My friend Julie recently dropped into Paris for a visit and tour de food. This was Julie’s fourth time in Paris, so she knew exactly where she wanted to go and what she wanted to order.
“Mark your calendar for lunch on Wednesday, because we are eating Big Ass Salad.”
A simple salad is traditionally served as a palate cleanser between courses in a multi-course French meal. The salads at Le Relais Gascon, however, are served as palate loaders that will send you into the night-night nappy zone if you aren’t careful. When should you ever be careful about food, though?
Listed on the menu under “Salades Géantes,” the direct English translation according to Julie is “Big Ass Salad.”
Julie didn’t even look at the menu. “Salade de Béarnais, s’il vous plait.” I took my cue from her and ordered the same because it seemed like the dirtiest salad on the menu besides the Salade Gascon, which had a block of foie gras on it.
The deep ceramic basins came practically erupting with sautéed garlic potatoes, salty pieces of pork (lardons), and thick rounds of warm goat cheese. “I know there’s some salad under here somewhere.”
Yes. There was. A thin lining of beaten down leafy greens at the bottom being crushed under the weight of the “so good to me but so bad for me” deliciousness of pork fat, starch and cheese. That’s right. I’d do it all over again if I had to. My only regret: not adding the fried egg on top.
Grab a window seat upstairs, order a carafe of rosé, and watch the people on Rue des Abbesses walk by as you eat yourself into a Big Ass Salad coma.
You can stroll up and down the hills of Montmartre and around Sacré Coeur afterward if you need to wake up and work off some salad.
It’s salad, though. It’s healthy, I promise.
6, rue des Abbesses
75018 Paris
Metro: Abbesses
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hahahaha.