When I come to France, all I want to do is eat pastry. Should an immigration officer ask me my reason for entering France, I’ll simply say “To eat pastry”. Forget chocolate, I can always get good chocolate in Sydney, Tokyo, London or anywhere else I travel. However pastries like this are much harder to find. Poilâne is an institution, their sourdough bread of miche is said to be legendary. Using stone-ground flour, sea salt from Guérande and a wood-fired oven they set about conquering the world, one loaf at a time.

So a visit to Paris isn’t complete with a visit to their flagship store on the rue de cherche Midi. I have tried Poilâne bread before as it is available in London so we visited just to “take a perv” at the store and buy some pastries and some other breads. It’s an unusual set up. The shopfront is in a small street and hints not at the auspiciousness of the bakery. A stern looking unsmiling woman sits at the counter taking money while a group of older and younger woman flutter about backs to the wall watching customers and straightening displays of bread.

There is a small selection of breads and pastries and a sample box of their flower petal shaped butter cookies. The miche is sold by the weight and you can choose the amount of thinly sliced bread that you want. One woman offers me a sable biscuit from the box while I am browsing and a friendly young woman, a dead ringer for Natalie Portman offers her help. They package up the items for you, you don’t help yourself, and they wrap it and write the price on the paper bag and hand it to you and you then pay the stern madam behind the counter.

Le haul

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When my feet and back are sore from sightseeing, it’s a dream of mine that I am carted around in a pram like a child but unlike a child, I get a say into where I go. I am serious about this, if anyone is willing to do this for me, please call me. So after a morning pounding Paris’s cobblestoned streets in thin soled ballet flats, I come across a restaurant that peaked my interest. Ribouldingue, an Offal only restaurant. Offal only? Yes. It’s part of my “only in this country” theme that has me seeking food that I can only get in Paris and not at home. Although if you know me, you’ll say “But you hate offal” I convinced myself that I loved the Duck Liver at Drouant so other types of offal are also welcome on my palate.

It’s charming inside with lots of gorgeous fresh flowers, cream doors and large mirrors. The waitress is efficient and working alone. It’s empty when we walk in but it fills a bit more. At €27 for 3 courses at both lunch and dinner, many may feel that they would want to visit at dinner time while seeking lunch deals that give more savings.

The menu is in French and our waitress does her best to explain what the items are. I can understand the dessert menu but offal, well, I can’t say that I recognise any of those words aside from “tripe” and “veau”. We choose adventurous things, ones that I wouldn’t normally order but I figure if anyone can make these cuts delicious, Ribouldingue can.

Amuse Bouche: Pork Skin terrine

The Amuse Bouche, a pork skin terrine sliced thinly with a side of dressed leaves is interesting, the pork skin gelatinous and soft. It’s not chewy like some pork skin can be as it’s boiled rather than roasted.

Sabodet (commes a Lyon), lentilles vertes tiedes en vinaigrette (pig’s head and skin sausage with lentils)

Our first course, the pork sausage (pig’s head and skin specifically) and lentils is delicious, the sausage are three wide discs on top of some soupy perfectly cooked lentils.

Ravioli des champignons, couers de canard Poetes, pequillos (Mushroom ravioli with duck hearts and capsicum)

The mushroom ravioli with duck hearts and capsicum almost stops my heart but I talk myself into it “Don’t be gutless, be adventurous” (no pun intended). My husband loves this dish and his reaction spurs me on. It’s softer than the heart at the Yurakucho Yakitori Alley but still not quite to my taste. I do try some and it needs the ravioli and strongly flavoured sweet capsicum to help mask it or complete it whichever way you’d like to look at it.

Rognon de veau roti (roasted veal kidney)

Gratin dauphinoise (potatoes with breadcrumbs and cheese)

Thew Veal Kidney with Potato Dauphinoise is certainly an arresting sight. I was expecting something more …conventionally kidney shaped. I take a small bite and it’s that unmistakable kidney taste (yes I realise how stupid that sounds but I was wondering if they would do something to it to reduce the offal flavour) and small bites of this with the Potato Dauphinoise is actually quite good although if I am to be honest, I much prefer the potatoes to the kidney.

Tripes au vin blanc

The tripe soup is getting appreciative murmurs from my husband. I ask him how it is, never intending to try any as I dislike tripe and he says “The soup is great” and I ask him how the tripe is and he repeats “The soup is great”. I try a little tripe with some potato and soup and it’s not bad although the strong smell is too much for me and I pass the plate back.

YAY no offal on the dessert menu!

Cremeux de citron jaune, macarpone, crumble

Our desserts which I gratefully see do not feature offal arrive, the lemon curd and cream layered dessert topped with toasted flaked almonds sprinkled with icing sugar. The lemon curd is just on the right side of tangy and my husband usually fearful of lemon curd readily eats his share.

