We can’t attest to the food in this restaurant but we can attest to the cuteness of the Deco Cafe. We were in Saint Remy de Provence for their famous, Wednesday street market and walked by this adorable cafe.

Answer: Nothing. Ok, maybe a perfectly made juicy burger. Hee!

Back to this giant croissant. We hit the road again and stopped off at a random bakery in Chevagnes. Their gimmick is giant baked goods! Fun, non?

From Le Meurice’s FB:

Yannick Alléno, the Head Chef of Le Meurice’s 3 Michelin Star gastronomic restaurant, loves to reinvent classic recipes and has brought about a new meaning to breakfast in Paris, with the Choc’Alléno.

Created with Ladurée, the renowned Parisian café and pastry shop, the Choc’Alleno will be available in all Ladurée boutiques as well as for breakfast at Le Meurice from 11 September 2009. Looking to create is own version of the French croissant after being inspired by the chocolate aromas and colours at Ladurée, Yannick Alléno researched different types and textures of cocoa bean and decided to re-interpret the French art of “viennoiserie”.

The Choc’Alléno pain au chocolat and croissant are all-chocolate: the dough is made with chocolate and added cocoa beans to enhance the flavour, arousing a multitude of sensors in the palate – and making it impossible to resist.

The Choc’Alléno will be served for breakfast from 11 September 2009 in the Restaurant Le Meurice from 7am -10.30am weekdays and from 7am-11am weekends, for €36.

The Choc’Alléno breakfast will include:
o Choc’Alléno pain au chocolat
o Choc’Alléno croissant
o Chocolate baguette
o A selection of coffees, teas and hot chocolates (specially selected by the Head Sommelier Nicolas Rebut)
o Fruit Juice
o Chocolate chip butter
o Jam and Honey

via

That last post was so creepy and perhaps a hoax but I just had to post it. Sorry. C’etait plus fort que moi. Anyway, to assuage any horrible aftereffects you might have experienced, here’s a more pleasant blog post with photos of beautiful Annecy from a recent trip.

From wired:

Finally, fishermen off the northern coast of France have found a large parasitic isopod (a relative of the louse) that has evolved a rather hideous method for survival in its host: it gets into the fish’s mouth and then devours its tongue. It then attaches itself at the back of the fish’s throat where it presumably feeds of whatever the fish normally eats. The really bizarre part is that the fish doesn’t seem to suffer any ill effects other than the loss of its tongue.

For Americans, the translation of Barbe à Papa into “candy floss” might dream up visions of fun and flavorful (but inefficient) dental hygiene tools, but in England and Australia, candy floss is just your run-of-the-mill term for cotton candy. There’s probably a crass dental joke in here somewhere but I’m not going there. Instead I’ll leave you with a photo of yummy macarons, candy floss flavored and all, from Les Halles in Lyon.

There’s nothing fancy about one of the last remaining authentic bouchons* in Lyon, Café des fédérations, but that’s exactly how I like some restaurants these days.

Though founded in the beginning of the 20th century, Café des fédérations is now owned by Yves Rivoiron. It’s considered a very typical bouchon with its hanging sausages, checkered table cloths and old world decor, and was specifically recommended to us by a pastry chef who bows down to the establishment.

It’s not a place for vegetarians and even some carnivores would cringe at the menu. There’s a lot of very fatty items and some offal-y offerings like tripe, andouillette, tete de veau, and something called Gras double à la lyonnaise, which is a big slab of fat. A double dose of it to boot! At least that’s how it was described to me. I didn’t order that but I do like fat especially in the Lyon saucisson sec served as appetizers. Yes, the fat globs makes those things come together perfectly. YUM.

For appetizers, we had charcuteries lyonnaises, pieds de veau (calf’s feet) and a flavorful though undercooked caviar de la croix rousse, which is a lentil salad.

The “safest” thing on the menu for a main dish if you aren’t feeling particularly adventurous would be the chicken. It’s delicious.

