Amanda’s Red Guide : 09/17/2006

Disclaimer: Amanda's Red Guide is based on Amanda's taste only. Occasionally she takes input from her travel companions, but more often than not, her opinion dominates her reviews.Unfortunately, she didn't write down the exact names of her dishes due to various constraints.

Lunch :

Food court in the Musée du Louvre

We always had lunch at the crêpe station, and it employees always seemed to hate their jobs. Not because we liked to be abused, but we just felt like to have crêpes whenever we were at Louvre. And even though they hated their jobs, they didn’t hate crêpes. It was just too bad that I got so full that I didn’t have room for my favorite dessert crêpe!

Conclusion: Recommended.

Dinner:

Pizza Pino
27 Blvd. Des Italiens 75002 Paris
01 42 66 09 57

This is a chain, although we didn’t know it until the next day. It had the look of a fast food restaurant, and the service was sporadic and ocassionally confusing. My thin crust Chef Pizza (spicy sausage, egg, mozzarella, tomato sauce) was quite tasty and not heavy. For someone who normally didn’t eat pizza in the States, I ended finished most of my 10″ pizza. The profiteroles were yummy!

Conclusion: Recommended.

Hotel:

Hotel Saint Pétersbourg
33-35 rue Caumartin 75009 PARIS
01 42 66 60 38

Good: Great location, friendly staff, good included breakfast.
Bad: Out-of-date rooms.

Conclusion: Depending on your needs.

[typed on 10/06/2006]

Musée du Louvre

With no agenda in mind, we went to Musée du Louvre, our home base last December. The place was swamped by tourists from all over the world! There was a long line in front of the Pyramid; I bet that most people just wanted to experience the famous entrance. We took a relatively hidden entrance to its underground shopping center, to get a new battery for my Swatch that just died 2 hours ago.

The nice, young salesman showed us that the battery was fine but the watch had just died (Great quality control, Swatch!) and explained to us how to get it fixed in the States. Unfortunately, he was not able to put the battery back. After much trial and error and his co-worker’s reluctant help, he finally gave up and handed me a new one. Wow! Talking about customer service!

We walked along La Seine and saw one after another boats fully loaded with tourists. It made me wonder if there were more tourists than real Parisians at this particular moment?

Pétit-Dejeuner à l’Hôtel St-Pétersbourg, v2

Continued sketching my breakfast.