Chez Aline – Paris (75011) en

This old equine meat shop transformed into a sandwich  spot and…has been making noise. I wanted to get a closer look to see what it was really about. In the end, a serious place no doubt, we’ll take our pick from the menu, as not everything is the same style.

The place doesn’t lack charm, but gets busy fast at lunch, especially since this part of Roquette St. has so few good spots to offer. Brasseries with fake wooden clocks are aplenty, but smart street food, or small restaurants that we like to go to, not really, except Grain de Riz on Cavaignac St., and even there I’m not a big fan. If when reading these lines the blood rushed to your head because I forgot a good place to go to, please let me know.                                                                                                                                                                 Let’s go back to our spot, it has character, and the tables outside are more than welcome! Inside is a bit busy so we’re happy to go eat our 7 euro sandwich outside in peace.

Some little things that could be improved on:                                                                                                                                                                               -napkins are only found at the cash, I’d put more on the counter in front of it, so we don’t have to go through the line to get to them.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                – To wash our hands, they let us use the kitchen sink, which in itself is actually pretty cool. However, it’d be nice to add soap other than dishwashing liquid, for those who have fragile skin, not the best.

Before eating a sandwich it’s nice thing to be able to wash your hands if you want to.                                                                                                 So there, just some little things, all made in good spirit.

A good staff during the lunch rush. There were two others helping Aline that day. Aline’s the captain at sea, she leads but helps when needs be.

Even for 7 euros, it’d have to be darn good sandwich, and lucky for me, I was eyeing the Milanese egg-mayo sauce sandwich among the other salivating Milanese options arranged on a tray at the counter just waiting for me, grilled perfectly, they look fantastic. Once again, here is a food that is rarely well done in Paris, and that is in this case put into a sandwich.

The dish of the day was a veal stew at 9,50, which didn’t seem expensive at all.

The sandwich                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Milanese, egg-mayo sauce                                                                                                                                                                                                                    It arrives at the table, which is also very cool, this ” Seat yourself, we’ll bring it to you”, they don’t make us wait standing in front of the sandwich counter.                                                                                                                                                                                                                What a beauty! There are layers, a crunch, you can tell right away- the colors are superb.                                                                                       One of my obsessions, the lettuce, looks great, splendid.                                                                                                                                                   We take a bite of it and it’s perfect, the sauce is where it should be, and it’s definitely good. It’s a more discrete ingredient throughout the sandwich, but without it, the whole thing wouldn’t work.                                                                                                                       A total success

After eating my sandwich and drank a couple of glasses of water I left hoping to find a place to get a quick coffee to settle my craving.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Maybe they did offer coffee, but I didn’t see it.

The art of making a sandwich, it’s already been said, is not to pile up ingredients, it’s the combination of them that matters: mission successful here with the Milanese. To come back often, we’d like to have some kind of deal with drink or coffee, a discount card, something that would make us want to come back even if we were far away, if looking to put in 10 euros max.