Marché des Enfants Rouges

Thanks to a reference from a friend at my job- I found myself making the trek to the Filles du Calvaire metro stop for a Gastronomy adventure in Paris. Every large city has a public food market, Pikes place in Seattle, the Food Carts explosion in Portland... Paris was no exception as I soon discovered. Hidden off a decrepit street near the 3rd arrondissement in Paris, the marché is supposedly the oldest covered one in Paris if not the smallest. The best thing for a Saturday, we decided, to eat our way through the cultural goodness. Many stands are in the market, some selling the typical ingredients: fresh fruits, strong smelling fish, olive oils from the Southern regions. Not needing anything raw we opted to start our discovery with a farfella au poulet, or a sort of Morroccon stuffed pastry, a salted and yet sweet curried chicken meat stuffed into a soft pastry shell. As we snacked and shared we decided that Italian sounded promising as a decisive meal and we awaited our turn.

Already the Mangioitaliano had a load of great things on the menu- most of it variations of their home made pasta with a sauce. Bri ordered up an Osso Bucco with a home tagliatelle pasta, while I chose a simple pesto pasta. Sprinkling of fresh Parmesan and we were off... Amazingly a carafe of wine was very inexpensive at 9€ for 50cl- and we ate!

My pasta was an orecchiette, or those small eared pastas, tossed in what was most certainly a home made pesto, te tang and the red fruit wine quickly filled us as we munched down on the al dente homemade pasta.

There are other restaurants strewn about, Japanese, Marocaine, Sandwich Shop, African and some other little spots to takeaway.

A great Saturday to do, especially of museums are worn out and it's not quite nice enough for a Picnic in the Park. It's also nice to escape and eat around the works without even leaving Paris.