(More envy-inducing pastries from Dr HH’s solo trip to Paris.)

On my second morning, I decided to get some pastry treats elsewhere and headed to VG patisserie with my sights firmly set on an eclair. That of course was never going to be enough to keep me sated so I also ordered croque monsieur and a large cafe latte.

My sandwich came out after a short grilling and I was concerned about how I was going to fit in my mouth with how tall it was. Fortunately, the bread is lovely soft and airy and squished down easily for eating. Along with the cheese on top there was a bechamel inside with a slice of ham tucked in amongst all the cheese. I didn’t get particularly strong flavours from the cheese and bechamel and the ham was a bit lost in the vast quantities of everything else. It was a lovely comforting bite of food but it wasn’t packing a huge amount of flavour.

I don’t really know what eclairs are supposed to be like. I make no claims about authenticity but I can say that this was delicious. It was a lovely thin shell of choux pastry filled with a delicious chocolate cream. There was possibly more of that cream on top along with some biscuity chunks.

I was having a bit of a slow start to my day so I sat and read for a little while before I decided to treat myself to a pain au chocolat and a hot chocolate. I was a bit underwhelmed. It was a bit bready and didn’t have a huge amount of chocolate. I’ve definitely had better. This was a much cheaper pastry, coming at 1.20 whilst the fancier goods were 4-5 euro.

The drinks were nice, the latte was pleasant and not very strong. The hot chocolate was fine but not up there with some of the great decadent ones I’ve had.

After a hearty fuelling, I headed to the Modern Art Museum to see (I thought) an exhibition of Matisse and Magritte. Unfortunately, I did not read this very closely and it was actually an exhibition titled Matisse and Marguerite. It was a collection of paintings mostly of Matisse’s daughter named Marguerite. It wasn’t as fun as I was hoping for. The good news was that the permanent exhibition in the gallery was great so it was still a good activity for me.