Esens'All - A delightful return

We leave the hotel at 6.55pm and undertake a reverse route from this afternoon, catching the metro 4 and changing on to the M2 to the Roma station and walk to the restaurant.

We arrive at Esens'all at 7.25pm for our 7.30pm booking and we are the only clients for the first 50 minutes of our meal.

We first visited Esens'all in 2012 during our last European trip - Drew had read about it on TripAdvisor and it was a wondeful experience - we even blogged about it here.

The place is much lighter and brighter 11 years on, but apart from that Laurent is still doing his magic. When we were last here the place had not been open a year. One more change, the options are now five or seven courses, it was six and eight back then. One thing hadn't changed Laurent discusses your preference or dislikes in advance and then he creates the menu influenced by that. Having treated us so well 11 years ago we left him to his own choices. 

Lauret, doesn't only cook the food, he also serves it and gives detailed insight into its provenance and how it fits with his food philosophy. 

The Amuse Boche was Ravioli with mozzarella, basil and oregano and micro-flowers olive oil, the overall experience was light and zingy. 

Our first course was Goat's cheese and smoked salmon with fish roe offering a pop of salt, all in the shortest pastry I've ever tasted. It provided a real comfort and a feeling of delight and joy. Food should always be so amazing. Unfortunately, you are going to have to take our word for it, as I didn't stop eating long enough to take a photo!

The bread course was freshly cooked focaccia and pain de campagne, these were served with a soy butter. The butter had all the flavour of soy sauce but with a richer background notes as it is made into a butter. We were cheeky and asked for another set of breads so we could use up the butter.

Our next course was shrimp with four types of tomato in seasonal oil with roasted seemed seeds, linseeds and aniseed served with microflower and herbs. It seemed like a tomato would be very happy to be a part of this dish. 

I'm afraid with Lauret spending so much time with us, I've not been doing well on the photos. I missed the shrimp and tomoaroes dish, but at least you can see that the bowl and the cutlery was very pretty!! 

Next came a dish Lauret asked us to guess at. This is how it looks:

The powder tastes and acts like gel in the mouth, full bodied and rich. Yes, it is powder on the spoon, but the moment it goes into the mouth it gives a creamy mouth feel, nothing less than culinary magic. We identify the flavour of kaffir lime leaves in the dish, but (unlike the French couple who arrived and had it a little later than us) we didn't recognise the foie gras, it had been frozen and then crushed. The third taste is coco bean powder, a hint of chocolate. The combined flavour is such a delight I wish the dish would never end - wonderful.

Our next course was fresh peas, smoked eel, puffed rice, egg (lightly boiled), roe and verbena sauce. The lemonyness of the verbena works well with the eel, the pea has a savoury flavour and the puffed rice and a crispness, the just cooked egg could have been gloopy, but in this chef's hands it has become a sauce which draws out the flavour of the peas and meaty eel. 

Our fish course was a lightly steamed cod with Jerusalem artichoke, white peach, poppy seeds foam and microflowers and microherbs. Drew reminded me that my sister warned me off poppy seeds as they could come up on a drug test - but as I wasn't planning to have a drug test I was happy to eat the juicy flavour which enhanced the delicacy of the cod.

Our meat course was a breast of duck, black carrot cooked in cumin and sesame seeds, sweet potato mash and black garlic sauce - again a combination that I wouldn't have thought of putting together, but which when combined makes for glorious eating. I wonder if the chef has dreams where he makes up these dishes - when I ask, he says he has a book beside his bed and whiteboard in his kitchen, so he can catch the thoughts when they come through his mind. I'm so glad he does.  

The pre-dessert is a sesame and chia seed crisp with raspberries, strawberries, pomegranate, melon and blackberries served with mascarpone and an herb ice cream. The flavours are fresh and light, as intended the pre-dessert combines savoury flavours with a hint of sweetness.

Our dessert is a chocolate ganache with black peppers and paprika ice cream. Yes, read that again and allow the idea to enter your mind, the food was as unbelievable as it implies. All the flavours seemed to be the opposite of what you might expect in a dessert, the chocolate was spiky with black pepper, the ice cream did indeed taste exactly like paprika, not a flavour I've ever associated with ice cream and the caramel wasn't a sugar feast but a flavour of star anises and clove. 

There isn't a flavour I'd not tasted before, but in combinations that I can barely believe even after I've eaten them.

