Disneyland Paris! Both Ryan and Chris had worked for Disney at the Disneyland Resort for the past 13 years or so, they had been given several park hopper passes that could be used in Paris. They were so generous to save a couple for us so on a bright sunny Tuesday; we headed out for a day of Disney Magic.
On the Metro heading to the Park
With our Metro passes, we were able to take metro and train all the way to the Park. The final stop of the train is called Marne-la-Vallèe Chessy (cheesy), which seems very appropriate according to James Bell. The metro and train ride was about an hour and we made it without any problems. The weather was very cooperative no rain, but fluffy clouds in blue skies.
Security Check point
First stop, Main Street and blue Christmas trees! Of course, sapphire is the color of the Disney 25th anniversary as well.
Here we are in front of the Disneyland Hotel – which happens to be the entrance to the Park
Main Street – USA?
Blue Christmas Trees on Main Street
We were going to ride down main street but decided to walk – which was nice. While it is the Christmas time there really were NOT any crowds!
Main Street USA?
Onward to Peter Pan and Pinocchio rides in Fantasy Land. Both are very similar to the Anaheim rides but just different enough to be interesting and enjoyable. Neither ride was narrated which we thought was strange – but then they would have had to do the narration in both French and English.
After two rides and a quick snack, we dared to ride Big Thunder Mountain. The Island isn’t an attraction to visit like Tom Sawyer Island, but it is the home of Big Thunder Mountain.
Molly Brown Thundermesa – Paris Disney
You board the train car and it goes under the river and circumvents the island. A really good ride! From Big Thunder we boarded onto the
Here comes Mickey and Minnie!Goofy and all his buddies.Lots of toys ready to play.
The Main Street Holiday parade gave us hand clapping music and colorful dancers and floats, and Santa and his reindeer. So as the sunset, we dared to view the Phantom mansion with its abandoned bride and gold rush western town ghosts.
Mickey, Minnie and Donald in the ParadeSanta and his elves
We also did Haunted Mansion – again, no narrative but very similar to what we know.
The Haunted MansionChris and Ryan in front of the Olaf and Sven rideOlaf and Sven
Ryan and Chris walked through The Nautilus attraction and David & Janeen found spots in the main square near the castle to view the lights and fireworks on the castle.
Christmas tree with the train station in the background
Sunday, Market day and we headed off to The Bastille Market. This is one of the largest partisan markets in Paris and stretches from the Bastille and Richard Lenoir metro stations and has 150 plus stalls.
The Market about midpoint
Stalls are piled high with fruit and vegetables, meats, fish, shellfish, cheese and lots and lots of other things. There was also a spattering of clothing – wallets, handbags, scarfs and even some wine.
Janeen and Ryan of courseChampagne! I did pick up a bottle of Brute
We walked most of the market, fortunately after the rain had stopped, and picked up a few things for our kitchen.
Vegetables – LOTS of vegetables.Olives lots of Olives and spreadsMushrooms all kinds!Meats lots of Meats – there were several different places selling fresh meet…More fishLots of fresh fish, shellfish and oystersFruits and more vegetables.These little plants had been flocked with a white powder! Little white Christmas treesSpicesLots of spices.Chicken – he has his hands on a chicken with all its feathers still – fresh for sureDavid on the metroChris with all our goodies on the metro.
I fully expect we will hit another one or two while we are here.
On Thursday, we flew from Edinburgh to Paris and took a cab to our VRBO apartment to join Ryan and Chris. While the apartment isn’t as close to the center of the heart of Paris, it is certainly close enough to the metro that we can get there easily enough.
Ryan, Janeen and Chris on the bridge over the River Seine. Norte Dame in the background
Our first outing, on Friday the 8th was to get metro cards and have lunch at Le Rèminet. Of course,
David and Chris in front of Norte Dame.
we did get to Notre-Dame for a quick photo prior to going back over the river to Le Rèminet.
Le Rèminet is a small bistro we discovered during our last visit to Paris and have wanted to return. It is not far from Notre-Dame and we were the last people to get seating for the lunch period – they don’t take new reservations after 2:30 and we saw them turn several people away after we got seated.
Our Paris Family all together.
