PARIS Terres de Café Specialty Coffee

More specialty coffee after the visit to Notre Dame and before dinner. We walked to the shopping area near our apartment to check out Loveramics, and stopped at Terres de Café. 

Thanh ordered a strawberry nectar by Alain Milliat, that turned out to be delicious. This got us hooked on nectar fruit drinks that we bought for breakfast to go with Bo & Mie croissants for the rest of our stay in Paris.

Terres de Café

RECOMMENDATIONS: Highly recommended for their espresso, pour over, and nectar fruit drink. A good stop next to Loveramics the fancy ceramics shop near Les Halles shopping mall.

PARIS Bistro Des Augustins

Before our time slot to visit Notre Dame, we went to Bistro Des Augustins for lunch, per Philippe's recommendation.

Their specialty is the potato au gratin, a classic French dish consisting of layers of thinly sliced potatoes, Swiss cheese, and creamy garlicky sauce. Thanh can make this at home, but we are very interested in tasting this at this highly reviewed restaurant.

Their menu included many different variations of the dish, and we chose the Paysan version that included bacon and egg. It was delicious, and it inspired us to try adding ingredients like pancetta at home.

Bistro des Augustins

RECOMMENDATIONS: Highly recommended. Plan for enough time to get the food and enjoy it. One order of potato au gratin is enough for two, perfect with a side of salad. Very close to the Ile de la Cité, where Saint Chapelle and Notre Dame are located.

PARIS Motors Specialty Coffee

Motors Coffee was highly reviewed, and very close to the area where we stayed in Paris. After a breakfast at Bo&Mie, we went in search for good coffee and ended up here.

There was no line when we arrived, and we easily found seating to enjoy our coffee. By the time we left, a long line has formed outside the shop.

Motors Coffee

RECOMMENDATIONS: Very good coffee, excellent latte art. Definitely stop by if you are in the area.

PARIS Bo & Mie

Bo & Mie was a wonderful boulangerie / patisserie that was only 6 minutes walking distance from our apartment rental My Maison in Paris.

We arrived to Paris by sleeper train from Perpignan, and after dropping off our luggages at the luggage storage room of our rental, we walked to Bo & Mie for a breakfast of croissants and baked goods. The line was long and slow, but we found a table to sit and relax.

We soon discovered that Bo & Mie has a pick up window, and by ordering online and picking up, there was no line and no wait. 

For the rest of our stay in Paris, every morning, Robert would wake up, pre-order our croissants and Kouing-amaan pastry, pick them up, reheat them in the oven, and the four of us would enjoy our breakfast in our apartment. What a thoughtful son we have.

Bo & Mie

RECOMMENDATIONS: Highly recommended. They have several locations in Paris, but the chocolate croissants at the Turbigo location did not look as flakey as the one at the Louvre-Tivoli. The Kouing-amaan was out of this world.

BARCELONA, SPAIN Universal Kiosk at the Mercat de la Boqueria

For our last meal in Barcelona, we went to the Mercat de la Boqueria, a wonderful market place very close to our apartment rental. As a matter of fact, we chose our booking based on how close it was to the market place.

Phil and Thanh had been to the Universal Kiosk during our last trip and really enjoyed the fresh seafood from this food stand.  Robert and Tiffany were excited to try it on this trip.

We ordered five tapas to share, and Robert and Tiffany were very impressed with the freshness of the ingredients, and the delicious taste of each dish. The pan-fried sole was particularly well made, and we were glad we accepted the recommendation of the chef.

After the wonderful lunch, we walked to the chocolate street, but many chocolatiers have closed shop since the last time we visited.

Later this evening, we would take the overnight train to Paris. The four of us enjoyed the food scene in Barcelona a lot, much more than in Madrid.

Universal Kiosk at the Mercat de la Boqueria

RECOMMENDATIONS: Highly recommended. This was our favorite food stand at the Mercat de la Boqueria. Everything we ordered was fresh and delicious.

