Fellini exhibit

Yesterday after Gabriella was finished with her work we went to see an exhibit about Federico Fellini (just in time as it ends this Sunday) at Jeu de Paume at the Concorde. It's called Fellini, La Grande Parade.  There's a great review of it in English at http://www.ivyparisnews.com/2009/10/fellini-la-grande-parade-at-jeu-de-paume.html .  Afterwards, we walked to the nearby shop of Pierre Hermé on rue Bonaparte (www.pierreherme.com) to buy a few of their famous macarons.  These are nothing like the macaroons one finds in the States.  They are a type of meringue cookie with a filling and come in different colors/flavors. Paris is known for these but unless you get really good ones, they aren't worth eating. On the other hand, if you get good ones, and Hermé has the best, it's like eating nothing you have ever had before....they simply melt in your mouth while oozing indescribable flavors such as citron, pistache, caramel, and more...check out their website. However, they are pretty expensive, 1E25 a piece, so that keeps us from buying too many.  We bought four as a treat for after dinner. 

We moved from the heart of the 6th arrondissement back to our neighborhood where Gabriella had made reservations at a restaurant that had been recommended to her.  She wanted for this dinner to be the beginning of our weekend celebration of my birthday that falls on the coming Monday. She was told it was an Italian restaurant but neither of us could find anything on the menu that would warrant that designation.  We did however have excellent meals and they were able to accommodated me as a vegetarian.  The place has a set menu which is different everyday and consists of a 5 or 7 course meal.  We went for the 5 course one and we completely full by the end.  It started with a sort of soup, although there was very little broth, of fennel, celery, and red peppers, then there were 2 small dishes followed by the main course which for me was grilled sweet potato with some other veggies.  We ended with two desserts, a chocolate brownie something of another with little white somethings plus a bit of sherbet between a delicate cookie topped with a touch of some kind of meringue.  Needless to say, we didn't eat the macarons last night!