The entire restaurant, at least on the main floor, seats only 30 people. They can put a few chairs outside but only during good weather. The entire staff was very considerate of our language issues (although Ryan is really getting quite good with speaking French) and we had a very pleasant afternoon.
Oysters – what more can you say?Marinated scallops, pan sauteed duck liverMarinated salmon, buckwheat powder, pickels and miso mayonnaise sauceDuck liver terrine with rhubarb chutneyChampagne to start our lunch.Lovely Pauillac – a bit young but paired nicely with our main course.Duck with an octopus tacoBraised beef cheek in red wine, seard duck liver and potatoes pureeA selection of three cheesesChocolate, hazelnuts, pralineTonka bean flavored creme bruleeCreamy coconut, chocloate cornet on exotic spoom, crushed cocao bean
From there we got back on the metro and returned to the apartment for the day.
Saturday was just a perfect sunny ‘tour’ day for visiting various places Ryan and Chris have discovered prior to our arriving with an interesting lunch at a place that serves baked potatoes with all the trimmings – you choose what you want. We also found an Office Depot store. Next time we cruise, we might need a post office, a barber, and a place that sells pillows that please David, and a nail salon for Janeen.
Prior to getting to Edinburgh, I checked various listings for restaurants to try and make reservations for our stay. The number one restaurant was called The Table. It seems this place releases reservations months in advance and books solid almost immediately. Not wanting to let this get past me, I e-mailed a note and asked if there might be any openings and was surprised to hear there was! Seems a party from London wasn’t going to be able to make it up for their reservation and I was able to grab two spots.
One counter, 10 chairs and 2 chefs.
The Table is a small place, only 10 seats, and we sat at the counter watching Chef Sean and his assistant Keith work magic before our very eyes! It is a BYOB place and we had hoped to get an idea of wine selections prior to arriving, but didn’t get them until the day of the reservation so had already picked up a bottle of Champagne and Burgundy. We figured both of these wines would go with just about anything they put in front of us and we were correct.
The menu is determined based on seasonal ingredients. No choices are available and you get what is prepared that evening. The process is not fast – we were there for almost four hours – and the interaction between the Chef and all the guests is frequent and animated. Doors open at 7, not before, and we arrived finding several couples waiting anxiously to get in out of the cold. Very soon we were all there, the doors opened and Chef Sean started the experience.
View of the counter from the back of the place.
We were able to snag seats in the middle of the counter – 2 couples to my left and 2 couples to Janeen’s right – giving us a prime spot to watch all the action. To my immediate left was a couple from Edinburgh enjoying the evening and texting or emailing to their daughter throughout to let her know what was happening. The couple to Janeen’s right was from a village outside of Cambridge, England and had flown in for the evening! Next to them was another couple from London who were celebrating his birthday having taken the overnight train. We felt really lucky to have scored a reservation.
Amuse-bouche Deep fried pasta with pigs cheek and tomato sauce on the bottom right. IN the middle was braised fennel with sour cherry jelly glaze and the upper left was Cracker with blueberry jell with foie gras.Ain’t Easy being Cheesy – Potato, Ham Hock and Autumn Tarine with Different Ages of CheddarHere’s Chef Sean plating the Lord of the Anelli course coming up!
Throughout the evening there was increasingly lively conversation between everyone present with questions asked of Chef Sean like “How long have you been doing this?” pause, “28 months”. “ What kind of pig is this pork?” “Mangalisca, the Wagu of Pork” Who thought up a teaspoon of caramel powder with Anglesea sea salt as a course? A chef in Chicago.
Someone asked about the source for the hawthorne sauce (local scavenged); and Janeen learned what the red berries hanging on bare branches of trees are called.
Lord of the Anelli – Lobster Anelleti with Lemon and Chervil before the sauce is pouredLord of the Anelli – Lobster Anelleti with Lemon and Chervil after the sauce is pouredGlasgow Scallops – Scallops with Curried Cauliflower and BuckfastChef plating the next course of Sow Your Oats
Sow Your Oats – Port with Celeriac, Apple and PorridgeBlame Canada – Pancakes with Maple Syrup and BaconWerther’s Not so Original – Caramel Powder Inspired by Grant AchatzNot a Lighter Way to Enjoy Chocolate – Textures of Chocolate with Malted milkFinal taste of sweetsJaneen and Chef Sean
Throughout the evening the items presented were well prepared and plated wonderfully.
