We heard the Café de Flore (172 Boulevard Saint-Germain, 75006 Paris, France) is touted to be the most famous cafe in the world, and has been around since World War II. It is said that Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir would meet here and discuss their philosophy of existentialism over a drink (!). In fact, it’s known for having most excellent hot chocolate. So I was keen to check it out and compare it to Angelina’s hot chocolate.

The Café is located on the Left Bank side and is all about mahogany and mirrors on the inside of the restaurant. But outside, you can seat yourself on straw chairs and people-watch all day long. Considering it’s heritage and fame, we thought it’d be super-packed, but it turned out to be just like any other cafe in Paris in terms of the number of people there.

We enjoyed sitting outdoors at our table, covered with a piece of paper with gorgeous artwork on it. The food came out swiftly, with very polite staff.

Café de Flore

Gorgeous paper table mat

People-watching at our lil table

Their hot chocolate is, yes, very very good. It’s just as thick and luscious as Angelina’s version, but I still prefer Angelina more because they give you a pot piled high with luscious cream (which is omitted here at Café de Flore). If they had also included that incredible cream, they’d be neck to neck.

Their famous Hot Chocolate!! Yes, it was pretty divine 🙂

And fortunately, their food was really good too. I didn’t have much of the Pork rillette on sliced sourdough bread (Chris doesn’t want me eating cold meats when pregnant, for fear of listeria) but it looked good enough and Chris polished it all off. My Ham omelette was DIVINE – exceedingly creamy and moist (technically I shouldn’t be eating raw eggs either, but fingers crossed omelettes are cooked enough to prevent salmonella poisoning!) and with a stunning amount of cheese stirred into the mixture.

Pork rillette on sliced sourdough bread

A very luscious omelette and ham

Funny story: There was an older Chinese couple that walked in after us. Chris was always keeping an eye out for Chinese-looking people in Paris, declaring them “his countrymen” (ROFL!!!), and so immediately were interested in them. When the guy was near us taking a photo of his wife, Chris asked “Are you from China?” in Mandarin, and nearly knocked the guy’s socks off 😉 Turns out, they came from Shanghai too!!!

A few minutes later, they were ordering and struggling to decipher the menu (written in English and French), and ask the waiter some questions. They asked us to help and I scurried over… and…… VERY PROUD OF MY FEAT HERE….. translated an English and French menu into Mandarin for them, translated their Mandarin questions into French for the waiter, and back again when he responded!!! *smug*

It was the first time in my ENTIRE life I translated between 3 languages (English, French, Mandarin) on-the-fly, with no preparation. I wouldn’t exactly declare myself as having done an awesome or perfectly fluent job, but everyone understood me and it all worked out 😛 I was most pleased and returned triumphant back to our table where Chris was laughing at me saying, “Boy, you little show off!” Hahahahha.

Puttering around afterwards at little market stores