It was lightly raining and chilly in the morning of the 2nd day. Hot breakfast sounded nice. We took a walk to a family owned and operated cafe/brunch spot called Madame Julia, a cafe outside of the old town to have their famous pancakes.
J choose salmon and egg benedict pancakes. The generously thick cut salmon looked nice. Fresh avocado looked nice. A (or two?) poached egg(s?) were covered with the pink sauce, which was supposed to be Hollandaise sauce. According to J, the sauce didn't taste like Hollandaise. Well, it didn't look like so either. I guess the dish was somewhere between ok and so-so for J.
I had carrot pancakes - pumpkin syrup, crushed butternut squash, carrot, pecans, chestnut flakes, and vegan whipped cream. It sounded, looked and tasted healthy.
Since the weather wasn't great, we decided to visit museums after the pancake time.
First we stepped into Historical Museum of the City of Strasbourg, spotlighting the city's political, economical, social and cultural history.
Next we visited Museum Œuvre Notre-Dame. The museum was very interesting. In addition to many original Cathedral sculptures, Strasbourg and the Upper Rhine fine and decorative arts from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance were neatly displayed. The main museum building complex is known as the Frauenhaus. It has been a base of the Fondation de l'Œuvre Notre-Dame, an institution responsible for collecting and managing the funds necessary for the construction and maintenance of the cathedral since the 13th century. The building itself was remarkable to admire.
The museum is located the next to the Palais Rohan, a great Parisian mansion-style palace built for Cardinal Armand-Gaston de Rohan-Soubise, Prince-Bishop of Strasbourg in the 18th century. The museum also faces to the south side of the cathedral.
The sky was still dull but our museum escape was over. We started walking in the city again. More Christmas decorations seemed to have set up on the buildings.
It was time for us to do some souvenir shopping. There were two chocolate shops that I was interested in. Both shops were located on the same street by chance. One was Maison Caffet, Pascal Caffet's shop, who has earned the title of "Meilleur Ouvrier de France (best craftsman of France)" in Pâtissier category and a World Champion of Dessert Trades. His original shop is located in Troyes, France while he operates several shops in France, Italy and Japan. However, I have never heard his name or had his chocolate before. This time we bought eight pieces of assorted chocolate. We enjoyed them when we came back home. They were pretty good.
The other was Chocolat Weiss, a French chocolate factory founded in 1882 by Eugène Weiss, an exceptional chocolatier and an outstanding entrepreneur in Saint-Etienne, a city in east-central France, near Lyon. They have some stores around eastern France but none in Paris or overseas. It was another new chocolate brand for me. I was excited to taste some!
The man at the store was probably one of the most generous sellers I have met. He gave us not only a couple of samples at the beginning, but also two pieces of three kinds of liquor filled bonbons each for free after we bought eight pieces of assorted chocolates. Their chocolate tasted very nice as well.
We also visited Mireille Oster, a local gingerbread maker. There were so many kinds and shapes of traditional French gingerbreads in the elegant shop. The aromas of spices, citrus fruits and honey quickly lifted up our holiday spirits! We picked a bag of Pain 7 épices (7 spice gingerbread in cubes) and a bag of star-shaped cinnamon gingerbread as well as a gingerbread snowman.
It was about lunch time. We had a late and large breakfast and weren't ready for another rich Alsatian cuisine. I didn't expect we would have streamed buns in Strasbourg but that actually happened and it could be the best meal in the entire trip!
BonBao was a little cozy restaurant specializing in steamed buns that are homemade with Franco-Asian inspirations. We ordered three kinds of bahn baos (I think a pork, a veggie and a mushroom). We were going to order two each bang baos, but our waiter told us they were large enough to share. We were glad to listen to her. They were quite large.
We also ordered two of duck bao buns. All bahn baos and bao buns were so delicious! We were very glad that we decided to have a lunch there.
After the nice shopping and the wonderful lunch, we just wandered in and outside of the old town for a while.
The Christmas tree setup at the city center square was making a good progress from the day before.
To be continued...
