Le Petit Cler, Paris

Finally, we are in Paris! Armed with a fistful of Euros and numerous restaurant recommendations, we attempt to eat our way around Paris. On the way to Tour Eiffel, we walk down rue Dominique and find rue Cler. We are pretty famished and although there are some famous eateries in the area - were not up to finding them. We did find a fairly popular cafe that looked nice and a good number of customers enjoying some Parisian sun with a coffee and cigarettes. I'm so thankful that restaurants banned smoking but even walking along the sidewalks in Paris feels like a toxic respiratory attack. Le Petit Cler was a super little cafe with standard cafe menu. I had the croque monsieur on granary bread - the gruyere cheese was thick and luscious. Paul had the day's special, canard parmentier. We had no idea what it was except that it would have duck in it. Luckily, it turned out to be delicious, duck confit with carrot on a bed of mashed potato. Later, I find out parmentier is a French shepherd's pie - typically made with minced beef, not lamb as in the English version. I also only found out later that rue Cler has been championed by Rick Steve (an English chef/food writer) as a street with individual food stalls for everything - a cheese shop, bakery, butcher, fishmonger, greengrocer etc. etc. Now I wish I was paying more attention when I walked down the street!