The PH shop next to our hotel only sells macarons and choc, so we had to go to another shop to buy his famous cakes. This one is at Rue Bonaparte.
Cake 1 – Glass of strawberry compote, spaghetti, vinegar. Topped with some sort of double cream. This was “OK” as I don’t like sour desserts. Mrs Chan found it good. Interestingly, they use real glass for take away desserts.
Cakes 2 and 3 – “Ispahan” is PH’s most famous cake and I can “see” why!!!! This is composed of a pink large macaron shell, sandwiched with some lychee and raspberry pieces, and glued with a rose/lychee cream. Half an Ispahan per person was nowhere near enough. The choc/praline cake was also awesome as it contained many textures and strong flavours.
Jardin du Luxembourg
Lunch – Le Cinq at Four Seasons Hotel
Went to Le Cinq with our Aussie friends S and B. They were on their honeymoon and it’s wonderful to see familiar faces in a foreign country. They were just arriving into Paris that day, so I hope their jet lag did not affect their dining experience.
This is a 2-star restaurant highly recommended on chowhound.com due to its palatial dining room and wonderful food. This hotel exemplifies luxury – gold, marble, orchids, paintings, ornaments ....
Amuse bouche – deep fried prawns and calamari.
More amuse bouche
My entree – duck foie gras with cherry sauce. Very rich and intense. Non “organ” eaters should avoid such a dish.
Mrs Chan’s entree – huge oysters in an asparagus veloute. Wonderful dish and she was impressed.
Main – Brill fish with onion ravioli, lemon-flavoured foam and light butter sauce. Love the al-dente ravioli. Fish was firm and tasty, but not as good as the one I had at Pierre Gagnaire. Portion was quite big.
Dessert – sorbet and soufflé of passionfruit and chocolate. Very filling but nicely executed.
We had no room left for tea and coffee, but they wheeled their chocolate cart to us and encouraged to try some. I had a tiny piece of Opera cake. Mrs Chan and I thought this was the real McCoy Opera cake. Very good.
Thoughts on Le Cinq
Food - 9. I find their food consistent with the 2-star level. If anything, their portions were too big. Still prefer Pierre Gagnaire's food.
Ambience - 9.5-10. A dining room cannot possibly be any more beautiful. I think Le Meurice may just be slightly more elaborate in terms of the decor. Both palatial and grandeous.
Service - 8.5-9. Still not a restaurant to rival Le Meurice's level of service. There were misses here and there, but you still get a sense of being treated like VIPs.
Value - 9. At 89E/pp, not cheap at all, but you get a lot of well made food and a top-level dining environment.
Overall - 9.
Will I return? probably. But will more likely spend my money at Joel Robuchon (34E less expensive), or pay a little more to get better food at Gagnaire, or pay similar amounts to go to Le Meurice for the best service and equally good food and ambience.
After lunch, we went up and down Champs Elysee and L’arc de Triomph and then the thunderstorms came. Our solution was to head to Lafayette to do a bit of shopping.
Our lunch finished at 4:30pm, so we only needed a light meal at 9pm in a cafe bar next to our hotel. A salad was all I needed.
Fauchon
Fauchon is a major brand in Paris selling cakes, macarons, pastries, wine, deli, coffee/tea etc... we had to get some cakes/macarons to try.
the green cake was OK, but nothing special apart from the looks. The chocolate cake was fantastic. Very very good chocolate ganache coating.
Also tried their macarons, but Pierre Herme is still the best.
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