I have a confession to make. After a few days of eating French dinners, I need to do something else. Once, during a working trip, I had to fast completely by Wednesday. It hadn’t quite gotten to that point yet, but we clearly needed a change of pace. So after more tramping about the 1st and 8th, we headed back to the hotel to plan the next step. Already 22:00h and still light out. This is actually on the late side for dining in Paris, so as the minutes ticked by, our options began dwindling. Found the perfect choice in a great Thai place: Baan Boran, on rue de Montpensier, right next to the Palais Royal. Asked for everything tres, tres epicees and got it! Actually the green papaya salad was a bit over the top, even for me. Never had spicy food in Paris before.
On the way over to the restaurant, we spotted a very cute little cocktail bar and made a mental note. Stumbled across several of these over the years. Had a funny experience at a little place near Place des Vosges. Sitting there sipping a whiskey, we were approached by a young UCC brat, who was earnestly sharing his dream of escaping to Paris to be a writer. I think he showed us some samples too. The best part was at 1:00 am when his father stormed in, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and dragged him out, not saying a word. There’s also a very cute one on rue M. Le Prince in the 6th.
Back to rue de Montpensier. The bar we settled into after dinner is called Caveau Montpensier. It really is a cave-like set of small, comfy rooms and had the just right combination of tunes and couples making out. One of those situations is which after conversing for a while in primative French, you realize that everyone in the room is English. Now apparently owned by a guy from Boston. The place is also frequented by this pooch by the name of Bleu.
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