Pig's feet

A few weeks back, my friend VL's (who lives in Hong Kong now) coworker came to Paris for training. This means I had another person I can have dinner with! She'd never been to Paris before, and it was a Sunday night, and we know how notoriously annoying it is to find a place that's open for dinner on a Sunday. I gave her a few choices and we decided to go to Au Pied de Cochon next to Les Halles.

Sure its touristy, but she just wanted to get a feeling for traditional French food and I don't think thats just an awful place to try the basics. But even though their Soupe a l'oignon gratinee (one of my favorite French dishes) is supposed to be pretty good, it fell flat.

Too little flavor in the broth, and too much cheese. I barely even saw an onion in there! And then I ordered what I thought were mussels, as in mussels in their shells piled high, but I got something reminiscent of escargot dishes, a mussel or two in each little hole, with some kind of tomato / herb sauce on top. Also underwhelming. But it was redeemed with a glorious fromage frais topped with almond crumble and morello cherries. I could've just eaten that all called it a night. (And look, the girl take gorgeous photos too!)

On the plus side, it is open 24 hours and claims it hasn't closed its doors since 1947 so I guess if you're starving in the middle of the night, you can go and get some porky goodness (I actually had no pork whatsoever tonight...although maybe I should have and that was my problem?). Just skip the soup.