Very good and cheap vietnamese food.

A grubby, ugly and grey crossroads, yet strangely beautiful by the evening sun. It always makes me happy when I pass through because ten minutes walk in any direction leads to some of my favourite places: the best fromager, thrift stores, the best boulangerie for tartes, the canal, bars, my apartment, B.D. (comix) shops, the best butcher, the huge deco Rex cinema, the best veg markets, my band's underground rehearsal room, my part time job, art galleries, etc etc!

Le dernier étage d'un parking transformé en jardins suspendu: lieu insolite, cadre très agréable aéré et lumineux, concerts, stands de bouffe, bars, petits endroits où se caler.

Café Breizh will hit the spot if you’re in the mood for a crêpe. Which in my case, is often. They’ve got them in spades, along with savoury galettes and buckets of cider. Mmmm. It was a popular spot so get in there early. The reason it made my favourites was the delicious (organic) fare. But more importantly (for me anyway) the lovely staff who brought my kid an extra plate with a sweet, for her toy ‘Doggle’. So Café Breizh—you’re ace. I would have taken some more useful pictures but I was distracted by the ‘Timbres Papiers Timbres’ tile typography outside.

I go to the flea market in St Ouen to look for old cameras and expired film. But it’s also a great place to see all the different walks of life from Paris’ extreme social scene. At the top of the ladder you’ve got the aristo-bourgeois crowd acquiring Louis XV furniture at the indoor antiques markets; the thirty-something bobo set paying way over the odds for mid-century designer chairs and formica tables; the banlieusards from the Neuf Trois getting kitted out with the latest sneakers and hoodies along the rue des Rosières; then at the very bottom you’ve got people trying to scratch a living selling second hand food at the Carré des biffes at Porte Montmartre. It’s an eye opener for sure.