Bite Me!

No trip to Paris would be complete without a spot of shopping, but in our case we skipped the Champs-Elysees and the Rue de Rivoli and went straight to the Rue Cler, home to some of Paris's finest food shops.  To fortify myself for the hard day of shopping and eating ahead, I popped into one of the boulangeries and bought a delectable cherry and almond tart, which I ate at a little table outside on a street corner, in traditional Parisian style. 

After this a little liquid refreshment seemed to be in order, so I went to meet Abi in Le Petit Cler, one of the many small cafes that line the Rue Cler.  I had an extremely sharp (even by French standards) citron presse and, again, sat down outside to watch the people strolling past.  The Rue Cler seems to be fairly well-known so there were quite a lot of tourists around, but it is obviously still a popular destination for Parisians to do their shopping as well, as there were plenty of French shoppers carefully inspecting the produce and debating with the shopkeepers.  As well as the cafes and boulangeries, there are also a number of fruit and vegetable stalls, a fishmongers, butchers, delicatessans and even a shop devoted entirely to honey.  Our priority was, of course, the fromagerie, which had every French cheese you could think of at perfect degrees of ripeness. 

After wandering around the shops for a while, breakfast started to feel quite far away, so we made a beeline for the crepe stand outside the cafe Ulysse.  This cafe used to be a boucherie chevaline (horse butcher) and the handsome art nouveau tiles proclaiming the fact can still be seen on the front of the building.  We joined the queue for a huge cheese, feta and egg crepe which was delicious, and ultimately so filling that we ended up skipping lunch. 

Our last stop on the Rue Cler was to the decidedly unglamorous Leader Price, which seemed to be the equivalent of my local Iceland, complete with homeless people drinking outside.  Despite its unsavoury appearance, it had quite a good cheese selection, and since it was considerably cheaper than the proper fromagerie we visited earlier, I stocked up on cheese to take home.  Beautifully ripe, paper-wrapped cheese may be perfect if you are planning on eating it for lunch, but for travelling back on the Eurostar and going straight to work, give me slightly unripe, plastic-wrapped supermarket cheese anytime.