5.0 Aux Routiers, 50, rue Marx Dormoy in the 18th, 01.46.07.93.80, closed Sundays has menus at 17.50 and 26 E, a la carte 30-40, is one of a kind. Remember those old beef places out by the Slaughter House at La Villette where the huge, bulky guys with bloody aprons used to have breakfast or lunch? Of course you don't if you were born after 1974, because it and they are gone except for Au Boeuf Couronne.
Anyway, Aux Routiers is of the same ilk, a safe harbor for truckers who schlepped stuff into Paris in days past and parked and ate and bulked up big time. My downstairs neighbor and I went this Ascension Day, with no expectations and found it thoroughly delightful, albeit not a place you'd send anyone but a starving trucker or your back-packing relatives to.
They have too, too many choices on the menus and carte but few wines (by bottle, glass and carafe). My neighbor, always afraid she'll exhaust my pension fund, ordered the cheapo one which I must say was just fine, although they set out ten-times as much food as we could eat.
She started with eggs (and much cream) and tiny shrimp that I thought were super and I had a feuillete filled with escargots with a wonderful heart-clogging sauce. BTW, the bread was not what one would expect at a place described as serving Mother's food, it was top of the line.
The waitress, who could have served Jack Nicolson in Five Easy Pieces, had asked what we wanted with our dishes and I said salad; but first she deposited this rather large dish of mashed potatoes with a carrot color and laced with carrot slices; then brought the farm chicken for my friend (delicious) and 8 rather large scallops which even without the beans and lightly roasted tomatoes I had trouble finishing.
Desserts consisted of a mound of Chantilly covering a bit of coffee ice cream and an apple tart, both surprisingly good.
With a bottle of a Rhone, 2 coffees and (oh yes, they're Normand) a calva (from a known house) the bill was 71.90 E.
Go? I fear not, unless, as I said before, you're a hungry trucker or back-packing relative. But the two of us had a great time.
Even truckers admire a great food like it seen in this post.
In fact, I think that instead of writing in the truck stops' sign about the gas prices and where is the next stop, the should put up photos from the truck stop restaurant menu, it will be better :)
Posted by: truck rental | May 26, 2010 at 12:17 PM