CarlaVisit Day 5: Brunch, Modern Art, Dinner

Well, we got up rather late (see yesterday), and then slowly organized ourselves for brunch over at a friend's place. She lives in a really nice are of Paris, a little bit South of where I am, where the buildings were never Haussmann-ized. The place still has a bit of a village look to it, even though it's mostly apartments.

After a delicious brunch, Carla and I wandered through the neighborhood and headed back to my place on foot. After taking a little break to organize ourselves, we headed back out onto the town towards the Modern Art Museum.

However, there was a little glitch. I had read the hours for the Palais de Tokyo museum (also modern art), which ran until midnight on most nights (including Sundays). However, the Palais de Tokyo is currently in the process of putting in a new installation, which means very little is visible. On the other hand, the modern art museum of Paris (which is right next door and part of the same building complex) has its entire collection open, but closes by 18h00 on Sundays. We got there at approximately 17h15, so we went straight into the modern art museum and saw as much as we could before they kicked us out. Then we went to the Palais de Tokyo and wandered around what was available in their exhibit (which was a grand total of two rooms). We took a moment to drink something at their trying-too-hard modernist café, and then spent a long time looking over the books in their bookshop. In some ways, the bookshop here is the height of the visit.

From there we headed out to the Latin Quarter, in search of a restaurant that had been recommended to us. The place was supposed to specialize in duck dishes, and we are both fans of duck, so we were ready to explore. Unfortunately, we only had vague directions and a name, so we never actually found it (for the record, it's L'Autre Domaine and it's at 6 boulevard Saint-Germain). Eventually, we fell upon a Beaujolais-region restaurant that had lots of nice-looking grilled food.

I had an amazing onion soup gratinée to start (I forget what Carla had) and then each of us had a roasted meaty dish that was well-prepared and tasty. The food was excellent, although I take a certain pleasure in saying that it was the culinary low-point of her visit. We ate very well that week...