THE PARIS LETTER: Tuileries and Chocolate

Hello there and welcome to the BLOG version of The Paris Letter -

Today I'm 38 weeks pregnant, officially full term - and, coincidentally, the 7 billionth person on the planet will be born this week, somewhere in the world. I mentioned this to Matt - since I'm full term, seems like we've got a shot here. Matt's first response was " Does it come with a cash prize?" 

Here is my response: 

So, yes! For the next two weeks, as we await the appearance of our kid, I'm trying to do just what I WANT to do, with my limited energy - so today, the Tuileries Garden and Angelina hot chocolate, after the jump:

I am really loving getting outside these days, even if I can only walk for about 10 minutes at a stretch. I'd been wanting to take a walk through the Tuileries one more time before the weather really turned too rainy, so that's what we did today. Also on my agenda was a visit to ANGELINA, a salon de the on the Rue de Rivoli that I'd heard serves insane hot chocolate. Seemed like a perfect thing to do just before Halloween.

View of Place de la Concorde and Arc de Triomphe from Jardin des Tuileries

The Tuileries was full of kids today, as it is most weekends, some dressed in Halloween costumes, though Halloween isn't as big a holiday here as it is in the US or in England.

It stretches between the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde, and someday I will investigate and tell you the historic significance of it - I believe the Louvre used to house the French kings before it was a museum, so the Tuileries were their gardens - but I promise, this Parisian history stuff is something I'm gonna get into in more depth this year. Now, its just a really beautiful park in the center of Paris, with playgrounds and a carousel for kids, and several smaller art museums, like the Jeu de Paume and the Muesee de l'Orangerie. 

Terrifying Rhino Sculpture

It's also got the requisite sculptures of terrifying animals, as must appear in any Paris park that caters to children. Here's one now, of a rhinoceros disemboweling a wolf or something.

I'm gonna do a photo gallery of these terrifying sculptures one day, just wait. 

So on one side of the Tuileries is the Seine, and on the other is the Rue du Rivoli, a major artery that cuts east/west through Paris and sometimes feels to me like the equivalent of Broadway in New York. Across from the Tuileries, it is of course tourist hell. But it does include ANGELINA.

ANGELINA

226 Rue de Rivoli

Open daily 9AM - 7PM

Specialty: crazy delicious hot chocolate

 

Here's the dining room, in all its art-deco glory. However, we didn't eat here because there was a HUGE line of tourists out the door waiting to get in. Still, it's pretty, eh?

But, what I RECOMMEND doing is heading right to the take out Patisserie counter to the side of the restaurant, where you can get the famous Angelina hot chocolate TO GO. 

This way, you can get your chocolate fix and head right back across the street to the gardens to enjoy it.

You can also ogle some of their patisserie, as we did:

Yes, that's a Pistachio/Strawberry Religieuse there in green in the center - A Religieuse is a special kind of patisserie that's kind of like two delicious cream puffs stuck on top of one another, with different flavored cream filling. It's supposed to resemble a nun, hence the name...

They also do technicolor macarons at Angelina, which looked amazing:

But I was concentrating on the hot chocolate, which they say is "A L'Africain" - not sure what about it was particularly African, but it is the specialty of the house and tastes like a molten vahlrona chocolate bar. It is delicious and INCREDIBLY sweet but also very dark and chocolatey - and thick, but not so thick it can't be drunk with a straw. Basically, it is like chocolate crack.

Shockingly, it's so good that even Matt enjoyed it - and he's not usually a fan of chocolate or sweets - we took it back to the Tuileries to enjoy, and here's me looking a little like a pregnant spy making sure no one steals my cup. 

That's all for this week - but please SUBSCRIBE to the blog, I'm transitioning into posting here, though as you can see it's a work in progress - 

Hope everyone is well and that there's not too much snow in NYC!

xo CTL