Le Tocqueville is a bar/tabac in the XVIIe.
Bar-tabacs are the lowest form of French cafe ...
Although this does not mean that any individual one is bad.
These are cigarette and lottery ticket shops that will also sell you a coffee, pour you a drink or give you lunch.
Many but not all will also sell you newspapers and magazines.
I buy a lot of French magazines - so I often go into tabacs with no intention of eating or drinking anything.
Menus are always rudimentary.
Seating is always rudimentary.
A lot of the customers are there to buy cigarettes or lottery tickets.
A good tabac however can get you a good honest drink or good honest food.
* * *
As it happens, the wife and I were starving to death and thirsty when we showed up at Le Tocqueville.
The Tocqueville is small.
We could barely fit into the cramped seating.
But we got served absolutely first rate coffee and sandwiches.
A lot of French coffee is bad .... like really bad.
I had been drowning in bad Morning Joe since I arrived in Paris.
This was the first cup of coffee I was happy to drink.
It would not get "beaten" until I was at some upscale places much later in the visit.
The Camembert sandwich I got was an absolute world beater.
This was strong Camembert.
Like S-T-R-O-N-G Camembert.
Like the cheese could have jumped out of the sandwich and wrestled me to the floor if it had been so inclined.
In the United States, we get "baby formula" Camembert and Brie.
Nothing designed to offend.
Cheese as weak and namby-pamby as a diplomat giving a don't-say-anything speech at a Washington luncheon.
You might as well put whipped cream on your cracker and skip the Brie.
This was a nasty sandwich - an abusive sandwich.
I wish all the Camembert I eat in the future is as uncompromising, nasty and abusive as this one was.
* * *
For what it is worth, even though the interior decorating of Le Tocqueville is no great shakes,
The location is actually really nice.
It is next to the Parc Promenade Pereire which near the Tocqueville is an open air buried former railroad track that you can now walk on.
There is lush beautiful greenery along the walkway - and much of that rises up above street level.
So you get a pleasant park-like view looking out the Tocqueville.
* * *
The Tocqueville is not a spend all afternoon lingering place.
They want you to buy your cigarettes, buy your coffee, have your sandwich and get out of there.
But with decent food and decent scenery, visiting there is a nice interlude.
Your sore knees will tell you when it is time to go. read more