Exotic Paris Part I: Asian Influences

Check out the Time Out Guide to Paris for more up-to-date listings of both Chinese and Japanese restaurants. The Pariscope also lists restaurants by arrondissement, and can be found every Wednesday at news kiosks in Paris.

Kioko at 46 rue des Petits Champs is one of the oldest Japanese food stores in Paris. They sell noodles, soya sauce, sea-weed, rice, and all the ingredients you need to make home-made sushis. The Japanese residents living around the Palais-Royal come to stock up here. The Tang Brothers, who are very well-known to Parisians, manage two shops in Chinatown at 48 avenue d'Ivry and 168 avenue de Choisy. There is a great variety of exotic fruits, papaya, lychees, mangoes and fresh herbs, frozen pre-cooked dishes like prawns and ravioli or pork and prawns. Also on the avenue d'Ivry is the Paris Store, which stands out because of the quantity available and its low prices. Better take a shopping trolley because once you're inside you want to taste and buy everything in sight. Here you can stock up on exotic fruits and vegetables, rice, prawns, and frozen Asian snacks. Up in the Belleville Chinatown you'll find the Hong-Kong supermarket at 27 rue de Belleville.

Shopping

Around the Opéra and the St. Germain area are many Japanese-owned boutiques, mostly duty-free luxury goods stores for the bus loads of Japanese tourists, but there are also some nice places tucked in there if you look. The Chinatowns are full of Chinese food markets, clothing stores, and boutiques. On the chic shopping street rue Etienne Marcel (stretching from Place des Victoires to Metro Etienne Marcel) are plenty of stylish Asian boutiques with pricey shoes and clothing such as Kabuki, Barbara Bui (and the minimalist Barbara Bui café), Miss China, and Junk (by Junko Shimada). Kenzo, the Japanese-born Parisian designer has one of his many boutiques here as well. Esteban is a beautiful boutique in the Marais at 20, rue des Francs-Bourgeois selling exquisite scented gifts such as Japanese incense and hand-made Kabuki sparkling candles. For an authentic Japanese kimono, visit Kimonoya at 11, rue du Pont Louis-Philippe in the 4th arr. Near the Hôtel de Ville.

Two shopping chains found scattered all over Paris are Muji and CFOC. Muji is the famous Japanese 'no brand' utilitarian shop full of bath, kitchen, and office accessories along with a few basic fashions in black and white. CFOC, or La