~*Date night in Paris*~

J and I have just returned from a lovely weekend in the city of love. Though it was a very quick trip, we managed to cram a lot of activities in, from The Louvre to see the Mona Lisa, to Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe and the breath-taking and beautiful Eiffel Tower at night.


Of course, no trip is complete without sampling the local cuisine, and we made it a mission to eat Parisian-style crepes, escargot and frogs legs during our visit to the French capital.


J, who is fairly familiar with Paris (he has visited on a number of occasions, and speaks pretty mean French too!), led us to Quartier Latin  (The Latin Quarter), where there are a number of bars and restaurants to cater for all tastes, but mainly serving French cuisine.


We decided on a quaint restaurant on the main strip called Le Symposium for our Parisian date night. At 15 euros each for a 3 course meal, we thought it was pretty reasonably priced.


The ambience of the restaurant was very French - calm, sophisticated and romantic. An ideal setting for date night with mon amour!


We started dinner with a bottle of red wine (Cotes du Rhone), which was fairly priced (for Paris!) at 18 euros.

For starters, we ordered escargot in garlic butter sauce (6 snails per person), which was amazing!! J and I both love garlic, so this was ideal. The strong flavours of the garlic mixed with the subtle taste of snail resulted in the perfect balance. For those who may be slightly uncomfortable with eating snails, don't be - they are delicious and definitely worth a go! Just don't be put off by the texture! We also had a side of frogs legs which, at 10 euros per plate, I thought was quite steep, given that the portion was pretty small. Nevertheless, they were very tasty and we polished them off with no problems.

Frogs legs!

Escargot in garlic butter sauce

For mains, J ordered a classic French Beef Bourguignon and I had steak (cooked perfectly rare, mmm!!) with peppercorn sauce. Again, absolutely delicious - we couldn't fault either dishes.

Beef Bourguignon

Steak with Peppercorn sauce

Rare is the best!

Dessert was Crème Caramel, which was a lovely way to end such a pleasant dinner.

Crème Caramel dessert

The bill came to 58 euros in total which, for Paris, is not bad at all. The food was basic but fantastic, the service was great and the dining experience as a whole was wonderful.  


We visited the Eiffel Tower after dinner (which was amazing and super romantic - the boy did very good!) and after a couple of hours there, we ended the night with a savoury crepe each, filled with ham, eggs and cheese. There are several crepe vans dotted around Paris so they are readily available. We paid 6 euros each for our crepes (near the Eiffel Tower), but you can easily get them slightly cheaper (around 5 euros) if you shop around.


To me, Paris is like a fine wine - it will take me time to truly appreciate the beauty of it. However, the memories I have of our trip are very happy ones!


If you do visit Paris (or anywhere in France), I would totally recommend that you try French cuisine (like escargot and frogs legs) - it is simply delicious. For when it happens (and I hope that it does)...Bon Appetit!! XOXO  

<3

Le Symposium

29 Rue de la Huchette

75005 Paris, France

+33 1 43 54 28 98

~* Easy Filipino Style Beef Steak (Bistek) Recipe*~

Hi everyone! I hope you are well!

Today I would like to share a very simple recipe for a popular Filipino dish called "Bistek".

Bistek is made up of thinly sliced beef, which has been marinated in soy sauce, citrus juice (lemon, lime or calamansi), pepper and a little bit of water, and is served hot with onions and rice.

I was inspired to make this after watching Benji Travis (of benjimantv on YouTube, the husband of Judy of itsjudyslife) cook this with his Filipino mother-in-law, and since I was really craving Filipino food (as I do every day!) and had bought some good beef from the bargain section of the local supermarket, I thought "why not?" :)
I hope you enjoy this dish as much as I do!

INGREDIENTS

• 1 lb thinly sliced beef
• 1/4 cup Soy Sauce (preferably the light sort)
• Juice of 1 Lemon / 1 Lime / 4 Calamansi (I used lemon for mine)
• Black Pepper
• Water
• 1 onion (red or white), sliced

HOW TO COOK...

1. Take the thinly sliced beef and place into a bowl.

 

2.  Put the soy sauce into the bowl so that it covers the majority of the meat. 3. Take your citrus fruit (in this case, I used lemon), cut in half and squeeze the juice over the meat and soy sauce. You will need the juice of the whole fruit.

 

4. Put a little bit of water into the bowl in order to slightly dilute the soy sauce - I used about a tablespoon and a half of water.

5. Grind some pepper onto the meat, then mix everything together so that all of the beef is covered in the soy/citrus juice marinade.

6. Cover the bowl and allow the meat to marinate for 2-3 hours (the longer the better).

7. Once you are ready to cook the meat, heat a little bit of oil (enough for a shallow fry) in a frying pan.

8. Place the beef and a little bit of the marinade into the pan and allow to cook on medium heat. Leave for 1-2 minutes. Flip the meat and cook the other side, again for 1-2 minutes.

9. Now for the onions! Put the sliced onions on top of the beef and lower the heat, cooking for a further 1 minute. The intention is for the heat from the beef to cook the onions, so they should not go really soft.

10. Switch off the heat, and serve the Bistek with hot rice. Make sure you save the juices from the pan, as it tastes really good with the rice!

ENJOY!!!