or ground beef in French. I tried the Steak Catalan burger, topped with chorizo, chili and tomato jam. Not surprisingly, ketchup was not provided though we had three kinds of mustard. Matt was upset.

Aside from the usual clothing and trinkets stalls, Camden Market has a few fresh fruit and produce vendors. Since the prices are in £/kg, I couldn't gauge how expensive items were in comparison to the U.S. Having eaten mostly carbs nonstop for the trip, Megan and I decided to indulge in something healthy for a change, and grabbed peaches for 20p each.

Camden Market has dozens of food stalls, each one wafting lip-smacking aromas and often passing out free samples. Within five yards, you could pick up all manner of Indian, Thai and Moroccan food for dirt cheap. Even the faux (Britishized?) Chinese food looked delicious.

Brick Lane is the hot spot for London's Indian and South Asian restaurants, or as they call it, the place to go for "currying." Each restaurant is manned outside by a host of sorts, who will try to twist your arm and convince you to come to his restaurant. They are incredibly persistent, almost to the point of being intimidating. In speech after speech, we were regaled with the awards that each restaurant had won, the luminaries who had dined there previously, the specials for the day (only £7.95 for 3 courses!), and oh yes, we would even get a free round of drinks.

Earlier, we'd stopped to ask someone for directions, and the guy recommended that we eat at Cafe Bangla. Unfortunately, as we approached the restaurant and patiently waited for their doorman to give us a spiel, he turned away and walked inside. Poppycock, we refuse to dine at a restaurant that isn't throwing specials at us! So, we went two doors down to the restaurant billing itself as Prince Charles' favorite. Upon being seated, we learned that the round of free drinks did not include alcoholic drinks, and that rice/naan counted as one of our three courses. Ah well.

Matt had been making a fuss over not liking Indian food (some lame story about food poisoning), but we decided to ignore his grumblings and drag him along, reasoning that he could go for something tame on the menu, like mango chicken. After Megan and I carefully negotiated what we were jointly ordering and splitting (tandoori chicken, vegetable curry, lamb naan, a curry with lychee, coconut rice), we asked Matt what he planned to get. "I think I'll order the jalfrezi," he responded. "Wait, what? The jalfrezi?" said Megan. "Not to doubt you, but that is one of the spiciest dishes on the menu! Are you sure??" Matt sniffed and said hotly, "I can handle spicy foods! Look, this one's listed as very hot, so it's not even as bad as this dish which is listed as extremely hot." Our server approached and as I ordered the (mild) fruity curry and coconut rice, he definitely gave me an "aww, coconut rice, that's cute" kind of smirk. On the other hand, as Matt ordered the jalfrezi, the server gave him an "Ooh, badass!" kind of wink. Harumph.

The food turned out to be not very spicy at all, and even the jalfrezi was probably only a 3 on the Taste of Thai scale. Overall, a bit disappointing and not one of the best Indian meals I've had. Perhaps Cafe Bangla doesn't need to exhort customers to come inside for a reason?

As we walked down the street after dinner, we continued to be accosted by Indian men demanding that we try their restaurant. "No thanks, we've already had dinner," we said. "Come have another!" they would reply.

Further down the street was an Indian confectionary shop, the first one I've ever been inside. The proprietor helpfully gave us suggestions on what to try. Unfortunately, I can't remember the names of the items he pointed out.

For the most part, everything we tried tasted like a variant on halvah, a dense, chalky sweet with origins in the Middle East, made with a semolina or tahini base.

In Paris, I ordered a croque-monsieur for my first meal. Essentially, this is a hot ham and cheese sandwich with a strong Emmental on top. It was a heart attack on a plate, and the cheesiest thing I've eaten since Hot Truck. In the background, you can see the bottle of Perrier that I ordered by accident. Later, I would be sure to insist upon un carafe de l'eau non-gazeuse.

