Shopping

I'm browsing through Patricia Well's 1999 edition of The Food Lover's Guide to Paris, trying to verify whether the establishments she lists are still in business. One, Flo Prestige, a carry-out food shop, has apparently been absorbed recently by Fauchon, but many of the other ones still exist and even have websites (Cafe Verlet, Hediard). Most of the specialty food shops sound only like look-see locations and I think her guide is written for tourists in hotels since she doesn't have separate chapters for boucheries, triperies and charcuteries but only "prepared foods to go." Accommodations really must have changed in the last decade since one runs across SO many Paris apartments for rent now.

One of the more interesting places she mentions, Tantifla, a poissonnerie/epicierie Provencale, I cannot find. It was at 7 Rue Bretagne so I went to Google Map's street view and browsed the street, unsuccessfully. This is near the Marche des Enfants Rouges. You too should browse Google's street view of rue Bretagne just to see how quickly winter turns to spring in Paris!

In my verification process I also ran across EuroCheapo's blog posting on Paris: 6 favorite museum gift shops (with cheapo tips), in case we want a Parisian sailor outfit or a Rodin snow globe.

And Eurocheapo also has a recent introductory article on supermarkets: A guide to supermarkets in Paris (9/21/2010). Two of the supermarket chains that the 1999 edition of Lonely Planet listed are no longer in business. But EuroCheapo also has an article on when not to be cheap: 12 things worth splurging on in Paris.