Destinations Magazine

Le Café Des Abattoirs in the (can You Believe It?) First: A Winner and a Half, Albeit Pricy.

By Johntalbott

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6.7 Le Café des Abattoirs, 10 Rue Gomboust in the 1st (you know, just across from the Carte Postale), 01.76.21.77.60, open 7/7 in dense Bobo/Anglophone/chichi-land.  However, it has escaped the dreaded DSM-5 disease - pesky fellow Yankees and is merely full of pesky fellow Parisiens.  It's cool, clean, with unfinished, unvarnished, unsanded tables, a huge bar-comptoir with those awful bar-stools (folks, reserve a table, unless you've got a PT/personal trainer on call).

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The menus, at 32, 38 and 45 E are awe(in the original sense)some; what to do?  Just had an entrecote chez moi last nite (Franprix's best, burned for 2 minutes on the grille, with A1 sauce, so, hummmm, maybe the Black Angus ribs of beef (stated so in clear English) and Michel Rostang & filles' 46 cl of Cotes du Rhone.  (Slight digession: remember when Papa opened the first Bistro d'a Cote?  No. You're so young.  1987, "I remember it well" as Maurice Chevalier sang, "Chevalier, who he?" - But Rostang has out-classed so many others, the Costes gang, Ducasse (saver of lost restos - bless him) and Robuchon (who?)

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So I order the most interesting sounding main, Black Angus beef ribs (it said so in English, and among the many things I've lost, English alas is not one.  And "Monsieur, for the first?" say I innocently - "A surprise."  Cool.  Some surprise.  A bowl of divine cauliflower soup, some rocket with a piggy ear canaille mondian it says here and something my friendly wait-guys said was chevre but reading others' accounts sounds more like eggs with ham and tomatoes - who cares? It/they, were great.

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Now, somewhere here, the wait-guy brought over the tray of condiments - look up folks - but the winners were the BBQ sauce for the ribs which were burnt on the outside and raw on the inside (without my ordering them such, mind-readers that they are) and the Guerlande salt with espilette for my frites.  As they say "Estra prima."

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For dessert, in honor of my sacred, now nameless, wife of 52 years, I had the floating island, white isn't it, blindingly white? Quite good.

My bill, with a filette of Cotes du Rhone and coffee and bread that was not up to Rostang & filles standards (a bit old no?), was 63.90 E - but hold on.  If one ordered a less expensive "menu", say at 32 x 2= 64 plus a bottle of wine at 26 and two coffees at 5.80, the bill for two would be 107.80 E if I've not lost it again in the Bruce Dern/Woody Grant manner.

Go?  Ah ha.  If you're vegetarian, vegan, health-seeking, faggedaboudid.  If not, reserve now, they were chasing away more of those pesky fellow Parisiens at 2 PM.


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