The world-famous chef, Escoffier said that what made French cuisine special is the ability to use simple ingredients and transform them by artful techniques, Lauret exemplifies this in everything he creates. It is great reminder, as this holiday comes to an end, that it is not the number of waiters or even meeting the chefs than make for good food, but creative ideas executed to perfection. We are so lucky we can expereince delights like this.

We finish with an espresso each

and leave at 10.15pm, arriving back at the Holiday Inn at 11pm.

A walk about Paris will provide lessons in history, beauty, and in the point of life

It was Thomas Jefferson, who lived in Paris from 1784 to 1789, who said:

A walk about Paris will provide lessons in history, beauty, and in the point of life

and 240 years later, I think he had it just right. But before describing our day in Paris, let's go back to the beginning of the day.

Morning

I woke up at 4.10am and was glad to see that apart from a black eye and a few scraps on my hands I'm still feeling great. The small cut on my eyebrow that did all the bleeding last night isn't visible with my lovely shiner. I use the time before Drew wakes up to complete the Riga to Tallinn blog post.

Drew wakes at 6am and I make a cup of tea for us both and do our ablutions. 

Breakfast

We go down to breakfast at 7.30am. I was right in my guess yesterday, there is no sign of herring in the Paris breakfast offer.

The selection of cheese, light fluffy omelette and cooked meats make up for the missing herring, though I am going to miss that sharp tang.

Optician

While I'm feeling well my glasses didn't come off so lightly, one of the arms is so out of kilter that the glasses sit at a strange angle. I spot that there is an Optician nearby, the Saint Martin Optical Centre. The person who serves me does a great job of straightening my glasses, they aren't perfect, but they are wearable, which is good as my spare pair are at home.

Paris Metro 

After having no problem with apps in any of the many and varied places we have visited, it is the Paris Metro app that only works with France registered phones, which defeats me. It is set up so that your metro travel is billed to the phone account. So, while I still buy a day ticket, it is a card one bought at one of the machines in Gare du Nord for €8.45 each.

As well as using a machine and having a card, you need to write on it to validate it. At home I always carry a pen but I've dropped out of this practice during this holiday as I was finding it hard to take my phone in and out of my pocket with my pen in the way. So, if you look back at the photos, you'll see I stopped carrying it from Vilnius onwards. Pity, as today it would have helped. Still, we managed to borrow one from the customer service assistant at the station and write on our names and the date.

Norte Dame

I'd not planned any details of the trip to Paris, other than booking a restaurant for a meal tonight. In a way I saw Paris as a relaxing day at the end of the holiday. Indeed, the original plan was to go from Hamburg to Amsterdam and catch the Eurostar from there, but Amsterdam is hosting the Formula One Grand Prix, so had no accommodation available, hence us ending the trip here.  

Though as we are in Paris, 11 years since we were last here, it seemed too good an opportunity to miss visiting some of the traditional sites. And given the events of 2019 it was at Notre Dame that we started.

Notre Dame had made such a big impact on me in previous visits to Paris, now it is a building site, but with lots of evidence of its renewal. The images around the building use photos from a National Geographic report on the reconstruction, so it seems best to link direct to that article.

Eiffel Tower

We walk from Notre Dame to the College De France 

where we pick up the Bus 86 which goes from here to Rapp-La Bourdonnais.

We arrive at the Eiffel Tower just before midday and decide that we are perfectly happy viewing from the bottom, having previously visited the top (well I did, Drew doesn't like heights!) [Co-pilot's note: It is not the heights that bother me, dear readers, it is the sudden stop at the bottom of the drop!!]

We walk down to the River Seine 

and walk along the bank until we come to the Olympic clock, which is counting down to July next year or 336 days.

Place de La Concorde

We left the tower area and caught the Bus 42 to Place de La Concorde at the end of the Champs-Elysées.

The 3,300 year-old Luxor Obelisk is always very impressive, but the two amazing fountains, the Fontaines des Mers et des Fleuves are closed for renovations.

From the Obelisk we walked down the Champs-Elysées to its junction with Avenue Winston Churchill where the Grand and Petit Palais are located. 

Like the tourists we are we took photos of Clemenceau, De Gaulle and Churchill, all who have statues in this area.

Musée de l’Armée

We continued our walk interested in the large dome we could see the other side of the Seine.

It turns out this is the Musée de l’Armée which is a location of the Tomb of the Emperor Napoleon. Perhaps it planned to give us an excuse for another visit to Paris, as the site is being renovated and won't open until just before the Olympics next year. Still, it is a very imposing building.

