A quiet night in Clichy - Le Coin du Rocher: a score for TripAdvisor

16th January, Paris.
I was let down by my French colleague who promised to take me out for a nice dinner in Paris (not his fault), and had been left at a hotel in Paris in an area I did not know. I did a bit of research before my trip, but the establishment I had identified had closed. I advise anyone in situation to consult with TripAdvisor. Used with care, it has rarely let me down. You have to sort out the comments that have clearly been made by competitor disparagement, but if a lot of people have praised a place, it might just be good. And so it was with Le Coin (The corner) which looked like a typical little Parisian restaurant. There was no formula menu and no English. There is a helpful web site, but not in English (Chrome makes a fare stab at it)
http://www.lecoindurocher.com/
It is just as well that I went there early, about 7.30, because an hour or so later, it was packed, and I would have had difficulty getting a table, but being early, the host took his time to take a picture of me

This is the best view of the place, otherwise, despite the pictures on the web site, it is very ordinary looking

Fashions come and go, and one of the fashions at the moment is to not have a printed menu. In Paris, this is suggesting that the menu is varied according to the availability of produce, and that what you get is just for that day. This was the case here, but later perusal of the web site suggested that the blackboard and the web menu were pretty similar. I could not know that at the time. I should have guessed from the length that some of the things were staples.

For starter I had Basque pate with pimentos which came with a jar of small picked gherkins

With fresh bread this was excellent.

For main course I chose cassolette de rognons au porto, which came with potato, which you don't get very often in North London.

This was excellent and scored a 9 on the CHOF scale offset by the potatoes which were only a 7.

I am guessing that this was pre-prepared (although I accept that this was probably in their kitchen) and heated to order, as by this time there were more diners ordering diverse meals, and nothing appeared to be rubbed off the board.

For desert I chose a dark chocolate mousse. This had probably spent too much time in the chilling cabinet, and was a little dried on the top, but was clearly home made and tasted excellent.

A three course meal with a 250ml piche of the house red cost 40 euros and was well worth it. The quality of the food was excellent, and the staff made me very welcome. They even tolerated my schoolboy French, which was just as well, as there was not a lot of English here. The place was packed with locals when I left after 9 pm, and looking in the windows of nearby establishments, nowhere else had the same occupancy. So a lucky strike here, and well done trip TripAdvisor.