I admit it, I like a good single malt whisky – and we were clearly at a place that has a lot of these. Specifically we went to
The entrance to the Scotch Whisky Experience building.
The Scotch Whisky Experience. This included a “barrel ride” through the process of how whisky is made, a tour of the largest single Whisky collection in the world and a tasting of the wonderful elixir called Whisky.
The Whisky Experience (WE) is a several story building on the
A cut away showing the various areas of the building.
Royal Mile just before the forecourt of the Castle. We opted for the Gold Tour that included the basic tour, with one tasting, and an additional four regional single malt tasting flight in the lounge. On top of that we also get a one-year membership in the Scotch Whisky Appreciation Society (not sure I will be able to use any of the benefits but fun to have anyway).
The Barrel ride car. Nothing fancy for sure.
The ride doesn’t compare to anything Disney might do, but it was at least clever in its presentation of how whisky is made with an interesting narrative. Having some idea of the process it was a refresher not anything new. After the ride we went into the Sense of Scotland room where a very enthusiastic guide – John, explained the history of where whisky is made. The video included visuals of all the areas of Scotland, the types of country and a general overview of the climates of Scotland. Clearly the video was done during the spring or summer, nothing like the weather in those areas in early December.
From there, we entered into the tasting room. After a brief introduction, we were given the option of tasting a Scotch from one of the six regions of the Country. I chose a taste from Islay and Janeen choose a Lowland pour. Before actually tasting the golden beverage we were taken into the magnificent Diageo Claive Vidiz Collection room.
Hard to believe all these are unopened.Only one wall of 5! Filled with unopened bottles
This room holds over 3,000 bottles of UNOPENED Scotch Whisky that Diageo collected over the years – living in South America! Seems he liked the stuff so much he didn’t open any of the collection. It was purchased for an undisclosed amount about 10 years ago and is now part of the WE collection. It is with this backdrop of bottles that the guide explained how to smell and properly taste a whisky – a lot like drinking wines actually. Now we tasted our whisky.
After general tasting we end up in the “bar” where we were served our additional flight of four whiskies.
Janeen with her tasting flight
A nice culmination of the tour. The exit being, of course, through the gift shop we looked at a number of different bottles available, took a few pictures and left to grab some lunch downstairs in the Amber Restaurant.
Barrel stave tree in the shop.
When we were here in 2014 we didn’t take the tour but did have lunch in the Amber Restaurant and had a whisky or two at the bar. Our lunch was nice – local fare and filling. From the restaurant, we went to the Bar to look through and taste a few whiskies.
Yours truly – a very happy guy.
The “book” is divided into regions listing everything they have available. There are more than 350 different bottles to choose from! Impossible to get through more than a couple at a time really but an effort was made to try something different. Our educational take away from all this was the true nature of “blended” whiskey.
Here we are getting ready to taste more whisky
True, there are some blended single malts, but a true blended wart is made from a grain other than malt, then a small portion of a compatible flavor single malt is added to make the blend (the decision to start blending other grain whiskey was to compete with Irish and American whiskeys, perhaps?). Generally, blended whiskey is considered less “harsh” than the single malt that was distilled in the 19th century.
Old Pulteney – Navigator -Softly sweet & fragrant with light tropical fruits & a creamy finish my taste at the barOld Perth in Sherry cask – A bit hit of sherry and rich treacle. Spiced fruit on the palate with dry, nutty finish. Janeen’s taste at the bar
There are a LOT more blended whiskeys then there are single malt bottled every year.
Thyme Well Spent in the glass.
While at the bar I mentioned a cocktail made with Dalmore that I quite enjoy. The barkeep said they had one too – called Thyme Well Spent. Naturally I had to try it and it was quite delicious, a great end to our meal and tasting.
How to make a “Thyme Well Spent” . Enjoy!
So, having finished with the Whisky Experience we went out to the street, bought Janeen a cashmere sweater and caught a taxi home.
