Friday, June 26, 2015

As the time passed by, we are now on the last and final day of our time together, so many things left to do and buy. So many places we said we would visit but still haven’t. There was nothing scheduled today besides the room check so everyone had most of the day off.

“Live as much as possible. This is a good time in your life to experience all of these things. Living in the moment more. It gives more meaning to the memories and pictures because they’re secondary,” something Kim, my roommate said to me before on my weekend trip to Brussels and it stuck with me. So I decided today, I was going to do everything I said I was going to.

The day started off with a trip to the marche near the metro which is opened on Friday and Sundays with Eliana and Yayun. There we wandered about looking for last minute gifts and souvenirs that would catch our eyes. We also purchased fresh nectarines to eat before the flight tomorrow. Afterwards was a little shopping at the supermarket and went back to the hotel to cook breakfast.

Marche near the Metro, opened Friday and Sunday

Breakfast made by Chef Yayun!

Met up with Maggie and Rehana at Notre Dame to walk up 422 steps to see the view from the center of Paris!

Waiting in line at Notre Dame

Making our way up.

The view halfway up

View of the Siene

Eiffel Tower in the background

Group Picture: Sumen, Rehana, Yayun, Eliana, and Maggie

Afterwards Yayun, Eliana and I went around Sacre Coeur for some last minute souvenir shopping and also had McDonald’s for lunch, minion toys.

McDonald’s Happy Meal

Next stop was the Louvre, visited it once but was only outside taking pictures, I decided to go inside today! Traveled by myself and so I decided to wander around a little. Viewed many Greek mythology Gods such as Diana, Athena and Artemis.

Sculpture found at the Arteum Store

The Winged Victory of Samothrace

Athena, goddess of wisdom

Diana, goddess of hunt, the moon and childbirth

Inside the Louvre

View from inside the Louvre

Mona Lisa

View from the first floor

Arc du Carrousel

Artemis, goddess of the hunt, war and chastity

After the Louvre is back to the hotel for cleaning and room check by Mayra and Cassie.

Jonathan doing last minute packing

Yayun and Eliana’s room is clean, only clothing for tomorrow is left out.

Completed kitchen counter!

Hope everyone has a safe flight back and enjoys the rest of the summer.

Your correspondent,

Sumen Zhao

Today was our last meetup day. Our group met the Grand Arche train station, which is the last station on the 1 line. We saw a monument/building known as, “La Grande Arche de la Défense”. The Arche is located in the business district of La Défense and commune of Puteaux, which is toward the west of Paris. This is also one of the largest conference areas in France. While standing under the Arche de la Défense you can see the Arc de Triomphe and on a clear day you may also see the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel.

After our stop at La Grande Arche de la Défense, we took the train back toward the Louvre Rivoli Station. We visited a wholesale kitchen supply store called Dehillerin, located on 18 et 20 rue Coquillière 75001 Paris. There was a large selection of kitchenware and bakeware. After, we continued to walk to another kitchen supply store. As we walked we passed through a street market with food, jewelry, art, clothing, and more.

We then reached Mora, which is a modern kitchen supply store. They were having a sidewalk sale, which was part of the seasonal summer sale in Paris. There were many discounted kitchen tools, dishes, bakeware, cookbooks, and more. We then walked over to our last stop, which was a bookstore called Librairie Gourmande. They were also having a sidewalk sale and had a large variety of cookbooks to choose from. This is where we ended our last group meeting in Paris.

La Grande Arche de la Défense

The view from La Grande Arche de la Défense

Dehillerin Wholesale Kitchen Supply Store

Walking through the street market

Mora Kitchen Supply Store

Group photo

Hello,

This morning, at 10:45 am, our group met at the Pont Marie station. We visited a historic restaurant called La Tour d’Argent. This historic restaurant is located on 15 Quai de la Tournelle, 75005 Paris. The restaurant was founded in 1582 and they are well known for their duck dishes. La Tour d’Argent has several floors and their restaurant is located on the 6^th floor with spectacular views of Paris. It overlooks the Seine River, Notre Dame Cathedral, Sacré Cœur Basilica, and Montparnasse Tower just to name a few.

To dine at La Tour d’Argent you must have a reservation and the dress code is formal. An average bill would be 250 Euros per person and that does not include wine. La Tour d’Argent also has a temperature controlled wine cellar, which houses approximately 400,000 bottles of wine. The cellar is 1,200 square meters and it is 450 years old. The wines in the cellar are worth approximately 80 million Euros.