Sacré Coeur

We catch the Bus 92 and then the Metro 13 to Place de Clichy from which we change to Metro 2 to Anvers and then up the Funicular to Montmartre.

Sacré Coeur is as busy as always, but is such a prayerful place, even with the crowds all around.

Back to the Hotel 

We leave Montmartre and walk down the back of the hill, rather than the way we came up.

We catch the Metro 12 from Lamark, it is a very old station and, when we get to the bottom of the steps, we are warned there are 112 of them - I guess they were easier to walk down than they would have been up, but it would have been nice to know at the top. 

We change at Market Possineures and catch Metro 4 to Gard L'Est, arriving at the hotel at 3.30pm. It does make a good impression from this angle, which I'd not noticed on the day we arrived.

Afternoon

I snoozed for an hours after our walk in the heat of Paris. I complete another blog post and from 6pm onwards we shower and dress for dinner.

We headed out of the hotel at 7pm for our dinner at Esens'all, but more about that in the next post.

Hamburg to Paris

We start the day in Hamburg and end it in Paris - with a black eye! Before getting into the detail of that incident, time to look at the rest of the day.

Morning

I woke at 4am and edited the photos from yesterday and uploaded them to Flickr - while I've been behind on the blog, Flickr has been updated much more regularly than on previous holidays when on occasion the upload has not worked - clearly wifi has got better over the years, or perhaps I'm staying in better hotels with better wifi!

Drew awoke at 5.30am and I used the posh coffee machine to make coffee for us both before I did my teeth, shaved and showered. The shower here is absolutely excellent. 

Breakfast

We pack and take our luggage down to breakfast with us. We fo down at 6.30am. I wonder as I enjoy my breakfast whether this will be my last soused herring after it being so central to breakfast since we arrived in Cologne three weeks ago.

For the second day Drew is taken by the boiled eggs that someone has named. He was intrigued by some people who used the name to decide on their eggs!

[Co-pilot's note: It was intriguing, dear readers, most intriguing indeed. One chap (a person not an egg) picked up an egg which happened to have the name COLM on it, however after examining Colm in close detail, said gentleman, shock his head, muttered nein, put Colm down and picked up Henrietta and nodded his satisfaction! I was able to observe this behaviour as he was blocking my way to the bacon!!

I couldn't work out, dear readers, what type of person they employ to write the names on the boiled eggs, but I think I could easily be employed in this role.]

Travel

At 7.20am we check out, leave the hotel, travel by U4 U-Bahn to Berlin Central North and walk to the Central Station, which is right around the corner. Our train ticket today includes subway travel to the station, so we don't have to pay an extra cost for that. 

We arrive at Hamburg HBF (Central) at 7.35am. We get to platform 14, 40 minutes early. We thought we'd got better than this, but we haven't really - you'll have to give us training Lloyd!! We are still to early, even after all this time.

The first train today is heading to Basel, we are due to leave at 8.39am - the train is 15 minutes late due to a train ahead of it running slow. We had 12 minutes to change at Mannheim now it may be no time at all!!

Hannover - the train is due here at 9:38pm, we arrive at 9:53am. It is at this point that we cross our origianl journey and have made a big circle of Northern Europe. 

Today

We were last here on Monday the 7th of August, 17 days ago.

August 7th

The journey continued in a comfortable, peaceable and relaxing way, we even had coffee and water delivered to our seats as part of the first-class service.

We travel through the following stations:

Göttingen: Due - 10.15am; Arrive 10:30am 

Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe: Due 10.35am; Arrive10:50am 

Fulda: Due 11:46am; Arrive 12:08pm 

Hanau Hbf: Due 12:26pm; Arrive 12:50pm

Frankfurt (Main) Süd: Due 12:39pm; Arrive 1:05pm

You'll note the consistent pattern, the short delay is now longer and getting longer at each stop. It is at this point that the DB app again comes into its own.

The app was vital as the level of information it provided was much better than any announcements made on the train. If we had not had access to it, we would have got off at Mannheim where the next Paris bound trains involve 2 or 3 changes along the journey. 

The app shows us that the best option for us, without multiple changes, is to stay on the train we are on until Karlsruhe and catch the Karlsruhe to Paris train from there. If we had got off at Mannheim, we would have had to change multiple times or catch the next train to Karlsruhe and been too late for this connection.

 

We arrive at Mannheim Hbf at 1:50pm, when we were due at 1:27pm and it is clear the train we should have connected to has gone, so we stay on board. 

