If everything goes as planned, by the time this column is published, I'll be in Paris, eating. I'll be there with two very good girlfriends - Meei, who's from Singapore, but is now living in Epernay (in France's Champagne region), and Jessie, from Hong Kong, but based in London.

Although we'll be in Paris for just two days, we've been planning this trip for more than a month. Flurries of e-mails have been going back and forth, with each of us giving our 'wish list' of restaurants. Meei - who's doing all the ground work - replies mostly with 'sorry, it's closed', because August is the time when many people in France take their annual, month-long holiday. Fortunately, some restaurants remain open, and we have one of our two lunches planned (at l'As du Fallafel, in Le Marais district) as well as both dinners - Le Comptoir du Relais (in Saint-Germain) and Le Chateaubriand on l'Avenue Parmentier.

In between meals, we'll be walking around a lot, working up our appetites for more food. Although Meei says that the main shop of ultra-luxe ice cream makers Berthillon, on the Ile Saint-Louis, is closed, their branches throughout the rest of Paris will be open. I'm hoping that Berthillon will be making the seasonal sour cherry sorbet, which is so delicious that the first time I ate it, it literally made me halt in my tracks; I stopped walking, found a bench to sit on and ate the sorbet, concentrating on the intense flavour. If they don't have sour cherry, I'll console myself with the honey-yogurt, salted caramel and bitter chocolate flavours.