It is a cafe much like any other Parisien cafe, Cafe des 2 Moulins, and I don’t know how often we walked past it without realising it was ‘Amelie’s Cafe’

It was bitterly cold out with melting snow turning to ice making long walks treacherous, and you can only spend so much time gazing at a chimney waiting for smoke of any colour to pour out, so we decided to brave the ice for lunch at Amelie’s Cafe.

Not a hint of the iconic fringe on the outside, but once inside there is no doubting where you are with pictures adorning the walls and the menu cover a clever Ameliesque design. Our waiter spoke good English, but accepted our continued attempts at ordering in French with good grace and only a hint of a smile on his face.

It was a very pleasant lunch, vegetable soup, sausages and lentils and tarte tatin, an upside down tart usually made with apples, but this made with pears and served with creme fraiche. All washed down with a bacchus of red wine, a bacchus being a large wine glass which saves having to call the garçon too often! All in all worth a visit, not only so you can say you have eaten in Amelie’s cafe.

Amelie with a devilish glint in her eyes!

Snow

A white winter wonderland, the soft feel of snowflakes fluttering against my face, the crisp crunch underfoot, the tiny pigeon footprints patterning the white footpaths…….all quite magical for someone who a week or so ago was sweltering in 40C ………it is a shame it is so damn cold!!!!!

One of the joys of walking our neighborhood is the seafood shop on the corner of Rue Lepic and Rue de Abbesses with its wonderfully tempting array of every seafood imaginable from the live langoustine with their feelers waving in cold air, the cockles and mussels (alive alive oh!) the shiny silvery herrings and the large pieces of Colin (the fish, not the person, and it is what we know as hake).

Langoustines

A fan of The Great British Menu and Rick Stein’s TV shows, I have always been fascinated by Langoustines, looking like a very large prawn with long dangerous claws the size of their body. In their natural state they have the bright red colour of cooked prawns and crayfish. I had just seen Rick whip up a feed of langoustines in a pan sizzling with garlic, oil and a splash of white wine, so they were our first purchase. Five minutes using the Rick Stein method, and what a feed!!

Soupe de Poissons et Crevettes

Of course, I couldn’t possibly let those langoustine shells go to waste so I cooked up a seafood stock and made Soupe de Poisson et Crevettes ( Fish and Prawn Soup). Absolutely delicious

Fillets of Sardines

Our last purchase was fillets of sardines which were crumbed and fried and eaten simply with baguette and a glass of wine.

One of the reasons it took me so long to make a start on my blog was because I couldn’t think of a name. On our first night in Paris we headed off to explore the neighborhood and look for something to eat. We came home with a baguette, some cheese (Camembert because we were too overwhelmed with the wide array of choices to try anything else) and a packet of PiMs orange biscuits. When we got back to the apartment, cut and buttered the first slice, we just knew it would taste so good with Vegemite (doesn’t every good Australian travel with a tube of Vegemite tucked in their suitcase)

And I knew I had found my name, “Baguettes and Vegemite”, the travels of an Australian in France