We arrive at Karlsruhe at 2.43pm the Paris train is at 3.32pm

The weather was a shock, we left Hamburg at a pleasant 24C (75F) we arrived in Karlsruhe 32C (92 F). Luckily, the station had good aircon, so we went for a coffee while waiting for our next train.

We catch the Ice 9572, which is going from Stuttgart to Paris Est. We manage to get seats for the first part of the journey and Drew notes that we are again passing a border, the border between Germany and France across the River Rhine just before arriving in Strasbourg. 

The train fills up at Strasbourg and we have to give up our seats to people who have a reservation. So, we need to stand for the last leg between Strasbourg and Paris. Though having been sat down since 8.40am it isn't a problem. 

This was our route

Paris

We arrive in Paris at 6.18pm, only an hour later than our original plan. The Holiday Inn Gare de l'Est is right across the road from the station.

We check in at 6.25pm and settle into our room.

Dinner

We leave the room for dinner at 8.30pm, having spotted that there is a restaurant in the same building as the hotel further along the street, so after a long day we opt to eat there.

The restaurant is called Bouillon Chartier and has a simple, but intriguing menu. 

I was in Paris, so it seemed to be necessary to enjoy the juicy Escargots in their delightful garlic butter. They were as tasty as I expected.

Drew chooses Vinaigrette de poireaux, a Leek vinaigrette, and like the rest of the food here, the menu describes it perfectly and it is quickly consumed. 

For mains I have Langue de boeuf en sauce diable avec pommes de terre, a juicy, full-flavoured beef tongue, with a spicy sauce which all gets mopped up with the potatoes. I have a side of champignons with the mains.

Drew opts for Boudin noir aux deux pommes, a long string of Black pudding with two apples - a clever pun that doesn't translate into English. Potato in French is Pomme de terre and Apple is pomme, so the top apples speak of the mashed potatoes and the charred apple. This is a way to serve apple I've not seen before, but it must have been good as Drew's plate was finished at the end.

It was good to see cheese on the menu, so I had to avail of it. I choose Fromage Bleu d'Auvergne, and with no trimming other than French bread it was a perfect end to the meal.

Drew ordered Gâteau au chocolat avec crème anglaise - Choclate Cake with Custard - as he said, what's not to like in such a gooey delight.

We finished the meal with an espresso each and left the restaurant at 9.45pm. 

Going for a walk!

As we had been travelling for most of the day, I thought it would be nice to go for a walk. I suggested to Drew we walk up to Gare du Nord, to see what our journey would be like on Saturday morning. It only took us ten minutes to walk from the hotel to the station, so we turned around and walked back towards the hotel. 

Our route was like this:

As we cross the Boulevard de Strasbourg I mention to Drew about the fact that crossings in France don't have the same rules as those in the UK.

As I tell this story I walk past a tree, this is a photo of the tree, taken the next morning

My shoe gets jammed into the loose metal surround of the tree.

The rest of my body continues in its original direction, having the effect of me flying through the air and landing on the floor in front of the L'Avant Gare. 

[Co-pilot's note: You may, dear readers, be wondering where I was when all of this happened. All I know is I crossed at a crossing and upon reaching the other side can hear some inane wittering about rules for crossing the road. I suddenly hear a 'Oh No' followed by people rushing towards us for no apparent reason. Next, I hear a thud, I look down and there is Mr B sprawled on the floor. Doing his best impression of the Black Knight from Monty Python - 'It's just a flesh wound'.]

While most of my fall is caught by my hands, my glasses hit my arm and crash into my face, making a cut at the corner of the eyebrow (and the black eye you see above). 

This tiny cut bled profusely, so much so that, while a little patience would have seen it stop, the proprietor of the restaurant rang the Pompier (fire brigade) who deal with medical call outs in Paris. 

The blood was profuse as you can see from the washed area the next morning. 

 

The Pompiers arrived within ten minutes but their ministrations were unnecessary, however, as they had been called, I had to undergo Blood Pressure tests and an ECG, but thankfully after that I was able to go back to the hotel, wondering why there had been so much fuss. I think they assumed the blood meant I had hit my head of the floor, but thankfully that hadn't happened! 

Thankfully after a good night's sleep only my glasses were the worse for wear.

[Co-Pilot's note: I, dear readers, would like to point out that I have spent weeks telling the pilot to look where he is going and each time, I've had such advice rejected out of hand with comments like: 'It must be very scary in Drew world where people fall all the time'. I stop telling him and THIS HAPPENS - this is what I call a teachable moment!! AGAIN!!]