Offbeat Eats

Well, after a bit less than a week in France spent in Grenoble and Paris, it was time to catch a late morning flight home. Wanting to avoid the miasma of an airport breakfast, I decided to grab breakfast on my way to the airport. I was staying near Gare du Nord and Gare de L’est, an area not particularly known for French bistrots and cafes, much of it being more of the cell-phone-cover, beauty supply stores, and coiffures district, but right next to my hotel on the corner of the busy Boulevard de Magenta and rue de Chabrol was a nice little cafe that showed some potential: P’tite Bougnate (“Bougnate” means a woman from Auvergne, in a word that has a most interesting etymology, but that’s a story for another time and place).

After two days of watching cool aircraft, talking business, and talking business while watching cool aircraft at the Paris Air Show, I had a free evening to explore around Paris on a Monday night before having to head back to the airport early in the morning. I decided to deliberately explore part of Paris that I usually didn’t explore in detail, the 3e arrondissement. The quieter half of Paris’ Marais district (known for museum and fashion houses, the other half of Le Marais lying in the busier 4e arrondissement), it’s a mostly residential area in Paris with a few nice boulevards like Rue de Turrene ahd several nice walking parks (Square du Tempe, Hôtel-Salé-Léonor-Fini Garden, and over the border in the 4e arrondissement, Place des Vosges). A few blocks north of Place des Vosges, I found a splendid spot for dinner, Chez Janou.