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There’s no overriding organic or vegetarian concept, just well-cooked, daily-changing healthy dishes. Restaurant: Supernature Who said eating healthily was boring? Certainly not the many regulars who flock each afternoon (and on Sunday for brunch) to this tiny canteen in the 9th arrondissement. Whether or not you think Babybel has a place in Gallic cuisine, it’s a chance to relive the school French exchange or 1980s après-ski in the company of an ebullient crowd. Even the mums themselves get into the kitchen on the first Tuesday of the month to turn out blanquette de veau, chicken cordon bleu with beaufort cheese and Nutella-flavoured puddings. Restaurant: Les Fils à Maman In the up-and-coming neighbourhood near the Folies Bergère a band of five ‘mothers’ boys’ has created a restaurant evoking their mums’ home cooking. Don't miss the inventive desserts, which might include lime jelly spiked with alcohol. For €15 you can choose two small dishes - marinated sardines and fried chicken wings are especially popular - and a larger dish, such as grilled pork with ginger. The speciality here is bento boxes, which you compose yourself from a scribbled blackboard list (in Japanese and French). Restaurant: Chez Miki There are plenty of Japanese restaurants to choose from along nearby rue Ste-Anne, but none is as original - nor as friendly - as this tiny bistro run entirely by women, next to the square Louvois. Up the road at No.2, a spin-off boutique sells excellent oolong flower teas. The sensation may seem strange at first, but the tastes are great among the flavours are mango, coconut and kumquat. Tea Room: Zenzoo Between 2.30pm and 7pm this tiny Taiwanese restaurant doubles as a 'tea bar', the only place in Paris that serves China's famous tapioca cocktails - sometimes known as 'bubble tea', they are served with an extra-wide straw to suck up the little tapioca balls at the bottom. Here you’ll find the Musée Grévin waxwork museum and dinky boutiques that flaunt everything from precious stones, stamps and jewellery to antique cameras and furniture. Montmartre and 9 rue de la Grange Batelière, 9th) and its continuation, Passage Verdeau (6 rue de la Grange Batelière and 31bis rue du Faubourg Montmartre, 9th) both built around 1847. Best for a mooch though, are Passage Jouffroy (10–12 bd. Montmartre, 151 rue Montmartre, 2nd) built in 1800, takes the credit for being the first public area in Paris to be lit by gas in 1817.
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Galerie Vivienne (4 rue des Petits Champs, 5 rue de la Banque, 6 rue Vivienne, 2nd) is one of the prettiest with ochre paintwork and mythology-themed mosaics.
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Who knows, Paris’s reputation for its ubiquitous merde may even have roots in this era, as most passages were equipped with a salon de décrottage – literally a de-pooping room, in which punters had their shoes scraped clean! Nowadays these passages are real architectural gems – olde-worlde galleries perfect for tantric browsing.
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These forerunners to modern-day malls simultaneously allowed you to take a shortcut through the city, shelter from the rain, shop, dine, and (for many men) spend a debaucherous hour in the arms of a lady. Attractions: Les Passages Couverts In 18th and 19th century Paris, the areas around today’s Grands Boulevards donned themselves with glass-roofed shopping galleries known as les passages couverts (covered passages). For more information on the Palais Garnier, click on the following links: the Musée de l'Opéra - programme and reservations - the Restaurant de l'Opéra - the Palais Garnier Around Opéra Garnier. We recommend heading ten-minutes eastwards on foot towards Grands Boulevards, or northwards into the heart of the 9th arrondissement where young crowds of Parisians are setting up shop, bringing with them a trail of cool boutiques, bars, cafés and attractions. Its location between department stores Galeries Lafayette and Printemps, the Louvre and the Japanese quarter by rue St-Anne, makes it one of the city's most visited monuments, so if you want to escape the tourists, you have to be inventive. Our recommendations for the best restaurants near Opéra and the Grands Boulevards Related Opéra Garnier: An insider's guide The Opéra Garnier is a mini-city unto itself, with a museum, gourmet restaurant, one of the world's lovliest theatres and even an underground lake (the inspiration for Gaston Leroux's 'Phantom of the Opera') now used for specialised underwater fireman training.
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