Winter Vacation '08 - Paris - The Eating, Part I (Festivo)

Through a fortunate hotel selection for our first trip to Paris in March 2002, Judy and I became familiar with the neighborhood around Rue des Martyrs in the 9th arrondissement (profiled in 2005 by the NYTimes).

It was sheer luck then that I booked us at Les Trois Poussins. I found it on Expedia -- the price was right and the pictures seemed decent. This was in the day before TripAdvisor had built up 179 reviews on the place. So with fairly limited info I pulled the trigger and hoped for the best.

I panicked a little bit on the flight over as I read more about the area and was realizing that we were really close to the 'red light district' of Pigalle. I had visions of the old Combat Zone in Boston where my friends and I would occasionally venture for sport during high school and college. But once Judy and I were on the ground and wandering about the neighborhood we realized it really wasn't that big of a deal. We did see a few dicey places, but it was nothing you don't see in just about every big city.


A = Les Trois Poussins; B = Pigalle; red box highlights part of Rue des Martyrs



The point of all this background is that Rue des Martyrs turned out to be a great place with a number of nice little restaurants and shops. On each of our successive trips here we always end up gravitating back into this "hood". And this time we finally got a chance to try Festivo.



We had wanted to try it during one of our previous visits but never made it in as it always seemed pretty crowded.



But on our first night out this time we got lucky. We got a table for two right in the window and our waiter was great. I always worry a little bit about the response I'm going to get when I break out the "est-ce-que vous parlez anglais?" But this guy (1) did speak English and (2) was very friendly.



So I exhaled. Then we both settled in and had a nice meal. Starting with a preposterously large 'appetizer' of caprese salad. This seriously was enough tomatoes for 6 people.



The entrees were great. Not sure how appetizing these dim pictures from my BlackBerry make them look, but trust me, they were quite nice.



Judy got some linguine in a spicy honey pesto sauce (which she has promised to try and emulate back home because it was that good).

And I got a fairly simple gnocchi with prosciutto. But just because it was simple doesn't mean it wasn't excellent. It was. After a long flight, followed by the car ride and bag schlep to our apartment, followed by a 3 or 4 hour zonk out nap, followed by a ~20 minute walk down the hill, this was a spectacularly comforting meal.