Setting Achievable Goals and Eating in the Process

I tooted about this about a week ago, on how I’ve unintentionally set a small goal:

Because I’m on a project that is giving big burn out energy and I have income I can spend before the great water wars, I’ve decided every Sunday I take myself out to lunch somewhere. I’ve been ripping myself off and missing discounts on The Fork until today

A couple months back a friend at my current client introduced me to Kongfu Pâte which is a pretty simple place good food, pretty decent price, and that’s it. At the time I put this place on my list to come back to and I didn’t realise that I’d end up making it my “fuck this shit peace out” lunch time staple.

When things get a little spicy or stressful I tend to aim for one place where I can just exit out of whatever is giving me grief at the time, it has to be good, not needing extra mental capacity to deal with choices, far enough away from the “working zone”, and be a place that I can kind of just be left alone to my own devices. Turns out this small restaurant chain is just that.

Vibe Lunching is basically this

Nouilles de blé Dao Xiao spécialité du chef fait maison, oeufs, tomate, choux, cacahuètes, oignon, ciboulette

Various bubble tea choices from Don’t Yell At Me

So how did this turn in to a visit every location kind of deal? Quite simply put, over the weekends I tend to be so burnt out from everything that I end up staying indoors from Friday (work from home day) to Monday morning. That whole thing isn’t healthy mentally and physically and I needed an excuse to get myself outside and there are two Kongfu Pâte just far enough away to be a change and close enough to not gaslight myself in to staying indoors.

It started with going to Kongfu Pâte near the Leroy Merlin that I have to go to when I need shit to work on that boring adult stuff at home like fixing a faucet or something, so I walked my ass over there when I needed the materials to properly install my air conditioning for the summer.

Nouilles de blé Dao Xiao spécialité du chef fait maison, boeuf mijoté, choux, cacahuètes, oignon

The experience was actually pretty good, going outside with a little mission, having a nice lunch, doing my thing, and getting my junk to fix problems. That’s kind of where this all started out, make it an easy mission and be stuck outside. Honestly, it worked well.

Then I started to do my Sunday mission, previously I was so poor I had to spend Sundays walking up to the end of the 16ème to buy discount pasta at Carrefour. I’ve kind of stopped doing that now because I don’t really have the time but also why am I hurting myself to do this when I can afford to slip down to the nearer shops and spend a euro or two extra.

Anyways, it is also worth mentioning that I absolutely fucking hate Saint Michel like every other shitty tourist area in this city, but I swallowed up my pride and made it down there to have an enjoyable lunch then be local enough to drift back home on foot or by random bus route. Bonus, this location also has bubble tea.

But there was one Kongfu Pâte that has been eluding me, the one in the 9ème. Last weekend I wanted to do this on my Sunday but it seems that their hours are super specific. Normally open for about three hours a day Monday to Saturday, I figured this out mid afternoon on Saturday when I was preparing my Sunday event.

However, this is until today - I got on La Forchette (TheFork being the new shittier branding) and it seems their hours are this evening (at the time of writing this part), bonus is there is also a 30% discount. I got my resa set and for some reason at peak heatwave I’ll be heading up there, I’ll let future me take over this post from this point.

You can see things are a little different here, I cerainly made the mistake of booking far too early. This location is only open for three hours and I showed up just as they opened, missing the classic fat noodle but it was still good all the same. I will need to go back as they have a caramelised pork dish that looks pretty good. The broth itself was also very thick with a great taste.

Was it worth it ? Obviously, yes.