I am surprised that Paris food didn’t get me pregnant. There’s nothing I do as much as enjoy French food while in France. French cuisine has taught me something about my basic needs. My perfect world doesn’t have to have Blair Underwood in my bed but fresh and soft French toast and fresh baguettes for breakfast.
My love for French food and voracious appetite starts as soon as I arrive at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG) when the taxi man (who only speaks French) Dennys buys me a chicken sandwich in baguette. This thing is the best sandwich I’ve had all my life! The baguette has parmesan and cheese. The bread is so soft and fresh with an outer crust so delicate, crisp and crunchy (the good-kind that doesn’t graze the inside of your upper mouth). The chicken is almost better than the 6-month old Kienyeji kukus from my mother’s farm. It’s so yummy the ooooohs and 
ahhhhh and ummmmmms won’t stop. But I bought this at Paul Bakery – it isn’t even a restaurant and the food is this good? I know I’ll enjoy food here.
I haven’t had a real meal in more than ten hours. I am really looking forward to my first meal at Le Suffren. I love this restaurant because it’s right by The Eiffel Tower. Walking inside somehow feels like a Parisian experience. It has a typical bistro feel with glass walls and wine-coloured vintage furniture. I am those kind of eaters who tell waiters, glaring at the table next to mine, “I want what they are having!” But today I can’t decide whose food I want to eat, because we’re all too close to each other–I like to window shop from a distance. Despite Le Suffren’s spacious design, its numerous tables sit close to each other, providing an intimate kind of vibe.
The waiters here barely speak English but thankfully the menu is in English and some French. There is so much I want to try out but I settle on Beautiful Charolais sirloin with pepper sauce, fried potatoes and salad. Yes! I will have any food with “Beautiful” at the front of its title. Only in France! The waiter is either a chef or a food expert. He wants to know if I’d like my meat well done or not. He won’t take any unorthodox or un-matching orders, according to French cuisine. “Et du vin, mademoiselle?” He asks. “Oui, white sweet wine, not dry please,” I order. “No! We don’t do that here!” He yells at me. I am shocked at his rudeness and everyone at our table wonders why as he struggles with his English. “This is France. We never eat meat with white wine, never!” Hey, but I don’t like red wine, I try to explain to him. He won’t listen and let me have whatever I want, even though I am paying for it. He wasn’t really being rude, I was just a little offensive 🙂 We finally reach a consensus and he brings me some young sweet red wine which I absolutely adore.
Red wine is the supposed answer to the French paradoxical fact that French people have low rate of chronic heart diseases despite high saturated fat diet.
The garnishing of food at Le Suffren is enough to make me never eat it just to look at this beautiful art of food.
My Charolais sirloin is the kind of perfect that makes you bite at your tongue. I later discover that Charolais originates from a cattle beef breed in Charolais, around Charolles, in France. The serving is a lot yet just enough to make you not want more yet not feel disgusted by your indulgence. We (Me, Marek, Chimano, Polycarp and Bien) also sample Le Suffren’s costly sea dishes. It’s my first time to eat Oysters and I love it! Marek says they are aphrodisiacs too.
I end up missing nights out and sight-seeing in the next few days because I am out eating. This is the first time I am in a foreign place and won’t compromise food for anything. I now know that food is the only way to any woman’s heart, too. What’s the best cuisine? The Jan/Feb 2015 issue of my best read, Intelligent Life, poses in the Big Question as seven writers champion their favourite of distinct national cuisines. The food writer Bee Wilson celebrates the carelessness and perfection of French cuisine. What’s the best cuisine? “Its genius can be seen in delicate fish soups with a dollop of fiery rouille; rare onglet steak and salds of green beans; tiny wedges of big-tasting cheese. It’s there in the habit of avoiding snacks between meals, not from self-denial, but because hunger is the best sauce,” she writes. I wouldn’t have put it any better.
People who really know me, know my love for food but they will be surprised to hear that Paris is the only place that actually shows me how much I love food. All this time I thought I just liked food but now I am open to travel extensively just to love food. I wouldn’t mind relocating to Paris for a year, just to eat. I think I would care less if I ate too much in France and added weight like Elizabeth Gilbert did during her time in Italy.
I have even added just a little weight from the three days of indulgence in Paris. “Your bod’s new look is refreshing!” A friend from Nairobi notes after seeing me after the trip. Another asserts after my tales, “Italian food has got nothing on Parisian food. You’ve had the best!” My relationship with French cuisine starts on such a high. It’s so engrossing, I can’t even think of any other thing. It’s not even birthday week but I am about to discover the best little cake I’ve ever had all my life in Lille, a city in the North of France.
Check out the complete To and Fro Paris with Love series:
From Paris with Love: The Eiffel Tower (Part I)
From Paris with Love: Amitié (Part II)
From Paris with Love: French Cuisine (Part III)
From Paris with Love: French Cuisine (Part IV)
BONUS: This post reminds me of the time I enjoyed a Sicilian dinner at the Hague.
Black Roses 