^{Poulet au vinaigre / Chicken in a vinegar sauce}
I had the blood sausage with apples, which were the best blood sausages I’ve had. Disclaimer: This was the second time I’ve ordered blood sausage. hee.

^{Boudin noir aux pommes / Blood sausage with apples}
My dessert photos are too blurry to show. We had tarte aux pralines roses, a tarte aux citron and gateau au chocolat.

Based on our visit, I’d have to say that Café des fédérations offers a peek at and experience of the authentic bouchon scene in Lyon – a lively atmosphere, nostalgic surroundings and simple home-style cooking.

Café des fédérations
8 rue du Major-Martin
69001 Lyon
Telephone: 04.78.28.26.00
You must reserve in advance.

* A bouchon is a type of restaurant in Lyon, France, that serves traditional Lyonnaise cuisine, such as sausages, offal, duck pâté or roast pork. Compared to other forms of French cooking such as nouvelle cuisine, the dishes are quite fatty, and heavily oriented around meat. There are around 20 officially certified traditional bouchons, but a larger number of establishments describing themselves using the term.

According to Le petit Robert this name derives from the 16th century expression for a bunch of twisted straw. A representation of such bundles began to appear on signs to indicate restaurants, and by extension the restaurants themselves became known as bouchons. The more common use of “bouchons” as a stopper at the mouth of a bottle, and its derivatives, have a different etymology. [from wikipedia]

HEE. Doesn’t everyone already KNOW he’s short? Anyway.

From the telegraph:

Twenty short people were ordered to stand behind French President Nicolas Sarkozy to make him look taller while delivering a televised speech.

They were bused in after being “vetted” by aides of the French President who made sure none were more than his own height of 5ft 5ins.

The extraordinary scene unfolded at the Faurecia motor technology plant in Caligny, south of Caen, in Normandy, last Thursday.

Despite Mr Sarkozy’s lack of inches, he looked far more statuesque than usual as he posed in front of the group of white-coated technicians on a specially erected stage.

In a broadcast on French television on Monday, a woman researcher admitted on camera that she had been chosen because of her small size.

Asked by the TV journalist Jean-Philippe Schaller if it was necessary for her to be no taller than the President’s 5ft 5ins – a height which rises to around 5ft 7ins thanks to his stacked heels – she replied: “There you have it.”

Pictures were then shown of the 20 workers on board a coach which brought them in from other parts of the three-mile-square Faurecia site.

All admitted that they were among the smallest members of the 1,400-strong Faurecia workforce, and had been selected to replace the usual workers in the unit where Mr Sarkozy made his speech about the car industry.

Mr Sarkozy, who is notoriously…

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From macgamesandmore:

With the 30,000 (give or take 10 to 20 thousand) iphone apps available at the Apple iTunes store, including free, paid and game apps, it can feel no less than overwhelming looking for quality apps. How do you find the needle in a hay stack? Millions of others like you and I browsing the app store feel this pain. The bad side to this is that there are too many poor applications and duplicates, triplicates and quadruplacates (if that’s a word). The good side to having a prodigious amount of apps is that within this sea of apps a significant number of them are really excellent. Yay. Of course, the problem of trying to locate those apps remains pretty elusive. This is why I’m only going to feature apps that stand out of the crowd.

Since apps haven’t really been on my radar, many of the great ones surely slipped by me but I serendipitously stumbled upon this ingenious Paris Metro iPhone App. Seriously, the developers of this one are Gods.

The Paris Metro iPhone App is a must-have app for residents of and tourists traveling in Paris. Forget the clunky paper maps and GPS with a battery life of about 3 minutes. You’ll only need your trusty iPhone 3G because this app takes full advantage of the augmented reality features.

Watch the youtube video of the demonstration (click on the image). It explains how it works. Note: It’s in French but the visual is self-explanatory.

The Paris Metro iPhone App is 99 cents at the iTunes store. Get it now.

This one’s a fun one. Click on the image to take you to the video.