Harold

No it's not the name of my boyfriend. It's the restaurant we've been to with Adrian. He was invited and we decided to check it out.
The restaurant is one of those many "modern looking trying to be cool place" restaurants in Paris.

The food was not bad. I had the salmon gravlax with celery and Savora vinaigrette.

Adrian had the ceasar sald with lobster.

Salmon was a bit salty which made me drink a bit more of that Chassagne-Montrachet red wine we've ordered. Then we had the king prawn "a la plancha" with creamy risotto and parmesan and the grilled sole with mash potatoes.


The risotto was a bit tasteless, laking of salt or spice that could make the dish worth it. For dessert Adrian had the "moelleux au chocolat" with a caramel "au sel de Guerande" ice cream and I, the ananas carpaccio with cucumber and mint sorbet.


The dessert I had was most refreshing and more than welcome after the meal we had. Overall it was not a bad meal and we enjoyed a lot the young girls passing by and especially the one who was seating right in front of me at the next table!
We wanted to check that Absinthe store in the Marais afterwards but unfortunately for us (or them!) it was closed because everything is closed on Monday in "Gay" Marais. That's gonna be for another time then.
Now I'm having a Red Bull because I've got to clean the appartment up. So everything that could gives me energy is appreciated (like the Yanks said). I need to do a little bit of shopping too because Uta is coming back with her friend tonight for a meal.
I don't even know what I'm going to cook them. I probably order a pizza!

Rival

Let me introduce you to our "after work" hang out : Le Rival.

The best martini bar in Paris, they have a selection of around 50 vodkas. Being my favorite alcohol, I may say I found heaven on earth. To complete that picture, here is the tastiest and sweetest barmaid I've ever known : Nadira.

She knows how to make cocktails, she's beautiful and very intelligent. One might say the perfect woman! Take a look at what effect she has on Austen. He was out of his mind, although not drunk (far from it).

I usually drink Stolichnaya Crital, best vodka in the world, with Coke. And I usually finish on my hands and knees at the end of the evening! It almost happened Thursday but I found enough soberness to drive back home alright, even had a little race with Austen!

Tax and Petrol

That's what I paid this morning at the petrol station:

I did not find more expensive than Austen (although I was not particularly looking to beat him!), but it's pretty high. Not so long ago, 6 months at least, the price of petrol was the same as the price of diesel now. I even remember paying under 1 Euro a liter. Those were the days, when you could afford to pay 50 Euros to fill your car up and burn it all carelessly going over the speed limit! When you think that the governement is taking more than 80% per liter on tax, it's kind of unfair cos when they get you for speeding they make you pay even more! That reminds me I got another parking ticket yesterday!

Speaking of taxes, everyone who lives in France have received their "avis d'imposition" by now. France, what a fucking great country. The only in the world where you have to save money to actually pay your taxes. Why shouldn't they take it from our wages, it would be easier and, I guess, there would be less fraud too.

Thanks to Cate who gave me a brilliant web-site where you can buy brand new designer clothes at discounted price. If we are giving all our money to the governement, it doesn't mean we all gonna wear tracksuit and start kicking car doors!

Holidays!!!

One week to go and I'm on holidays. i can't wait to be in the States. It will be my fisrt time there! We will be flying to Los Angeles and we already have a small problem. That is we have as of yet no accomodation when we arrive! We've got the rental car sorted out but not the hotel. We're supposed to stay 2 nights there and then drive to Las Vegas. As it's a saturday, we have no room there yet either! That's gonna be fun. I'm glad I choose a decent size car so we can sleep in it and be woken up by some dodgy junky who will stole all our belongings and we will finish butt naked in some weird police station. Sounds like fun to me.
If I keep my camera I'll post some pics, that is if we're released from jail! Well I think I'm getting out of subject here.
Honestly I'm looking forward to that trip. Especially, the food part. I just want to see with my own eyes what sort of crap there is to eat there. I definitely will post some photos! I just hope I'm not gonna end up like a big fat belly guy!

I read Austen's last post on his blog and I agree 100% with him. Where's the price of petrol gonna stop. He sent me a mail stating that Total and British Petroleum agreed to lower their price 0,03 Euros per liter for unleaded petrol. Are they taking the piss, or what? I'll save 1,80 Euros every time I'll fill the car up! What will I do with all that money? It's time to change my mode of transportation. More and more of my colleagues are switching to scooters.

