The One with the “Lady Menu”.

I can’t even remember how many times I’ve been to Paris now, but each time I go I still swoon. I always wonder. “When is this gonna get old?” When will I stop getting giddy at the sight of Galeries Lafayette all lit up?

When will I stop giggling at the graffiti in the Metro?

But it never does get old, and I don’t want it to! For this reason I’ve decided that I will never live in Paris. That way, in my head it will always remain a magical place of charm, romance, and possibilities. Of course there are other reasons I will never move to Paris as well:

But whatever, back to the charmy stuff.

On our last weekend trip we spent all of our time shopping at the high-end boutiques. And by shopping I mean walking in all wide-eyed, and touching and drooling on stuff until they asked us to leave. I think I scared the lady at the Ferragamo boutique.

Anyway we eventually found ourselves exhausted and starving from all the window-licking and we started looking for a place to grab a bite to eat. Unfortunately, we were at Place de la Concorde and the only thing around was The Hotel Crillon. I of course insisted we should eat at their restaurant.

Now, FrenchBoy was extremely leary of dropping into the fanciest hotel in France and asking for a table sans reservation, but I guilted him into playing along by reminding him that it was Saturday and on Saturdays dammit, we have fancy lunch!

So that’s what I did. I walked into the fanciest old-school restaurants in France, without a reservation, wearing jeans and sneakers, and very politely asked –in French--for a table….and got one.

Side note: This is where FrenchBoy and My sensibilities part company. He would have never strolled in there had I not forced him. I am constantly forcing him to do stuff he doesn’t want to do. Even after all these years, I still think he sees me as this crazy American girl. And if he is honest with himself, I think he would admit that this is one of the reasons why he married me.

So, we’re sitting at our table at L’Obelisque and I’m so excited because I’m thinking that my ass is firmly planted in a chair that at some previous point in time probably held the celebrity ass of Thierry Henri, Johhnny Depp, or Madonna… and I’m checking out my menu---which has no prices. I ask FrenchBoy if we should order champagne and he chuckles. It took me a second to realize that he was laughing because he thought I was making a joke. But I wasn’t making a joke at all because my “Lady Menu” didn’t have prices. Meanwhile on the other side of the table FrenchBoy has the “Messieur Menu” which DOES have the prices clearly marked, and he can see that the price of the fancy vintage champagne is 23 euros per coup. Uhm, voila.

I was too embarrassed to whip out my camera and take pictures of each course of our lunch, but I did take a few shots on the sly. Over-all the food and the ambiance were excellent, but the service----the service was absolutely fantastic. Fantasic I say! You see, good service is all about anticipation of a client’s needs. A good server knows what you need before you have to ask for it. I got a kick out of how often they refilled my water glass. It’s as if they magically know that in exactly 3.3 more sips, my glass would be empty and a momentary empty water glass would ruin my entire dining experience.

Anyway, I’m not sure what the name of my dessert was, but it was so incredibly creamy and delicious that I had to sit awhile and sip my coffee as I waited for it to digest before we could leave. I don’t recognize the shape, but the components were a bit like an Opera.

Anyway, don’t ever let anyone tell you that money can’t buy happiness. That’s all bullshit, because happiness = cake and money can buy fancy lunches that end with cake. And thus money does indeed buy hapiness. It's simple f*cking math people.

End of discussion.