Le Relais Gascon

Last year we went to this restaurant based on a 2 sentence review in a guidebook.  The place offered giant salads, and since we had been gorging on croissants for a week, we were ready for some greens.  Instead, the giant "salads" were full of potatoes, croutons & of course, foie gras.  Of course we wanted to go back.  It might have been the impetus for the entire trip to Paris.  

Unfortunately, we couldn't remember the name of the restaurant, only the neighborhood.  That being Montmarte, it was a confusing tangle of winding streets and each corner looked like the one where the restaurant should be.  C and I racked our brains, but ultimately resorted to the ol' Phone-A-Friend method.   I sent a transatlantic message to G, and after not remembering, he googled "Best Salad Ever Paris."  A simple, yet direct query with Le Relais Gascon as the top find.  How often do you get that?  I was astounded further to find that the restaurant was at the end of the cross street where we were staying.   Just up the hill from tourist-ridden Pigalle we found the two-story Gascon, packed to the gills (with lots of Americans- surely they had done the same Google search), and we were tucked in the farthest corner of the farthest room and I began to wonder if the expectations of our memories would be met.  

First of all, the restaurant looks nothing like the menu cover; that is Le Sacre Cour.  Also the style of the menu is odd and makes one think of the restaurant as a sort of diner, but I think that's an empty comparison, considering we are in France.  I think living in Brooklyn I have grown accustomed to fancily described foods that talk about provenance of ingredients and cooking styles and whatnot.  These salads are just things in a list.  All have fried potatoes with garlic.  The text has a distracting shadow.  Ok.  We choose our salads shrewdly (knowing they are huge), add a plate of snails for culture and a Boeuf Bourguignon because we really like vowels.

All were impressed.  Maybe we made the "salad" meal into a caricature of Frenchery, what with the Escargot and Bourguignon, but they performed amazingly.  Our little corner was exceedingly loud as we polished off carafes of the house wine, and we hoped that next time we might remember the name of the restaurant.