International Eats - Paris: Crepes on Crepes on Crepes

Paris is known for many things: Eiffel Tower, Arch de Triumph, Notre Dame, The Louvre and FOOD!! In my 4 days in Paris I saw it all - especially the food! :)

I was so excited to have real French crepes, macrons and escargot. I made sure to indulge in as much as I possibly could in that short time. 

The most fun was the hunt for good crepes. I quickly learned that having gluten free crepes would be easier than I thought. The French eat their savory "crepes" with buckwheat batter, making it a galette. After their galette, they eat dessert crepes with white flour. Thankfully, making dessert crepes on buckwheat was no problem... Having room to eat one, however, was. 

On our first full day, we went to the Picasso Museum in Marias. After searching on Yelp before we left our hotel we found one of the top rated creperies just around the corner. We popped in Breizh and learned there was a 2 hour wait. 2 hours!? No problem! That gave us time to see the museum and explore the neighborhood. When we were sat, we were given French menus but soon after, we figured out they also had an English menu. Perfect! We honestly had no idea what we were ordering otherwise. I went with ham, egg, mushroom and cheese and Christiana ordered ham and cheese. 

The batter was dark golden brown and super crispy. We ate until we couldn't breath then looked around and saw everyone else had finished their crepe too... And began ordering dessert crepes. How!?  We don't know. There was no chance any more food was fitting in my stomach. 

On day two we explored Champs Elysees. Naturally, we searched for the best nearby Creperies before we left. We walked in Creperies Framboise and were cheerfully greeted and immediately sat.  Perfect! As we looked around the restaurant everyone was eating galettes and sipping cider. With this being our first meal of the day we did the most American thing you can do at a creperie and ordered coffee before our meal. The French typically drink theirs afterward. Oh well! We had to get energy to climb up the Arch De Triumph! 

I ordered a mozzarella, tomato, arugula and egg over easy galette. Christiana had smoked salmon with salad, goat cheese and creme fresh over her galette. When I bit into mine, it reminded me of a pizza on a perfectly crispy crust. I loved it! 

Christiana was a bit disappointed her galette was served under the salmon and cheese. Neither of us expected to see the mound of food on top but it was tasty, none the less. And of course super filling! Once again, neither of us had room for dessert crepes. :(

By day three we wanted to dine like the Parisians. We visited Little Breizh - the sister creperie to where we went on day one. Before our gallets we ordered a bottle of cider. When looking at the menu, we both salivated over the bacon, egg and cheese gallet so we decided to split that and another. 

The second crepe was filled with three cheeses, walnuts and pancetta then covered in honey and shaved hazelnut. It was the perfect combo of sweet and tangy and tasted a bit like a dessert crepe. So again, we didn't order an official dessert crepe. 

On our last day we had just enough time to eat before our train back to London. We wanted to stay relatively close to our hotel so we headed to the border of Bastille and The Latin Quarter. We looked up two different options: the first of which was empty but they wouldn't seat us because we didn't have a reservation. Our second pick was a creperie called West Country Girl. It was a bit of a walk and located in the middle of a residential street but we didn't have much trouble finding it. 

When we walked in we felt like we were at a quirky dive spot on the lower east side. Relaxed servers and unique group of people dining. Once sat, the server asked how we had heard about them - through Yelp, of course. This creperie was definitely a neighborhood gem loved by locals so they didn't have an English menu for us. Instead, I asked what the servers fave crepe was. He said the Brie and leek galette with bacon added to it. SOLD! That's what I ordered. 

Christiana ordered a spinach and goat cheese filled galette topped with raisins. 

These galette were by far my absolute fave of the trip!! They were so thin, crispy and light. The texture and flavor were unlike any we had all week. Because they were so thin we had room for dessert too!! (Can I get an AMEN!??)  we ordered one Nutella galette to split. 

After a few bites, Christiana was done so lucky me got the rest. Whoever put Nutella on a crepe is a hero in my book. It was so damn delicious! So much so that after the first, I ordered a second. (Yep... No shame here!) 

Even after eating two and a half crepes, I felt great. West Country Girl is hands down my fave crepe in Paris. 

And this concludes the binge-eating portion of my culinary travels. ;)