Christmas 2019 in Paris

After this morning, the forecast looked good and indeed weather the enitre week was about as good as you can expect for late December.

Despite the Metro strike and it being a Monday morning, the drive from the airport to our apartment was less than an hour.

And as if on cue, the sun came out as we crossed the Pont de l'Alma.

Our home for the next week... on avenue de la Bourbonnais.  Despite lots of research, finding a full two (king) bedroom, two bath spacious apartment in a nice area at a reasoable price was a challenge.   We finally settled on an 1,500 sq. ft. apartment in the 7th from parisforrent.com.

With elevator...

.. albeit a very tiny elevator with a 3 person, 225kg capacity.

Our modern apartment on the 7th floor of an 8 story building. 

And a full on Eiffel Tower view.

Our master suite, pics from parisforrent.com.

Bedroom 2.

After a couple hour nap, I headed out for water and other basic food supplies.  There was a convenient Franprix at the corner of our block.  Then towards rue St-Dominique for wine, cheese and fruit. 

The view from our apartment with the top of the hour light show...

Just before 8pm, we headed for dinner at nearby Au Bon Accueil, a three minute walk from the apartment.

My paté.  Delicious.

My first Rum Baba of the week... delicious.

Christmas Day in Paris

After a late night at the Crazy Horse, followed by wine and Netflix back at the apartment, we all slept in until late morning.  With Mrs. SFO777 deciding to take the day off from sightseeing, the three of us headed out for lunch... or so we thought.   Christmas Day means a lot of restaurants are closed.  Buvette serves my favorites croques and they were on our list for lunch this week.  A recorded message on their phone line claimed "we are open on holidays".  So, we UBER'd through empty streets over to the 9th....  

... only to find that Buvette is indeed not open on all holidays. 

Fortunately, it was a gorgeous and balmy 12C/54F so we explored our way back through the picturesque streets of the 9th... looking for anything open that was ranked better than 5,000 Tripadvisor ranking of 17,000+ Paris restaurants. 

And then to a series of wonderful covered walkways and arcades that dates back to the 19th century.

Finally winding our way down to Le Grand Colbert which was on a "open Christmas Day" list.   This was the restaurant made famous in the 2003 Jack Nicholson/Diane Keaton movie Something's Gotta Give.  While they were open, the place was packed and there were no tables available,

At this point, we had walked all the way down to Rue Saint-Honoré and were getting desperate.  Now hungry with much lower standards expectations, we wandered into the first open resto that wasn't Tripadvisor ranked more than 5,000.

Cozy atmosphere and friendly staff.

We ordered... croque monsieurs, naturally.

Which were actually pretty good.  I'd say a 6 or 7 on the 10 point Buvette scale.

After lunch, we continued our walk down to Rue du Rivoli and across to the Louvre...

...  and the Tuileries which was packed with Christmas Day revelers.

And the Christmas markets...

With the sun setting, we took a taxing back to our apartment to relax and have a little more wine before heading out for dinner.  Our Christmas dinner was at L'Atelier Étoile de Joël Robuchon, located on the lower level of the  Publicis Drugstore building, at the top of the Champs-Élysées.

Beautiful setting and decor similar other his other l'Atelier restos.

Lots of starter options designed for sampling and sharing.

Our amazing Maine Lobster with truffles.

The Langoustine in ravioli with truffles was fabulous.

Le Burger.  OMG... with foie gras.

And more fois gras... with pâté en croûte and pistachios.

As if that wasn't enough, the star of the night was La Truffe Noire, one of the most incredible spaghetti dishes we have ever tasted... with egg, parmesan and truffles.

Just in case you were still hungry, the potato purée side with loads of butter.

And desserts, of course.

What an amazing experience, and one of the best meals of the year.

Today was supposed to be a double museum day, with Musée Picasso in the morning and Musée d'Orsay in the afternoon.  We were all tired and decided to blow off our 10am Picasso tickets especially since I had received an alert saying that the government employee strike might impact whether or not the museum would open today.   So we just relaxed until noon when we headed off for lunch at Alain Ducasse's fabulous Champeaux bistro in the Westfield Forum des Halles in the 2nd.   Comically, we ended up with the world's worst UBER driver, whose GPS wasn't working and who was way too timid a driver... to even be a driver. 

Three of us had Ducasse's iconic coquillettes jambon-comté-truffe noire, aka mac n cheese.   

Simply amazing.

And le Champeaux Burger, with foie gras.  OMG.

The Forum des Halles is not the more Uber/taxi friendly location, we started walking towards the Seine and the Musée d'Orsay.  

We saw no available taxis the entire walk and finally arrived at the d'Orsay a little after 2pm, where we met our guide Laure...

... who escorted us to the front of the queue and into the museum.

I was tired and feeling under the weather from a bug I picked up yesterday so Mrs. SFO777 and I decided to walk back to our apartment and rest up before dinner, which was at venerable Jules Verne at the Eiffel Tower.   When we arrived, a Jules Verne staffer escorted us to the front of the security queue to access the base of the tower.

And the very cool plaza level lobby where we waited for our turn in the elevator.

We last dined here some 9 years ago when it was an Alain Ducasse restaurant and really enjoyed the atmosphere and food.  But a lot has changed since then and not necessarily for the better.  Apparently, in the last few years Ducasse and partner chef Anton Frédéric had a dispute followed by litigation which Ducasse lost.  So he is not longer involved and it is now an Anton Frédéric restaurant.  The place has been complete renovated.  

The only good view tables are now two tops along the window.  For more than two diners, those get a few tables away from the windows but most bench seating... great for those sitting on the bench, but absolute garbage for those sitting in chairs facing the benches and what amount to a wall.   Why not install a mirror on the bench walls so everyone could have a city view??  Then there was the dreadful bright lighting eliminating any semblance of atmosphere. 

No idea what the counter is for as no one was there the night as it looked over scaffolding and steel.

Apparently someone has been to Gaggan Bangkok.

The prix fixe menu, either 5 courses or 7 courses.   And apparently no wine pairing option.

And then there was the "service".   Everything seemed rushed at the beginning and our primary server was not very good.  As soon as we sat down, we were all presented with the champagne by the glass menu.  Things improved when I started speaking French, rejected the champagne list and asked for the wine list.  

Food was generally good but certainly not worth the prices.  Then again, you are paying for the view... at least those seating by the window or on the bench.

The chicken was the best dish of the night.. roasted with bucatini, juice, light cream and black truffle.

All in all, a rather disappointing experience food that didn't impress but especially the lousy atmosphere and sub-par service. Can't imagine that we will ever some back except for the view.  After dinner, we walked down the stairs to the observation deck for some wonderful night time views of Paris.

Monday morning and sadly, it's time to head home.  Not much traffic this morning and we were at Terminal 2E by 10:30am, just 40 minutes after we left the apartment.   La Première passengers have a separate drop off area at Porte 14...

... where a porter greeted us...

... and escorted us with our bags to the La Première check in lounge.

We gave our passports to our Personal Assistant, who went off to check us in.

A few minutes later, she escorted us to passport control and security using private La Première lanes each step of the way. 

And tthe to the La Première Lounge.

Beautifully decorated for Christmas.

We were the only passengers in the lounge since we arrived after the wave of morning flights had departed.

We both ordered our favorite coquillettes jambon-comté-truffes, aka mac n cheese.

Which looked and tasted a little different from before... with a lot more veal stock.  Still excellent but we prefer the non veal stock version at Champeaux.

For dessert, one more rum baba for the road.  :)