Yellow-Awning-Place

I hope this brings a little pang of nostalgia to any NYU in Paris pals who happen to read it.  Out of all the amazing restaurants in Paris, yellow awning place is the one I, and I believe the rest of NYUP, have visited the most frequently, the unifying experience between all of us.  It of course is not really called yellow awning place.  But when we got here, when we were all to insecure to want to test our french comprehension, we would ask people who worked at NYUP where a good place was to go grab a cheap lunch, and they all recommended a little boulangerie (bakery that also sells sandwiches and various lunch items, for those of you unfamiliar with the venerable French cultural institution,) just down the street, and after we stared at them, blank-faced, when they said the name in French, they quickly supplied, "it's the place with the yellow awning."

That was easy enough to find, and it has become it's official moniker.  I've bought my lunch at the yellow awning place atleast 2 days a week every week all semester long.  They have a cheap lunch menu (sandwich, drink, and dessert - because apparently no lunch in France is complete without dessert - for 5 euro,) and you can even skimp more and get just the sandwich for just 3 euro.  And they are big, baguette sandwiches; I always get the vegetarian-friendly gruyere (a white cheese) and crudites (the french term for tomato and lettuce, or as they conceive of it, filler) with mayo, and I kept some seedy French mustard stored away nearby to add when I got too bored with that.  The place, with the best deal in the area, was always busy, so when you went anywhere from 11 to 3 you would need to wait in line, which was comprised both of NYU students and a large number of French who lived and worked in the area, and often led out the door and down the block.  But the line moved quickly, thanks to the friendly staff which worked quickly to disperse it.

There was the guy who looked about late 20's with the glasses who did sandwiches sometimes, and then the four women: the one with the dark hair always pulled back who I think ran the place because she typically worked the cash register, the woman with the cropped, dyed red hair who seemed like she had also been there for a long time as she always knew how much everything was, the woman with the shoulder length brown hair who worked sandiwiches when the guy wasn't there, and the woman with the cropped blonde hair who worked desserts sometimes - these three, the two last women and the guy, were all part time I think.  I would guess the woman to all be in their late 30's to early 40's, though I horrible at judging that.  They were all really nice, although the redhead and the dark-haired women had a sharpness to them, especially during the lunchhour, that comes from working at one place for a long time; the only way I found to get a smile out of the dark-haired woman was to have exact change, and on particularly busy days even that wasn't a guarentee.  Other than sandwiches, they had salads and pasta (neither of which I ever sampled - their salads didn't have dressing on them, a French thing I could never get behind, and their pasta looked iffy to me).  But they also had quiche, which were wonderful - I can particularly vouche for the broccoli-cherve, which was a cheap and delicious masterpiece.  Let's not even start to talk about the desserts; that would take up another whole blog entry.  Let's just say, imagine absolutely amazing French pastries and tartes, and know that unless you've been there, whatever you're imagining: it was better than that.  I can't say at this point I'm worried about missing yellow awning place.  I ate there so often that it often seemed dull, and I'm really craving the variety of lunch options America (and New York in particular) offers.  But I know that with time I will have pangs for that place, and it - not the Eiffel tower, or the Louvre, but the local boulangerie - will always be one of the main places that defined my Paris experience.

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