The Parisian Mosaic
While grocery shopping in Paris features high quality, the ethnic variety we're used to is hard to find. Yesterday we took ourselves down to the 13th arrondissement to shop for things we've been missing, like peanut sauce, rice wine, and whole chilies. Wikipedia says that Paris' Chinatown is one of the largest in Europe, but it has only a little of the hustle and bustle found at Spadina and Dundas, and none of the charm. The buildings are for the most part ugly modern concrete boxes. We stopped for lunch at a recommended restaurant but found it only so-so. Janet remarked that the nearby McDonald's was the highlight of the area in terms of Asian colour. We did accomplish our mission, but as a cultural adventure the sortie was a little disappointing.
Groceries in hand, we took a short metro ride up to the Musée de l'institut du Monde Arabe, for an exhibition entitled the Golden Age of Arab Sciences. The show covers the development of mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and engineering, among others, through the middle ages. Interesting, but heavy with text and light on actual artifacts. Also, perhaps the middle of Saturday afternoon is not the best time for a visit. The crowds made the galleries claustrophobic and it was at times difficult to see anything at all.
Our last stop was an elegant wine shop in the 1st, called Lavinia. It has an extensive selection of fairly high-end wines; we had to look sharply to find things in our price range. While it mostly features French wines and spirits, of course, they also claim to have two thousand labels from the rest of the world. We found Greek, Ukrainian and even Cuban bottles, but only two from Canada: Iniskillin ice wines, out of stock. All the same, we enrolled in their affinity club, and plan to attend some of their evening tastings.
posted 26.2.06
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