And Now for Something New, a day focused on food! 8-3-15

Since we arrived here we have made going to see La Grande Epicerie one of our goals.  So only 6 months later we finally made it.  It is part of the Bon Marche flagship store located in the 7th west of St. Germain des Pres and very close to what used to be our favorite restaurant in Paris, Le Recamier, but is no longer in business.  We passed by the store a few weeks back on one of our walks but it was a Sunday and thus it was closed.  It is one of the premier market shopping experiences in Paris by reputation and I must say it's quite a nice place to visit.   We started out by having lunch in the little cafe in the basement. The appetiser, a riff on tomatoes and burrata, was only mediocre because the tomatoes were barely ripe.  One would think that a French cafe, in a store that hypes it's fresh vegetables, would have a better selection.  But the plats were very yummy, I had a pave which is a small thick rectangular steak, and was cooked just the red juicy way I prefer while Deb had a filet of Dorade, a french fish and it was nicely prepared as well.

After lunch we wandered throughout the store and were quite impressed with it's offerings.  They bring in fresh produce, poultry, and meat from all over France, but they also have offerings from all over the world.  They had both Coors Light and Budweiser in the beer section, of course they also had Budvar Budweiser from the Czech republic as well.   The beers from the U.S. and Mexico are tres cher (expensive) here.   Overall I would venture to say that anyone who enjoys going to a big Whole Foods store in the U.S. would be comfortable here.  
The big difference would be the depth of selection, where WF might have two products, the Grande Epicerie will have 20 to choose from.  And the lower level aside from the cafe is devoted exclusively to wine and spirits, good stuff.

It was another hot day today so we left the air conditioned store and immediately headed for the small park that fronts the building so sit in the shade and acclimatize for the trip home.  A young woman was sunning herself on one of the benches, very chic in her black shift and combat boots, but hey it's Paris.  It's a pretty easy hop with one transfer on the Metro so in a little over 30 minutes we were walking to the apartment.

We had a warm evening to sit on deck and admire the night views.  We also were awakened in the night with a couple energetic rain storms which cooled things off very nicely.