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You can’t walk more than 10 metres on rue des Rosiers without tripping over a falafel stand. L’As du Falafel (the Ace of the Falafel) is the most popular, attracting locals and tourists by the hundreds each day. Mi-Va-Mi is apparently the boldest of the competitors, daring to set up shop directly across the street from the Ace. It has to be said that both serve up excellent falafels, 5 euros each, generously stuffed with crisp chickpea nuggets, shredded cabbage, humous, cucumber, eggplant and harissa (the one pictured above is from L’As du Falafel). Mi-Va-Mi seems to provide a better cucumber-to-cabbage ratio, while the Ace’s pita appears to be fluffier, but additional samplings must be conducted to ensure that these observations are robust. Mi-Va-Mi’s falafel was also more garlicky — this being a pro or con depending on which branch of the family tree you ask — although it is unclear whether this was due to any of the actual components (i.e., the yoghurt sauce, humous or eggplant) being more garlicky, or whether it was just because we asked for extra harissa. In any case, you can’t go wrong with either.

Both places are closed Friday sundown until Sunday morning.

L’As du Falafel
34 rue des Rosiers
Tel: +33 (0)1 48 87 63 60

Mi-Va-Mi
27 rue des Ecouffes
Tel: +33 (0)1 42 71 53 72

See Paris roundup for more Paris addresses.

A running list of places to eat and to buy stuff that can be eaten in Paris.

Thumbs way up

1. L’As du Falafel, 34 rue des Rosiers (4th). See post. $
2. La Boulangerie Mauclerc, 83 rue de Crimée, 19th. This all-organic bakery operates one of only four wood-fired ovens in Paris. They make beautiful hearty loaves (all naturally leavened, no yeast on the premises) filled with whole grains and seeds and nuts — kind of rare here, despite the ubiquity of good baguettes. Favourite so far is the chataigne, miel, noisette (chestnut, honey, hazelnut) bread. (11/11/2009)
3. Breizh Café, 109 rue Vieille du Temple, 3rd. See post. $-$$ (11/11/2009, 04/12/2009)
4. Da Rosa, 62 rue de Seine, 6th. See post. $$ (12/11/2009, 19/03/2009, 16/11/2010)
5. La Maison du Chocolat, 225 rue de Faubourg Saint-Honoré, 8th plus six other locations around Paris and a stand at CDG Terminal 2E. You can’t go wrong with a Coffret Maison Noir, an all-dark chocolate assortment (26€ for 230 g or approximately 30 pieces), or the truffes fine champagne. Favourites in the coffret include Andalousie (lemon zest ganache), Traviata (praliné of grilled and caramelized almonds), Jolika (pistachio-flavoured almond paste), Garrigue (fennel-infused ganache), Zagora (fresh mint ganache), Rigoletto (whipped caramel) and the Rocher (it’s no Ferrero).
6. Mi-Va-Mi, 27 rue des Ecouffes, 4th. See post. $
7. Jean-Charles Rochoux, chocolatier, 16 rue d’Assas, 6th. Go to see the incredible chocolate sculptures, and to taste the truffle cubes and caramelized nut tablettes.

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The Leacock gang’s mini northern-European tour ended with a quick stop in Amsterdam, the city of one million bicycles (yet curiously, only 700,000 inhabitants).

After arriving at Schipol airport, we made the 20 minute trip into the centre by train (3.90 EUR each). Our apartment was situated on the quiet Raamgracht canal right in the heart of the city, just a stone’s throw away from the Chinatown and the Red Light district. The apartment owner left us instructions to retrieve the keys from a small key safe at the front of the building, and we succeeded in hauling ourselves and our suitcases up the steep narrow staircase typical of Amsterdam canal houses. The apartment itself was bright and spacious, with views over the canal and the Zuiderkerk church steeple — all in all pretty fantastic, even given the alarming violence of the flush on the upstairs toilet. We had a pleasant stroll out to the Regulierswardsstraat area, where we had dinner at an Indonesian restaurant called Sahid Jaya. We suspect we were misguided in our food choices by the extremely chatty Shanghainese waitress who had only been working there for a few weeks and seemed no big fan of Indonesian food, but dinner was enjoyable overall.

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We spent a short but enjoyable couple of days in Stockholm last week.

The first highlight of our trip actually took place during the express train ride in from Arlanda airport. The journey itself was smooth and fast, but we were most impressed by the quality of the automated announcements; as we pulled into Central Station, we were greeted by the dulcet tones of no lesser Swedish luminary than Börje Salming! (Apparently, all of the announcements on the train are made by Swedish celebrities, which in part explains the fairly expensive cost of the tickets.)

Since we were staying right near Central Station in downtown Stockholm, we decided to focus our explorations on the nearby islands and neighbourhoods. The night we arrived, we ate a nice meal at Stockholm Fisk just down the street from our hotel. Here, we sampled a variety of seafood, all of it very good; we tried some oysters, salt cured salmon (quite nice but also quite different from Mom’s gravlax), and herring (both marinated and fried).

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