BARCELONA, SPAIN Dalston Coffee

Today was our last day in Barcelona. We would catch a train in late afternoon from Barcelona to Perpignan, a small town just on the French side of the Spain-France border. Then from Perpignan, we would take the sleeper train from Perpignan to Paris Gare d'Austerlitz, arriving around 6am the next morning.

We went for a late morning coffee at Dalston Coffee. We had plans to eat at the Mercat de la Boqueria after coffee for an early lunch.

Dalston Coffee

RECOMMENDATIONS: Decent coffee, but did not stand out.

BARCELONA, SPAIN The Holy Cookie

After dinner, Robert proposed a couple options for dessert. One was pastries and one was cookies. We chose cookies.

We decided to walk to the Holy Cookie,  even though it was a 30-minute walk from our apartment rental, so we could walk off dinner.

The shop opened pretty late (until 10PM) and was located in a pretty quiet neighborhood. We were the only people there.

We intended to only buy a couple of cookies to share, but the girl convinced us to buy four cookies so they can fit into a box. We took an Uber home so we can share and dig into our cookies.

Once back at the apartment, we cut up the cookies nicely. Thanh and Tiffany could not finish their shares. The cookies were too sweet. We saved them for the next day's breakfast, but could not eat them the next morning either.

The Holy Cookie

RECOMMENDATIONS: Skip this. We still laugh at ourselves for walking 30 minutes to bad cookies.

BARCELONA, SPAIN La Gallega Tobogán

After spending the day at the Parc Güell, we were ready for a nice dinner. We chose La Gallega Tobogán at the Plaça Reial for its proximity to our apartment rental, and picked an outdoor table to people watch.

We were famished, and ordered several starter dishes and main entrées. We intended to save room for dessert afterwards, as Robert had a couple of dessert places in mind for us to choose from.

La Gallega Tobogán

RECOMMENDATIONS: Average. The food was good, but did not stand out. The proximity to where we stayed was the main reason we picked this.

BARCELONA, SPAIN Kafenion Specialty Coffee

After a lot of walking in the Parc Güell, we stopped for a coffee break at the Kafenion Specialty Coffee. 

The menu looked very interesting, and we ordered several coffees, hot and cold. The latte art was not very good.

Kafenion Specialty Coffee

RECOMMENDATIONS: Average. Drinks were pretty good, but did not stand out. Latte art was sub-par.

BARCELONA, SPAIN Güelly Sandwichpark

We took our time on this drizzling morning to go to Parc Güell, having not purchased entrance tickets ahead of time.

We had lunch at Güelly Sandwichpark, located near a side entrance of the park. The sandwiches were simple and cheap, perfect for a simple lunch at the park.

As we checked for tickets to the park, we noticed that they were timed tickets and the earliest available time to purchase for that day was 4pm. This did not feel like a good use of our time since it was only 1pm and we did not want to wait 3 hours outside the park. Luckily, we went to the park entrance to get more information, and learned that the park would let us in as long as we could show tickets for that day, no matter what time our tickets said.

We purchased our tickets and spent the afternoon exploring the park.

Güelly Sandwichpark

RECOMMENDATIONS: A good sandwich place if you want some simple lunch near Parc Güell. 

BARCELONA, SPAIN Be Chocolat

Still full from Teoric tasting menu at lunch, we decided to have ice cream for dinner at Be Chocolat, very close to our apartment rental. 

Robert and Tiffany shared one ice cream bar, while Phil and Thanh each got their own, as they could not agree on the same flavor. This was most unfortunate, as the ice cream was so rich and creamy that Thanh struggled to finish her ice cream bar and needed help.

Be Chocolat ice cream bars

RECOMMENDATIONS: Ice cream bars are very rich and creamy, so sharing one for two people would be what I recommend (lesson learned the hard way.) The shop also sells chocolate bars, and we bought some dark chocolate that is very smooth and excellent.