Chez Nous - Butte Aux Cailles

Chez nous (meaning 'Our house') is currently in an area of Paris called the 'Butte Aux Cailles' on a tucked away hill in the 13th arrondissement of Paris. It is apparently a bit of an historical area, where a whole bunch of communists lived once upon a time, and did all sorts of communist type things. The area still shows signs of its more egalitarian roots.

We actually live on the street Rue De La Butte Aux Cailles in the heart of the area, which is bristling with small cafes, pubs, bars and restaurants.


Here is the bar that is next door to our house called 'La Folie en Tete', a very good staggering distance if need be. Along the road a little more is another favourite bar of ours, 'Bar Sputnik'




Further up the street is our local pub, called ' La Village de la Butte' which you can see in this pic with the red awning. It has been here that we have witnessed many a sporting event on the big screen.
Right next door to the local is our local boulangerie, where we go for all of our fresh baked treats, including the most wonderful bread you have ever seen (or indeed tasted)


Up the street further, is what I think would have to be our favourite local resturant called 'Le Temps des Cerises' (Time of the Cherries). It is quite interesting as its actually a resturant that is run as a workers co-operative, (how very communist. Take that Stalin!) . As such the food is awesomely French, and relatively cheap. It was here that I had my first taste of a French speciality called 'Andouillette' which is basically just a tripe sausage. An interesting taste to say the least.



A road that runs off Butte Aux Cailles is 'Rue des Cinq Diamants' (Five Diamonds Street) which also contains quite a few restaurants that we like to frequent, including another of our favourites , 'Chez Gladines'

Chez Gladines is a Basque country restaurant, featuring all sorts of yummy cuisine from the far south west of France and northern Spain. They have pretty big portions of everything, in fact I heard someone describe the portions as "North American in size" which I felt was quite apt when I saw the size of the salad that arrived at my table which sadly I struggled to finish. Now I am going to sound like some sort of restutant reviewer when I say this. But if anyone who bothers to read this actually ever goes there, for god's sake get there early because the place is ALWAYS choc-o-bloc.

A little further away from our house is Place D'Italie, which is a massive roundabout and is the general 'CBD' of the 13th Arrondissement. There is a big shopping centre here (although not as good as Penrith Plaza) called 'Italie 2' and its here that we do most of our shopping. (see the right) There is also a major Metro station here also that intersects 3 metro lines.





(You can see here on the left the art nouveau (thanks very much) style entrance to the Metro station, this style is the same all over Paris)