The Boca Sola: Marseille

I am starting to like it here. It happened yesterday when the weather really started getting terrible. It's been raining on and off for days and this morning I checked WebMD for symptoms of pneumonia. But yesterday, I was in front of a statue of the artist Delacroix, whose museum I haven't even been to yet. And I realized that fall suits Paris better and that Paris and I are going to get along just fine. Ah, l'amour.

Eating well has only somewhat to do with my nascent love affair. The pace here is fast, Paris has foul pockets that smell of euphemistic filth, and my French professor is a trou de cul (the Google results are unexpected, maybe). But, I have had wonderful moments of culinary and cultural revelation. One of those moments was Marseille.

I left Saturday morning on the TGV (the high-speed train) and arrived in time for a walk around the Vieux (old) port, a bit of shopping, an adorable little train ride around the city and up one of Marseille's inclines to see the beautiful church, Notre Dame de la Garde.

The church, Notre Dame de la Garde:

And from a slightly different view:

The boats:

The view from the tour boat:

And from back in the Vieux port:

My visit was centered around dinner at a place on the Vieux Port called Miramar. I went there with the explicit purpose of eating Bouillabaisse, what I understood to be the whole point of eating in Marseille anyway.

Miramar, the next day:

Vocabulary word of that night was "copieux," a synonym for "abondant" in French. I ordered a glass of wine, an appetizer, and Bouillabaisse..and dessert before I actually received any of this because they do pre-orders for dessert, "because they take so long to prepare." The reasoning I think has more to do with the aforementioned vocabulary lesson.

Dinner began with black truffle toast. Quelle chance.

Then the "real" amuse-bouche. I think the toast was called a surprise. I had a charming waitress, but between her joint Chinese and accents, all I got was olive bread and something about marscapone. Amateur food critic indeed.

My waiter (I think there were about 7 total) told me that by ordering Bouillabaisse, there was no need to order anything else unless I wanted to. I confidently nodded my head and said I wanted the entree du jour, calamars. With parsley, garlic, lemon and pesto. And an adorable little baguette.

I could have stopped there. This place was not created for women who dine solo. For further proof, see my dinner.

And that's dinner part one, the Bouillabaisse broth, accompanied by garlic cloves, roux (spicy mayonnaise), and croutons (little baguette toasts). You eat this before you actually get the motherlode of fish, seasoning it your liking while the waitress debones your fish. In my case, four types of fish. At this point, quelle horreur.

One dinner quickly becomes two dinners:

Remember, I had already ordered dessert too. With this dessert, I received two other plates of desserts. Another surprise! In additions to my own dessert (red fruits with a basil-infused pastry cream), I had little madaleines, chocolate-dipped cereal cookies, shortbread cookies with raspberry jam, homemade caramels, caramel lollipops, raspberry Turkish delights, and candied almonds.