Le Jules Verne

Day 1: After gearing up for the cold weather, we were off into the streets of Paris.  We had reservations at Le Jules Verne, a fancy restaurant in the Tour de Eiffel on the second floor.  Ha, the second floor. It's about 38 stories up!! We started the walk, but after a mile or so decided we should take a taxi and walk after lunch. We arrive at the tower, and boy is it magnificent! One cannot simply describe how it feels to be standing in front of such an iconic building.  We take a few photos and then head to the entrance.  We get to skip the line (hundreds of people) because we have reservations at La Jules Verne.  Aren't we just special?  So, we go to our entrance and go through a small security check.  As directed, we enter a lift to start the trek up.  It's surely an experience.  Of course the questions of "um how old is this lift?" run through my mind. I quickly stop those thoughts and take it in.  The Tower is actually a brown-ish color for our visit. We arrive at the restaurant and are seated right next to a window! It was beautiful. ( I don't think I know enough adjectives for these blog posts about our trip!!)

We then are "greeted" by a "lovely" waitress who clearly favored French couples over American couples.  She wasn't the most kind waitress, but, she brought us water, when we flagged her down :-) There were several people "assigned" to our table. Someone else took our order, another gentleman brought our food, etc.  We had no idea what to order. All the food was for sure fancy and for true foodies.  So, we decided we would try the duck as an appetizer and the fish for our meal.



We are presented with a strange shooter filled with... a creamy substance? and chunks of what we guessed was duck?..we still don't know.  ------->



They then brought our appetizer...pictured below. It was strangely textured and the flavor was...different. We each had one plate like this.  Brendan pretty much finished his, I left a good portion on my plate. The veggies were really good though!!

 Side note: About four days later, while talking to a lovely Parisian, we realize this "duck" we had was really duck or goose LIVER. Yup. Liver. For a once vegetarian, still picky about meat person, this was maybe the most awful part of the entire trip. I ate an organ? I ate the organ that filters all the bad stuff...gross. I can't even think about it anymore. But, it was worth mentioning.

 The picture above is the fish.  I wish I could remember what kind of white fish it was, but honestly, it's nothing to ask for again. It was alright. It was served with some sort of veggies and potatoes.  Eh, it was nothing like what we can get on the coast of Florida.

Then came the good stuff....Delicious desserts! If Parisians know anything, it's how to make desserts!  I tell ya, that was by far my favorite food group in Paris.
Each of us had a delicious chocolate concoction --------------------->
And then shared the rest. There is something about marshmellows in Europe and the UK.  They are really big into making home-made marshmellows.  That's what the cubes of white and black are below. They were fine, but the rest was the best.  The orange macaroons were my first taste of this dessert.  They were very very tasty.  
I did like it, but I still think I'd pick cookies or chocolate over them :-) Also we had some sort of peanut ice cream and of course espresso. I think the price was overrated for this restruant, but the view was amazing and the desserts were one of a kind!  (Maybe the meal was one of a kind, but not a good kind that's for sure ;-) )

After almost two hours in the restaurant, we embarked on our journey of the tower.  We walked around the second floor platform and then walked down to the first floor. It was an insane amount of steps!!  We decided to take the lift down to the ground. 

 

I'm off to take a run with Renny now... I have to get my exercise in now because I'm meeting up with some friends for a wine night...need to burn off the calories ahead of time ;-)  More on day one and the rest of Paris soon!!!!