I gamely ordered the steak tartare at the Café de la Musique (where we thought there would be live jazz, but Fodor's once again proved to be wrong). Yes, that is raw beef. And it was delicious, especially when spread upon toast like a paté. I tried to argue that eating raw beef was no different than eating sushi, but somehow this wasn't logical to the rest of the group. To the naysayers who said I would come down with mad cow disease, I am still quite hale and hearty, and intend to live long enough to try fugu in Japan. Besides, in the spectrum of wacky foods, I still think the maggot-infested casu marzu cheese is far worse.

We ventured to Le Refuges des Fondues for dinner in Montmartre, where they had no qualms about handing us lots of wine while seated next to cauldrons of bubbling oil and cheese. Megan had inordinate amounts of difficulty getting the meat to stay on her fondue fork (it kept sticking to the bottom of the pot), and eventually gave up and stuck to the bread and cheese.

Megan feeding Matt a piece of bread since they were in a "relationship" at this point

One of Matt's earliest discoveries was the café chocolat viennois, or Insanely Decadent coffee with chocolate shavings and a ginormous pile of whipped cream. After ordering this, he attracted a number of stares from neighboring tables.

Our hotel in Paris did not include breakfast, so every morning we went around the corner to this boulangerie, where I would pick up my pain au fromage. Luckily, our bakers were quite patient as we stumbled over our orders with badly pronounced French. As soon as I got home, I went to the store and bought a baguette, but it wasn't nearly as good.

I didn't get a chance to try any of the pastries, but they looked quite tasty.

Matt will attest that the chocolate croissants are awesome as well.

Outside of Versailles, we had lunch at a crêperie. The menu was divided into sections for crêpes and galettes, and I was under the impression that a galette was more of a tart, the way that a fruit galette is a tart using pâte brisée. Megan wanted a savory crêpe, but since the crêpe section only listed sweet toppings, she ended up ordering a crêpe topped with nuts and ice cream. As it turns out, galette can also refer to a savory crêpe made with buckwheat batter. Oops. Pictured above is my ratatouille galette, filled with a tomato-based vegetable stew. For the rest of the afternoon, we teased Megan about ordering an ice cream sundae for lunch.

Marais is both the gay district and the Jewish quarter in Paris. We'd heard that L'As du Falafel makes a mean falafel pita, and it was indeed delicious, a colorful sandwich of falafel, red cabbage, cucumber and tahini sauce. Their hand-pressed (and pricey) lemonade is also supposed to be excellent. Too bad they brought the lemonade at the very end of the meal without so much as a word of apology, which infuriated Megan to no end. She spent the next hour fuming about how she would've given our server a piece of her mind if she spoke French. Parisian restaurants, 2 - Megan, 0.

Back in London, we went to Costa's Cafe for lunch. The first time we tried to eat there, we were starving and barged in without noticing that workmen were laying tiles on the ground. "Can't you see that we're closed??" they barked. This second attempt was a bit more successful, I daresay. Megan ordered an avocado club sandwich, which looked more like a party tray. Sadly, she was unable to finish it.

My vegetable omelet sandwich was also pretty expansive, and at £3.50, great bang for the pound. If I lived in the neighborhood, I'd come here every day.

Passing through a street market with food stalls immediately after lunch, I felt pangs of regret that we hadn't come here instead. They had a 4-foot pan of seafood paella! And tons of local cheeses, jams and pastries! I held back and unnecessarily bought only one item, arancini (fried risotto balls) served with chili sauce. The sauce was actually one of the best chili sauces I've ever had, sort of a mixture of basil pasta sauce and Sriracha.


Our last supper was at the Rock and Sole Plaice, one of Erik's recommendations. (The punny name is an added bonus.) This outfit specializes in fish & chips, and you can choose from half a dozen types of fish, including cod, halibut, rock and skate. A piping hot styrofoam carton filled with a large battered fish fillet and potato wedges was handed to me. Mmm, I began to understand the British obsession with fish and chips. Doused with a generous sprinkling of salt and vinegar, there was no need to add tartar sauce or any other condiments. Is this where the salt & vinegar chip flavor originated from?