City of Christmas Lights

Since we've lived in Europe only two months, Christmas came too early to revisit the U.S., family and friends. And our method for averting potential depression and homesickness in such situations? You guessed it again: travel, food and wine. Weeks prior, we debated several options including Austria, Italy or Italian Switzerland, but ultimately pulled out the elephant gun--Paris.

This made Steph's and my fourth trip to Paris, so we know our way around a bit, but our first trip in several years; our first was 1998 when France hosted the World Cup, then two "long weekend" trips in February of 2002 and 2003 when both the Euro exchange and airline fares were kinder. With our resume of vacation travel on five continents, Paris remains probably our favorite city for its architecture and preeminently, its gastronomy.

I'll say our views on France are admittedly skewed because, after years of study and practice in high school and college, Stephanie retains just a fragment of her French-speaking ability. Of course, when traveling anywhere in Western Europe the "trick" to exponentially improving interactions with people is, in my opinion, not quite the ability to "say a few words" (which really doesn't get you anywhere), but actually to be oh-so-marginally, no-mumbled-pronunciation, truncated-simple-sentence conversational. And nowhere is this more important than in France (we're learning Switzerland might be #2). Stephanie achieves it, and I'm always impressed by the key behavioral differences I perceive in the service we receive; I don't speak a word of French.

Also the primary goal of this vacation was not relaxation, but instead Steph's attempt to achieve her Meal of the Year, an obsessive self-contested search among her, myself and our excellent Chicago "dinner club" friends Sasha and Moises (not their real names) for one's absolute best, phenomenal dinner of the entire year. Everything needs to click, from the appetizer to main course, dessert, wine, service, company, mood and other je ne sais quoi. Individual menu item selection is critical, as one person among four may attain his/her Meal of the Year as others are held helplessly to a mere "top notch" meal. As attaining this yearly goal is best not left to chance, Steph had previously researched a range of highly regarded potential dinner destinations throughout Paris (Todd achieved his 2007 MOY earlier in the year, by a fortuitous manipulation arriving for a repeat performance at the unassuming La Montée de Lait in Montréal, the location of Todd & Steph's joint MOY in 2006. Coincidentally French? I think not).

After my glimpse Friday, Dec 21st inside the new apartment (Steph never stepped inside Friday), we dropped Mr. Clean with friends Dave & Heather on Saturday morning the 22nd and hit the airport; somewhat surprisingly, last-minute airfare cost less than the high-speed train. On the busiest travel day of the year, we wrestled our way out of Zurich, into Paris's far-flung CDG airport and finally to the city by late afternoon.

We checked into the Park Hyatt Paris-Vendôme, an opulent boutique hotel infamous for its celebrity count, receiving a nice room (reservations for the days preceding Christmas are slow) with a balcony view of the nearby, awesome Place Vendôme, a majestic plaza framing an enormous decorated spire. We started our pilgrimage with Champagne and a cheese plate at a nearby hip bar and, because half our fun in Paris is meandering through its various neighborhoods or arrondisements to observe the city's character transform, then walked 1-1/2 hours through the Louvre courtyard and over the Seine to our late dinner reservation at La Ferrandise bistro, specializing in veal and beef. After our excellent wine selection, Todd accidentally out-ordered Stephanie with a smoked salmon appetizer yet Steph rebounded with fantastic steak frites (grilled steak with fries), however dessert fell a bit flat for both. A disappointing "A" grade.

With two additional big restaurant meals planned, hopes remained high for Steph's MOY and, tired from travel, we hit the sack to dream about Round 2.