I agree even more on the last part of his post for the beer ad. Definitely have to try that to see if we can be "true barman"!!
As you can see on this picture, we already have the glasses! That was last week and even though I pass out with the feeble excuse that I was up since 5am, we still had a lot to drink!

Home alone again!

After a nice day at work (the Prince is gone), I find myself again alone tonight. Uta went to Paris to celebrate an "end of a shitty week at work" party with her tasty colleagues! As I'm working at 7 tomorrow morning I did not join, unfortunately cos I like going out where there's a lot of young women.
Well that's life one may say. I think that's sucks!
Anyway, I've got a bit of time to post something.
Day before yesterday I cooked again for Uta and it will always amazed me what you can do when you mix ingredients. I went for a dish of crawfish with zucchinis.
From that :

Through that:

To that:

It was very good. We washed it down with a nice bottle of Chablis. French one, not those over sugary Californian low range crap!
Speaking of wine, I went to the Wine Fair at my local supermarket yesterday evening. They had sent me an invitation to taste their wines before the official opening date . I came, I tasted and I bought. Quite a lot I'm afraid, I wasn't expected to buy that much but there was so many wine I wanted I couldn't resist! I got some Chasse-Spleen 2003 and 1996, a few Vosne-Romanée and Chassagne-Montrachet, a crate of Sauternes and 1 bottle of Chateau Yquem 1999. Total :550 Euros!
We tried the Vosne-Romanée and it was excellent although I should let it age a bit longer. According to the guide, it can be stored for 8 years. 8 years! I could die of thirst since then!
I think I'm gonna get a few more bottles of that one.

I'm quite pleased with myself cos I remembered how to add a link on my blog. Still not sure if I could add one on my post. If I remember correctly, it was not the same handling as the one for the blog. I have to ask Austen again for that. You might have noticed on my previous post that he could use his computer with gardening gloves! Kudos Austen!

Friends and Food

Well today, I decided to present you my friends. There's Austen and Adrian.

I've known Austen now for almost 10 years now and still I can't overdrink him. If you check is blog you'll probably understand why. He's got more training than me! He discovered last year he could cook and now he's very good at it. Check that "Côte de Boeuf" we had last monday.

It was excellent! And for once it was not ready at 3 o'clock in the morning, which is usually the time we eat and when we are almost passed out because of our need of food or our advanced state of drunkeness. Not this time though, thanks to Adrian who was working night shift and had to go to be at work at 11pm. So everything was ready by 9:30 and I, I must confess, passed out around 2am!

Now Adrian, just look at this picture and try to convince yourself he's not gay!


He just likes when men are tickling his ears. He's the surf meister. As I said on an earlier post he will find the most dodgy weird yet interesting site on the net, but there's another thing, and that is he's useless with a screwdriver. We've had many proof of that fact the last years and we just wonder how he's still alive! There must be a god for him and he's working full time! I will try to had a link to his blog if I remember how to do it. (Sorry Austen I was not really focusing when you explained it to me last monday night)

Well I'm sure I'm gonna get some dodgy comments from Mike Tyson or such like (we all know it's the surfmeister). We will certainly sort it out at work cos at the moment this is probably the only place where we can meet together. Shitty planning doesn't allow us to see each other outside of work very often.

Yesterday, after recovering from the night before, I decided I will cook for Uta to make amend for my sleep over night at Austen's. Not that she will be mad at me for that. But it's just nice to be nice. I checked my cook book and found out I didn't have any ingredients to make the dish I wanted to. And that's me off to the Supermarket. I bought everything I needed, so I thought. It's only when I started reading the steps that I found out I forgot to purchase one thing and that was one of the main ones!!
So I did that :

Lettuce with melon and smoked duke "magret" with fresh mint; And a walnut oil and Xeres vinegar vinaigrette.
It was good but want I'm gonna make tonight looks even better. I will post a picture of it on my next blog.

Speaking of picture, I promised on my last blog I will show one of this Aubade ad poster, well it appears that they're already gone. Must have caused to much accidents, this is the only logical reason why it's not there anymore. Shame.

Today I will probably go to the swimming pool because I haven't done any exercices since last week. I haven't had the time actually, mainly because of work. The Prince is there at it requires a lot of attention on our side not to screw up one of his numerous demands. He's leaving tomorrow so I guess we will have a bit more time in our hand.
I'm stiil preparing our trip to the States, and I'm waiting to have some news from our Rooms Manager to see if she could get me those complimentary nights every employee of the chain is entitled to and that are almost always refused!