After our restaurant visit, we walked to a Marche called “Marche Des Enfants Rouge”. This marche sells a variety of foods. After our visit to the marche, we had a group tour at the Centre Georges Pompidou. Pompidou is located in the 4th arrondissement of Paris, near Les Halles. Pompidou Center was the first high-tech/modern architecture of Paris.

Pompidou houses the Public Information Library, the Musée National d’Art Moderne, and a restaurant called Georges. In front of the museum, there are usually street performers, such as mimes and jugglers. There many artists in this area who sell their work including paintings, handmade jewelry, and sculptures.

-Max Wattanachaiyot

Pictures of La Tour d’Argent

Pictures of the marche

Pictures of Pompidou

Bonjour mes amies! 

As with the previous three days, we left Vanves early this morning to arrive in Brunoy in time to be dressed and ready to work at 9:00AM. Today’s journey was slightly bittersweet because after today we no longer have to wake up very early as it was also our fourth and final day of kitchen coursework at Institut Saint-Pierre!

We quickly got to work on the menu for our special lunch. It was special not because it was our last day but because some of our French colleagues who recently visited New York were also in attendance for lunch. It was great to see them again and exchange stories of our travels. On the menu, we had warm salmon and pate de tete with seasonal vegetables for an appetizer, followed by our main course, chicken fricassee with wild rice pilaf and mushroom velouté. In the pastry kitchen we created several types macaroons – both sweet and savory, including lemon, coconut, salmon and foie gras.

Prior to lunch service, each of us were presented with a Certificat de Formation. After our time of celebration, we served and enjoyed our lunch. During our time at Saint-Pierre, we had an enjoyable and educational experience with Chef Chartier and Chef Lalin. Our chefs exhibited patience and it is evident that they love what they do.

It’s hard to believe we have only three full days left of our program! It’s almost time to say À Bientôt to the City of Light.

Below are some pictures taken today.

Au revoir et merci d’avoir lu ce “post”. (Good Bye and thanks for reading!)

-Kim

Adriana can’t believe it’s our last day in the kitchen either!!

Our instructors, Chef Sandrine et Chef Nicolas!!! Thank you, chefs!!

Today’s appetizer 

Coconut macaroons

The future of the hospitality industry! Great job, everyone!

After a great weekend with the music festival, it was another early morning to Institut Saint-Pierre. It is our second to last day in the kitchen and we all had a nice smooth day. On today’s menu for our appetizer we had scallops skewers wrapped in filo dough on top of a fresh salad dressed with balsamic honey vinaigrette and for the main course we had lamb with potatoes “Pommes Paille” served with a deglazed sauce and thicken with roux. Last but not least, for dessert we had Pink Praline Brioche, Tropezienne, Pain Perdu and Swiss Brioche. Looking forward to seeing our French colleagues tomorrow on our last day in the kitchen.

Enroute to St. Pierre on a cold morning

Getting ready to get in the kitchen!

Wait, funny faces before we get to work! =)

Appetizer team!

Brianna the Butcher!

Tamar prepping for main course!

Pastry Ladies!

Looks wonderful!

Appetizer

Main Course

Dessert!

Dream Team

Pastry ladies! hard work pays off!

IMG_3448 ( click this link)

Kim showing her culinary skills.

Today, Sunday, June 21 was a very special day, not only because my group and I had the day off, but also because it was Father’s Day and the first official day of summer 2015. In honor of this day, my classmate, Irina Sargisova and I decided to start our day by exploring the 6th arrondissement of Paris. This arrondissement is located in the left bank of the River Seine where many student bookshops, cafés, jazz clubs, and some of the world famous monuments are found.

Our first stop was at a bookstore called “Taschen”. This bookstore caught our attention because offers a large collection of comics, photography, architecture, and art into a broader public audience. This bookstore publishes very controversial volumes that goes from Leonardo Da Vinci to adult magazines. As you see in the images below, books are displayed beautifully and priced accordingly. There is only one bookstore in Paris and one in New York (107 Greene Street) in case you want to find out more. Books are very selective and unique.

Name of the bookstore

Some examples of books sold in the bookstore

Books of different subjects

Books displayed beautifully

After our visit in the bookstore, we met one of Irina’s friend for lunch in the same neighborhood. Since he is a local and student, he took us to a very peculiar place that I would like to describe. This café is called “Les services de la vie etudiante”. It is really a school’s cafeteria but what got our attention was the price, type of service, and food. It is self-service type and open to the public (mostly students). As you see in the pictures below you start by grabbing a food tray and select free pastries, followed by juice, yogurt, and hot items. Some the items are labeled by points. According to how much food you have in your tray (total of points accumulated) it is the amount you are going to pay for your meal. As one of the pictures shown my meal costed me only $3.45 euros!. I wished we could have cafeterias like those in New York. Affordable and tastier.