Blancmange au lait d’amande, salad de framboise et son coulis

The almond blancmange with minted berries is good, the blancmange quivering and mildly flavoured against the ultra thin slivers of mint and fresh berry. It reminds me a bit of Chinese almond jelly.

Petit Fours

The puffy icing sugar dusted homemade marshmallows and glossy dark chocolate coated almonds are delicious. Although it wasn’t exactly my cup of tea, I’m sure to offal lovers, it is Nirvana.

And because this was our last meal in Paris, allow me to offer some tips on Paris.

• Purchase a carnet of Metro tickets (10 tickets), it’s the easiest way to get around Paris. Sure it smells a bit and is crowded but trains run very frequently and it is very easy to master. The distance between stops is very small too and sometimes walkable.
• Walk everywhere, it will really, truly help counteract the effects of copious pastry and cake consumption
• When you walk into a boutique or store (not a department store) say “Bonjour” or “Bonsoir” and when you leave say “Merci, Au Revoir”. Unlike Australia where you may be met with silence, they’ll always respond.
• You may get the occasional snooty waiter but on the whole the service is good, often friendly and charming (I think we were just lucky). I actually found service in high end/gourmet food stores a bit stiffer and snootier than high end restaurants.
• Department stores are closed on Sundays. Yes, believe it.
• The Dali museum in Montmatre is well worth a visit, and you can buy sculptures and Lithographs there.
• Take advantage of lunch specials and the Plat du Jour. Even Michelin starred restaurants will often have a very well priced lunch deal.

Ribouldingue

10, rue Saint Julien Le Pauvre, 75005 Paris.
Tel.: 01 46 33 98 80.
Métro: Cité, Maubert Mutualité or Saint Michel.
Open Tuesday-Saturday for lunch and dinner.
Fixed-price menu: €27 for lunch and dinner
Cash, Visa and Mastercard only (no American Express)

After an afternoon at the Louvre, the only possible thing we are in any shape to do is walk a little down the road from the hotel for dinner. You see, our eyes were bigger than our brains so we thought that we could see everything that we wanted to although we did see the Mona Lisa (along with it seems half of Paris), Vermeer’s “The Lacemaker”, Michaelangelo’s sculptures and Napoleon III’s apartment (crazy gorgeous, especially the dining room). So we stumbled down the road from our hotel and that’s where we were welcomed warmly at Le Mesturet, a bistro serving traditional French food. It seems they’re used to overseas visitors, they ask us where we’re from and then smiling, hand us English menus. I get the feeling that they have a stash of other menus in a variety of languages.

Menu

For dinner, they have a menu formule: 2 courses for €19.50 or 3 courses for €25.50 and one is allowed to choose any of the dishes from the menu. We ask what is good and they point out what they’re known for. It’s hard to choose but we finally settle on the our selections, one that has our host worried, the Calves’ head. “Have you tried this before?” he asks hesitatingly. “No but we want to” we answer firmly. He laughs and says “Well I love this, it’s very good. It’s a Parisian only dish. Most chefs in Paris come from from all over but this one is originally from Paris itself. Tell me if you don’t like it though”. We promise to.

Amuse Bouche-pork and egg omelette

We pop in some of the complimentary appetisers, a pork and egg omelette. It’s tasty, and we’re glad that we tried this as other tables received olives. The crunchy French bread arrives just before our entrees do.

House specialty: grilled eggplant, tomato and goat’s cheese from Artisanal cheesemaker Lethielleux

The eggplant salad is enormous for a starter and our eyes widen when it approaches the table. The eggplant is soft and the tomato and goat’s cheese good although this is a fairly safe dish and similar to one that we’ve had at home often.

Slowly simmered rabbit terrine

The rabbit terrine is lovely, full of rabbit meat and delicious with the toasted baguette. It doesn’t have that strong rabbit smell which I dislike and I am glad that we ordered this.

Slow cooked duck from the Jeansarthe farm, shredded, topped with a layer of puréed potato

The shredded duck “pie” topped with mashed potato is lovely and heady with a judicious amount of red wine added to it. We often find that red wine is often abused and overused in cooking but this has just the right amount added to it.

Tête de veau (calves’ head)

And of course the dish that you’ve been wanting to know about, the Tête de veau is soft and unctuous, simmered until fall apart soft. The meat and soft jelly like ring of fat is mild tasting and when the cornichon remoulade added, gives it that added extra. It’s said to be a favourite dish of Jacques Chirac and takes about 5 hours to cook and must be fully cooked (never undercooked) and allowed to cool completely once it has finished cooking, otherwise it will explode.

We desperately wanted to order the Baked Apricot and lavender dessert with violet ice cream but they’re out of Violet ice cream which was the component that really intrigued me. No matter anyway, we’re both stuffed from the delicious meal and hearty serves. We’re given a friendly farewell, if only we lived locally (we don’t!) this would be our local restaurant.

Le Mesturet

77 Rue de Richileu, 2nd arrondisement Paris
Open: Monday - Saturday 12pm-3pm, 7-10.30pm