30 Dec Au Rocher De Cancale, Paris

Dinner was at Au Rocher De Cancale, which is virtually on the corner of Rue Mandar and Rue Montorgeuil. The restaurant was founded in 1846 and the walls still have some of the old art that had painted into the plaster and preserved with pieces of perspex. There was only one waiter managing the top floor, but he was quite efficient. He was also much more patient than the waiter at Le Vaudeville, taking time to translate each main menu item properly and having a more friendly and less pompous manner. My order was tuna steak with pepper crust, pepper sauce and carrot gratin (€17). Mum had risotto with skewers of scallops (€22) and dad had duck Magret with potatoes (€17). The servings were much bigger than expected. Dad’s probably had around 400-500g of duck because it came with two breast fillets. Mum’s risotto came with 6 scallops and my tuna took up nearly half the area of my plate. The duck sauce was slightly sweet, but the meat was cooked really nicely and the potatoes were good too. Mum’s risotto was cooked al dente and the six scallops were fresh and cooked nicely too. My tuna was supposed to be rare. It didn’t turn out rare, but it was still somewhat moist. The edges of it had the pepper crust, which tasted great but the carrot gratin was too sweet for my liking and I didn’t eat all of it because of the cream.