The Jardins des Plantes is only about 5 blocks from the L'Institut du Monde Arabe which was our next stop so we decided to head there for lunch. They have a pretty fancy restaurant overlooking the Seine or a much more budget friendly cafeteria without the view. But it turns out the restaurant becomes the tearoom after the lunch service so you can guess what we did. No pictures of lunch, but it was tasty with three main courses and an appetizer plate you can select from typical Lebanese mezes like humus, babaganoush, coban salad etc. 

The building itself is fascinating- all the widows are constructed of diaphragms that open and close with the sunlight.  From the cafeteria you can see the inside workings of the apertures.  

The main exhibit was "A la plume, au pinceau, au crayon: dessins du monde arabe" (From the pen, the brush, the pencil: design from the Arab World) which included images from the 11th century to the present day  The curators made the point that during the Renaissance, the Arab world didn’t really have the notion of "the artist" as it was conceived in Europe, but that many artisans created intricate designs for their objects.  Present day Arab artists draw from that rich heritage.  Here are some of my favorites:

This one was really interesting- as you walk, the three panels appear to move and shift relationship  sorry in retrospect that I didn’t take a video