Irina about to grab her food

Only €3.45 meal

Food is labeled by number of points

After our meal, we spent the rest of the day celebrating “Le Fête de la Musique”. This is a music festival that takes place one day only around several countries worldwide. Musicians perform in the streets for free making all concerts accessible to the public at no charge. We had the opportunity to see a few events in different streets playing all kind of music. A time where music gathers people together to have a good time with friends and family.

Bonjour from Paris!!!!

Today was the second day of Culinary and Baking Class in Brunoy, Saint Pierre Institute!

Brunoy is a commune in south-east of Paris! Getting there requires a few train transfers and a long walk! Thus, we were a little nervous as we headed to the school by ourselves . However, we were able to follow the directions successfully, and here we are – changed into our chef’s jacket and ready to start the production!!!

Trying to find the way…

Yeah! we did it!!!!

Besides the Culinary and Baking knowledge and techniques that we learned in City Tech, we also applied great teamwork skills !!!

Ready to Rock!

We were able to experience working with new ingredients, communicate with Chefs from France and just enjoy the learning process and have fun!

Liason Marya  is making sure we follow the recipe 😉

Vital is very focused and serious!

Finally, our production!

Ouala! Raspberry and Passion fruit Mille Feuille

Bonjour!!
Today was the most awaited day for the students who both want to pursue career in the food industry and also like to be in the kitchen.

We began our day very early (specially for those who went to dinner with Prof. Lorenzini the night before). We mostly woke up between 5:45am – 6:00am so we could be at Brunoy by 9:00am. There was some trains and bus transferring, however the trip felt very smoothing. There we were greeted by some professors and chefs who enforced the importance of this program for all of us students.

Our baristas Sam, Vital and Irina showed some of their skills at the coffee bar – at that yearly we needed some caffeine to embrace the long day ahead of us. Group A and Group B proceeded to their assigned labs and started the work by 9:30am.

I have to confess that we Citytech students have a great team working skills that was very important today (and any other days) in order to succeed our goals. Good job guys.
Keep this spirit alive 🙂

From your correspondent,

Adriana Santana

Wake up – don’t tap to snooze!!!!

Group leaving the hotel

Welcome wall with pictures of the group last year

Meeting and Greeting the Professors/Chefs

The best baristas team in France

Great coffee. Where is my croissant?

Students making their orders at the bar… Take easy, people!

All looking beautiful. Now it’s time to work!

On the dot!

Baking team showing some skills… Very proud!

Team working in the baking lab… God job guys!

Meanwhile in the culinary lab… SMILE!!

Group salad did an amazing job. The salad came out very good.

Say “SALAD” 😀

Our beloved students showing the importance of team work… Well done!!

Nice plating, Sam.

Kim always very attentive and professional. Keep it up, girl!

That’s is the final product from the culinary team! Yummy!!

Our pastries were so delicious!!!!!!

Miss Olga presenting our pastries.

Very good job, team!

Boss #1

Boss #2

On our way back to the train station… A demain!!

These are some of the rooms that were in the Kube Hotel. This hotel was very modern with different patterns in the elevator, open bathrooms, and different colored lights. Some parts of the hotel had beautiful photographs like the one you see in the first photo. In the last photo you can see that the hangers are different than the normal ones that you see in most hotels. These hangers add to the vibe of the hotel, and they appear to have colored beads such as the ones you used to make bracelets perhaps as a kid.

The sign of the hotel just outside.

This was another part of the hotel that the students got to enjoy. This part was really amazing to experience. The whole part of the hotel is made of real, pure ice; the walls, the table, the drink stand, everything. The staff of the hotel gave us jackets prior to going into the room, because the room was -18 degrees. They made us drinks that came in a cone made of pure ice (3rd picture), and they put music on for us. Everyone enjoyed their time inside the ice box.

The group just outside the Kube hotel.

The final part of our day was a tour at Montmartre Sacré-Coeur. The whole tour was beautiful with lots of history, and although there was a lot of walking involved, I believe everyone enjoyed their tour. As you can see in the building, the place is just so beautiful, and you can see a spectacular view of Paris once you reach the top. The church is also just as beautiful, and is definitely worth a trip.