"Paris" news and stories

If you've been in Paris, you've probably been in this situation: It's 8:00, you're wandering around an unfamiliar arrondissement after a long day of staring at 18th-century paintings, your spoken French is way short of Madame Sarkozy's, and you're hungry and want to rest your dogs at a fantastic restaurant. Merde!

Calm down, weary traveler. Alec Lobrano, the former European editor for Gourmet and an American expat who's called Paris home for 25 years, has your back. With the recently released second edition of his Hungry for Paris, Lobrano supplies more than 100 in-depth suggestions, from the hautest dining rooms in town to the bistros where you can kick back with an omelet and a groaning plate of boudin noir (like La Bigarrade, Jadis, and L'Epigramme).

My pants are as tight as sausage casings. My stomach resembles a beach ball. And my breath seems to permanently reek of blue cheese. That's the downfall of spending six days letting my appetite guide me across the culinary pleasures of Paris.

And while I could've simply popped into any old brasserie and blown my savings on bottles of bubbly and truffle-topped delights, that wasn't my aim. I wanted cheap. I wanted delicious. "You want a miracle," said my friend Bati, with whom I was staying in Paris. I took that as a challenge. So with a pocketful of Euros, I sought out eats and drinks as affordable as they were delicious.

In no particular order, 10 of my favorite spots for sipping and sustenance after the jump.

• Take your downward-dog right down into the soup course at a "Yoga for Foodies" session. Chocolate truffles follow the chaturanga.
• Martha Rose Shulman unearths a blueberry pudding recipe that sounds almost -- dare we say it -- sexy.
• Growling for an extra-large beer? "Growlers have been around since Christ was a child. . . . We're not doing anything new."
• Vodka is just a day job for this absinthe maker.
• Ah, c'est tres moderne: These venerable Parisian restaurants are both angling themselves for twenty-first-century customers, but in very different ways.

Over the past few years, Japanese chefs have been coming to Paris and taking on several aspects of French cuisine, from hamburger d'escargots au foie gras to macarons. Instead of opening up mere fusion-type food establishments, they are creating innovative approaches to long-established French dishes. For instance, Makoto Aoki brings out the juicy flavors of roast pork by adding soy sauce and miso. At a different Aoki shop (not related to Makoto), Sadaharu Aoki, there's white chocolate with sesame and salted caramel truffles with green tea. Even cheese, a dairy product that does not even exist in traditional Japanese cuisine, is being given a new life thanks to renowned Paris-based Japanese affineur Madame Hisada. She creates a new take on the traditional French Banon, a goat's milk cheese from Provence, by aging it in cherry leaves instead of chestnut leaves.

A Paris McDonald's. Photo: Let Ideas Compete/flickr

Mona Lisa, meet Le Big Mac.

Lovers of French culture and art snobs are buzzing with disapproval after McDonald's confirmed its plans to open a restaurant within the Louvre in Paris, according to the Daily Telegraph.

To celebrate its 30th anniversary in France, McDonald's will open its 1,142nd French restaurant a few yards away from the iconic art museum in Carrousel du Louvre, an underground shopping center within the Louvre complex.

"I'm not against eating in a museum but McDonald's is hardly the height of gastronomy," Didier Rykner, head of the Art Tribune Web site told the Telegraph. "Today McDonald's, tomorrow low-cost clothes shops."