Les Flâneurs: afternoon tea

Showing posts with label afternoon tea. Show all posts

Grocery shopping on Place Monge and the Mouff, meeting an old friend for tea and BIG NEWS

10 June 2022.

We started our last bit of grocery shopping at the Place Monge open-air market. Located just around the corner from Pascal Pinaud's pastry shop where Susie did her two stages 15 years ago, this market is small but compact and with wonderful vendors.

As the pastry shop gofer Susie would have to go to the market and stand in this same line at the same vendor. And there was always a line because they had the best produce.

Leaving the market we made our way a couple of short blocks over to rue Mouffetard to finish our grocery shopping.

As we were about to turn a corner Susie grabbed my arm and pointed to a nearby street sign: rue Pestalozzi. Now for those of you who have followed our travels so far, you might recall our very first apartment was in Munich on Pestalozzistrasse. . . A coincidence? I think not. . .

On the Mouff we stopped by our favorite produce vendor from so many years ago where Susie bought -- that's right -- strawberries. We also stopped and bought wine at another vendor that had been a favorite as well. To finish things off Susie popped into a nearby Franprix grocery store to pick up a few basic items for our larder. With several large bags and four bottles of wine we took the metro home. I know, the walk wasn't that far but I was feeling lazy. . .

After unpacking our purchases we hung around the apartment relaxing until it was time to go back out to the metro. This time we had a very specific goal in mind: we were off to meet an old friend, Diane, for afternoon tea at the Hôtel de Crillon.

While the conversation was warm and the three of us spent the afternoon catching up, the food was underwhelming. Indeed, when compared to other afternoon teas we'd experienced in the UK back in 2019, this one left us unimpressed.

But the really BIG NEWS, for us at any rate was during our tea Diane's husband called her from Oregon saying he had just sent a link through her email to a breaking news story. The US government had that day decided to remove its mandatory negative test requirement for international travelers entering the US! It would go into effect this coming Sunday morning!

Since I had tested positive three times (two home and one official tests) I was almost certainly going to test positive on Monday when we had to test for our flight on Tuesday. The options for me staying behind were not terribly appealing and were in fact going to prove complicating to say the least.

But all that gone with one quick signature on a dotted line. The stress we had both been feeling for some days evaporated in the blink of an eye. We ordered two glasses of champagne (Diane doesn't drink alcohol) to toast the moment.

top to bottom: scone/brioche, sweets, savories

Diane and Susie

From the Crillon we all got on the no. 12, Diane heading north and Susie and I heading south to catch the no. 6 back home.

We were back "home" and relieved knowing that we would both be traveling HOME together on Tuesday.

Mackinac Island day 2

On Wednesday, our first full day on the island, we languished a bit in our room before heading over to the main building for coffee and breakfast. Since all the breakfast offerings were one form or another of prepackaged food we just focused on the hot brown water followed by a couple of bananas. Fortunately there’s a Starbucks just up Main Street where we made up for the bland coffee offering of the hotel.

Since we had to remain close by the hotel in order to be ready to move into our new room we just strolled through town: first downtown and then back east, just past our hotel, we popped into Saint Anne's Catholic church. Madame Laframboise was instrumental in helping to found the original building and upon her death in 1846 she was buried, per her wishes, beneath the altar of the church. Once back onto Main Street we headed east along M-185 briefly until we reached Mission Point Resort before returning to the Harbour View. We then had lunch at Bill’s Grill outside our hotel — light sandwiches — before settling in to our new room and relaxing before heading off to afternoon tea at the Grand Hotel.

About 3:30 we called for a taxi and headed off to our destination. Our taxi driver drove right past the “guard” at the entrance so we didn’t have to pay the $10 entry fee for nonresidents of the hotel. We made our way upstairs to the main level, found a comfortable place to sit and settled in for the afternoon. Susan had the tea and I just sipped a “champagne” label for the Grand Hotel. No idea where it came from.

Susan gave the tea experience a grade of C-, and indeed it didn’t look very impressive. But the harpist playing nearby was superb, her choices of music wonderful and we hung about until everything closed down, at 5pm. We made our way out of the hotel along the long porch and up West Bluff Street before turning back to the hotel and then down into town for dinner.

We ate at The Village Inn, a place run by a Jamaican chef and while Susan had a crispy, fresh salad, I opted for the house specialty, “planked whitefish”: Lake Superior whitefish surrounded by Duchesse Potatoes and perfectly prepared vegetables. Tasty and spot on!

After dinner we meandered through town and ended up back at the hotel where we sat out on our patio with a glass of Nocino from Long Road Distillery in Grand Rapids (we brought a small bottle with us).