A Six Euro Meal and a Million Dollar View

Before coming to Paris Lisa and I collected at least forty names and addresses of “must visit” Parisian restaurants from friends and family. Nearly all recommendations were accompanied by an, “this place is amazing! I ate the best ______ I’ve ever had there.” With our stomachs rumbling as we exited the plane, we were ready to embrace all the gastronomic delights our new city had to offer us. Bring on the crêpes with bananas and Nutella in the mornings, escargots in a garlic beur blanc sauce in the afternoons and boeuf bourguignon at night! While our appetites said, “Yes, yes, yes,” our new student budget said, “Jeez, that’s expensive. Maybe we’ll come back for your birthday.” And so, we were forced to find alternative means of filling our bellies every day.

Luckily in Paris you can eat very well without dropping a €150 a plate. One of our first cheap-eats discoveries were the bakeries. For a little over a dollar USD, you can buy an absolutely delicious baguette that is still warm from the oven. We next discovered Monoprix, a store not unlike Target but about one-twentieth the size with a great selection of meats and cheeses. Combined, these two economical food establishments allowed us to create what has become our favorite lunch meal: Italian thin-sliced ham, fromage du Chêvre, and a little mayo on a warm baguette.

We make our little ham sandwiches in the morning, slide them into a Zip-Lock bag, and stick them in our backpack when we leave the house for the day. What’s better than eating these little delicious sandwiches knowing we paid about €3 a piece for them is eating them in view of some of the most beautiful sites in the world. So far we’ve eaten our cheap and cheerful lunches in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, on the bank of the Seine where the Ile de la Cité splits the river in two, on a bench in the Versailles gardens while listening to classical music and watching a fountain water show, and about a dozen equally beautiful spots all around Paris.

This morning a dear friend from Chicago is coming into town for a few days. When emailing back and forth to make lunch plans, I left the decision to him. We could either find a quaint restaurant in the Marais or bring some sandwiches down to the Seine. I have to admit my joy when he opted for lunch on the river over a restaurant. After all, the restaurants here are still crammed with tourists and it’s shaping up to a beautiful day.

There’s no doubt that Lisa and I will check off each and every restaurant on our list in the year ahead. We’ll certainly find some excuse or another to splurge a few times a month to eat classic French dishes in an amazing Parisian restaurant. But while the skies are still blue, the air is still warm, and the bistros are still crowded with tourists, we are more than happy to take our €6 lunch with a million dollar view on the side.