The French start training early for the enjoyment of the outdoor cafe life:

 

 

Many of the city’s grocery stores currently have these enticing cases of Little Moons Japanese mochi at the front.  I never did try any.  It is January, after all. Plus, my hands are almost always full. But, I am intrigued, see below the pix:

From the Little Moon website: https://www.littlemoons.co.uk

Brother and sister, Howard & Vivien Wong, launched Little Moons in 2010 on a mission to bring Japanese mochi with a delicious, modern twist to the masses.

Having grown up eating traditional mochi in their parent’s bakery they knew the potential these little balls had to deliver a moment of total happiness to whoever ate them.

It took them two years to master the mochi making process and perfect the ice cream recipes, working with top chefs and using quality ingredients to create the perfect flavour combinations.

With a Little Moons now eaten every second we felt the time was right to introduce our next bite sized adventure and so in 2019 we launched our Cookie Dough Ice Cream Bites.

Big Flavours, Little Moons.

What is mochi?

Mochi is a rice flour dough that has been steamed and pounded to give it its distinctive soft and chewy texture. We wrap a thin layer of mochi around our ice cream balls to make our Little Moons mochis.

It is so unique that in Asia the distinctive glutinous texture of mochi has its own name and is known as the Q texture.

 

Ok, back to Paris!

I swoon over the architecture:

 

 

The famous Folies Bergère. Art Deco all the way home.

 

 

 

Even the animals were dressed for winter:

 

You cannot help loving these Metro entrance markers by Hector Guimard, even if most of the (darn) stations were closed during my visit (for the longest strike in French history):

 

A shop dedicated to cat designs?

 

The classic French Galette Des Rois is for sale in almost every pâtisserie.

 

I love the aged patina on this gorgeous door below.

 

 

I never made it into the Louvre on this trip (a long story, told here), even though I had tickets for a special exhibition, but I did get to see the Louvre’s ultra modern subway station on the automated Metro Line #1:

Much more to come, probably for another month!