Au Clair de Lune – Paris (75002) en

A couscous restaurant that’s been around for 60 years in an area that is pretty shitty when talking about good restaurants.            The greeting is a little abrupt for my taste, but the person that brought me has been a regular for 20 years, and I usually follow her lead.

It’s huge, especially in an area where the streets are narrow. From the outside we don’t imagine such a space.

That day, there was the boss ( two even I think) and a young server. The young server wanted us to go to another table than the one we saw, which always bothers me a bit.

The boss was joking around and was very chummy with a clientele that seemed to be made up of regulars. Overall they were pretty nice and serious, but we asked three times for chickpeas, and when we finally asked the server for them, we were told he hadn’t yet been asked to get them. This is the kind of thing that urks me, but in this instance the couscous was so good and cheap that I let it slide.

While we were waiting, here’s a little amuse bouche.

We follow the boss’s advice: sautéed lamb couscous. Sure, the meat is pretty fatty, but it’s the part of lamb that makes it so, and the couscous is executed extremely well: delicious, the semolina, the vegetables, everything is there.

The bill came up to 32 euros with 2 couscous, a 25cl pitcher of red wine and two green teas. Good deal all around, the only thing to watch out for might be the service, which could become problematic depending on context. Other than that, worth it, in an area that is seriously lacking; even for the newer restaurants, not many are standing out in the Montorgeuil area, on the Etienne Marcel side.