Approaching the Eiffel Tower

Notre Dame....

I couldn't capture the colors of the trees, but I'll post the photos anyway

Philippine flag in a window down the street from the Eiffel Tower

This is as close as we got.  We didn't even try to go up to the Eiffel Tower.

oui... non

So, we are here in Paris.  🇫🇷  We have been here about 28 hours.  We have not had any food that has blown our minds yet.  Somehow that has happened.  But I will show you what we have done since we got here... anyway.

This is at the hotel we are staying at... The Hoxton Hotel.  Modern, hipster (when I say hipster... I generally don't think of it in a derogatory way as some people do.  I generally agree with hipster philosophy besides the over the top pretentiousness that sometimes involved) small, clean.  They left us such a nice note & a bottle of (French!) champagne in our room for our anniversary.

The restaurant is called Rivié.  Nothing special, but there are a lot of little seating spaces in and around the courtyard.

Sea bream "ceviche"

octopus "tartare"

grilled cuttlefish with goat cheese & artichoke... sounds weird, but this was the best of the 3.  Everything was under seasoned, and not very exciting flavor wise.  They sure do a good job on the presentations though.

It was hot when we got to Paris.  The long long cab ride was hot, and herky jerky.  Not great for my motion sickness.  But I just stayed off my phone & didn't look out the side windows.  When we got there, of course our room wasn't ready.  We were 2 hours early, so we checked our bags and had lunch at the hotel.  It was not very crowded yet when we first sat.  But it got busier.  Our server had a little armpit smell, which honestly wasn't the best thing for my stomach after the hot long cab ride.  But, I thought, how very French!  A big party went & sat behind us.  They had a set menu of appetizers. The guy sitting next to us either seemed to be connected to the party or the hotel.  He was having small plates of the same food as the party - sushi rolls,  chicken skewers, samosas or phyllo things.  It was all a very interesting spread.  I guess some of our food at the restaurant would be compose a strange menu if it were all on the table at the same time... to each his own.

Here's the bar where we sat for a drink.. TFP had a cocktail, I had a good ginger beer.  We left, then found out our room wasn't ready yet... so we went back to the bar and I drank a carafe of tap water, while TFP had a pilsner.  The water here, I must say, is really good.  I read that it might be too mineral heavy for the American palate.  But I am quite enjoying it.  They just don't give big enough carafes all the time.

The best thing we had from this restaurant, I didn't take a photo of!  Later that night (after dinner) we ordered room service.  The room service menu is very small.... so we got a cheese plate & a cheeseburger.  Both were really good!  The fries were disappointing of course... although one's expectations of room service fries must be lower than ordering at the restaurant.  They did taste good, however.  The cheeses... I don't know what they were.  The blue... something like bleu d'auvergne, and the ashed goat cheese were my favorites.  The dates were so good... not so sweet as the dried ones we get, and very honey tasting.  Well, I'm not going to pile too much on because I want to nap!