6.0 Le Crabe Marteau, 16 rue des Acacias in the 17th, 01.44.09.85.59, open 7/7 (they also have a Mothership in Brest which is good news) is a place I've been reading about forever it seems in Figaro's lists of cool places. And I keep putting it on my list and never get to it. Quoth the Raven "Nevermore!"
It has a really cool Breton fishhouse flavor and waiters have cool Breton fishermen's outfits and it gets its oysters, crabs and newspapers for the tables daily from Brittany.
As I said above "I have never seen so many happy Frenchmen banging away with hammers", some of them clearly for the first time, for which the waitguys are eager to plunge in to teach, which they were ready to do for me until I warned them that I came from the Mother of all Crab Feast Areas.
There's lots on the menu, but why come here if not for the main attractions? As my friend P. says, crabs are the one dish where you expend more calories digging them out than you consume, so they're ideal for lunch before a big dinner. I thus had a half-dozen #4 Creuses (for 8.50 E mind you) and their Crabe Marteau, the basic/classic one without langoustines, shrimp, etc but with potatoes and two mayos. Now, as everyone knows, I am a ninny when it comes to potatoes, so I'll just say they were good by my standards, but I am in expert in oysters and these were nickel, and as for the French crab, like their American cousins, the blues, they don't have a lot of taste and thus need the mayo provided, as ours cry out for Old Bay seasoning.
They did have desserts: a far, Paris-Brest, etc, but I'd had (a wonderful) enuf.
My bill (I thought they'd made a mistake), with 1/2 carafe of fine white, no bottled water, great bread and butter (what'd'y'a expect from Brittany?), and Illy coffee was 44.50 E.
Go? As my next door neighbor said "I'm coming back with my kid, he'll love smacking them with a hammer."
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