5.0* L'Aller Retour, 5, rue Dupuis in the 3rd, 01.42.78.01.21, closed Saturday lunch, Sundays and Mondays, was Le Fooding's pick of the week last week; in which review/article, Yves Nespoulous called it a "bar à viande" and he was quite correct. Its menu (that is, carte, there is no "menu") is simple. direct and clear - abandon hope all vegans who enter here.
My date today was missing in combat and therefore, my decisions, easy. For a starter I picked the classic escargots over the burrata/tomatoes, boudin, etc and they were just what the doctor ordered, no less no more.
Of all the meat possibilities, the entrecote spoke to me, but other folks, having other cuts, seemed equally pleased. I ordered the salad not the frites with it, but after watching plate after plate of fries pass me, pleaded for "1 frite, just 1." "Impossible," my jolly waiter said, and plunked down twenty. Nice touch. It came with a watery roquefort sauce, which despite salt and pepper, didn't lift it from ordinary to extraordinary. In sum, it was average, no less no more.
For dessert, I had the strawberry tartelette, which was OK and as you've guessed already "no less no more."
The bill, if there'd been two of us to share a bottle of wine, would have come to 95 E.
Go? While this is/was a place where, like in a show of Claes Oldenberg, everybody is smiling, everybody is happy, and all the seats are full, it doesn't attain glory. A plus, however, is watching French women eat hamburgers with a knife and fork and without condiments 50 years after Paris welcomed Wimpy's and 30 years after the McDo invasion.
* A word about my rating system for those unfamiliar - 5.0 is a Garrison Keillor average, not bad, not great, no less, no more.
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