Ribouldingue

I love offal and an old friend who (sadly) has since passed recommended this place to me. We went with friends and were immediately struck by the rather incredible location in the shaddow of Notre Dame. I always have worries in such a location as the closer you get to the center of Paris the more likely you are to have a bad experience. More tourists=more surly Parisians.
So no surprise when, having made the reservation the person whom I assume to be Madame the co-​owner vaguely points us in the direction of a table in an empty restaurant and says: «this should do.» Uh oh. Seriously, business is this bad and you can’t even crack a smile?
Next, menues are thrown down (literally). Do you want an appéritif? Yes. A few minutes later, drinks are half sloshed down in front of us. Do you want wine? Yes. Five minutes later wine is brought and opened on the table (a no-​no but I’ll pass on it) and the cork is not presented nor is anybod asked to taste it (two no-​nos that I won’t pass on).
So we look at the menu and there are some goodies which all of us are interested in. Calves brains, tongue, tripe, pig’s snout and cheaks with lentils. My kind of food on a cold december night. We order. She is grumpy and curt.
We have barely gotten through a third of our appéritif that our appetizers are thrown down in front of us (again literally). No grace, no charm, no smile, no pleasure. And terrible timing. Since these are dishes that are for the most part all cooked in advanced there is no reason to get them to the table at anything but exactly the right time for the diner. She clearly didn’t care.
Dishers were solid. Not extraordinary but good all around and with better service I wouldn’t have hesitated to give four satisfied stars.
The rest of the meal continued in this vein. She would rush by never checking on us, was clearly miffed when we didn’t order deserts, etc. So 4 people, $ 300 (0r 240 euros) and a boatload of completely unnececessary attitude, means I won’t be going back. By the way, this wasn’t an American aimed thing. I was with 3 French people and we were all speaking French. So it’s just generally bad attitude… which clearly has gotten around because the place remained essentially empty during prime dining hours on a Friday night… a sure sign that a place is going under.
Too bad. Person working in the kitchen while no genius deserves someone competent working the floor. Not this angry, ungraceful, and completely charmless human being currently working tables. I would note that she was alone which may have been a cause for anger in its own rigth. But given that there were four table total the whole two hours we were there (standard for a French dinner) she was hardly overworked.
That is all.

And there you sit at your table whilst gazing upward at Notre Dame. Typical evening meal venue in the city of lights.
The company who booked and joined us for this meal were our dear, newish friends from London who popped over to join in on a bit of my lovely wife’s and my 10^th wedding anniversary.
The food was so-​so. Three of us ordered the foie gras starter and we’re disappointed but filled with a renewed sense that we must return to Comptoir De La Gastronomie where serving foie gras is an art form.
The smoked haddock main was okay but nothing to write home about and every — and I do mean everything — enjoyed a bit too much attention from salt.
I actually can’t remember what was served for dessert but never mind.
The lovely wife, friends, rosé wine and view of Notre Dame sustained me through what was otherwise a disappointing meal in a city where so many other great meals were served that very same evening.
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Et là vous vous asseyez à votre table tout en regardant vers le haut à Notre-​Dame. Salle de repas du soir typique dans la ville des lumières.
La société qui a réservé et nous a rejoint pour ce repas était notre ami, amis Newish de Londres qui s’affichaient plus à se joindre à un peu de ma charmante épouse et mon 10e anniversaire de mariage.
La nourriture était couci-​couça. Trois d’entre nous avons commandé le foie gras démarreur et nous sommes déçus, mais rempli d’un sentiment renouvelé que nous devons revenir à Comptoir de la Gastronomie où servir le foie gras est une forme d’art.
Le haddock fumé principal était correct mais rien à écrire sur la maison et tous — et je fais tout moyen — apprécié un peu trop l’attention de sel.
Je né peux vraiment pas me rappeler ce qui a été servi pour le dessert, mais jamais l’esprit.
La belle femme, amis, vin rosé et vue sur Notre Dame m’a soutenu à travers ce qui était contraire un repas décevant dans une ville où tant d’autres grands repas ont été servis le soir même.

My husband and I visited Ribouldingue in the Spring of 2009, having read about it through Clotilde Dusoulier’s helpful guide to Paris delights. We knew, going in, that the restaurant specialized in offal, and that’s exactly what I wanted to sample when we arrived.
The matriarch of the house was indeed more stern than warm, but polite and spoke a bit of English. She mentioned the Dinner set option (30 Euro, if I remember correctly) and instructed us to order a starter, a main course and dessert or cheese course.
We were surprised by a cold terrine of Pork ears — a lovely and light dish, pleasingly chewy, with a dash of piquant mustard.
The husband was more cautious back then, and ordered sedately: a salad of salmon for his first course and a tagliatelle with beef cheeks for his second.
I opted for Lamb’s brains — Cervelles D’Agneau Meunieres — lovely and light and creamy and served with fingerling potato.
I’ve always prided myself on being culinarily adventurous and omnivorous. Raised as a child in the Philippines I was exposed to all sorts of stinky sauces and alternative meats. Liver, brains, frog, balut — not things I shied away from. One of my favourite offal dishes is tripe. I adore tripe in all forms — from steamed Chinese Dim Sum, to delicate strips in Phở, to heartier Italian treatments braised in wine and doused with olive oil and cheese.
But French tripe — or at least — the tripe I opted for at this restaurant, smelled, to put it delicately — of the barnyard. We caught whiffs from across the room. D. looked askance and a bit revolted. I tried a mouthful — tasty and flavourful. it did not, thankfully, taste as it smelled.
It was also an enormous portion, and one I certainly could not finish. By the time we got around to dessert — I opted for cheese in this case — I couldn’t get anything further down. Too bad there are no doggie bags in France.
Would I return? Most definitely! I want to try those cow’s udders, or a nice ris de veau next.

Our friend said he was taking us to a ‘hidden little gem of a restaurant with some of the best cuisine in all of Paris’. Little did I know I was about to be introduced to Awful… ehhh emmm, I mean, Offal Cuisine. OMG! This is not my idea of food.
People! Do your research on ‘offal’ — I had no idea what to expect until I was seated at the table with a menu in front of me. Our friend is never in charge of picking the restaurants ever again!
If you like offal — by all means — go to Ribouldingue!

I enjoyed my dinner here. This was one of the restaurants I was set to eat at during my holiday. The restaurant is easy to find and travel to by the metro.
My partner and I shared our dishes. For entrée, we ordered the cow udder salad and the lamb tongue. Main was the deer dish for him and mines the beef head and brains. I thoroughly enjoyed all the dishes, especially the brains. Gelatin and meaty at the same times. The taste was nothing that I could expect, nor would be able to order back in the States. This dish was a popular dish as the tables next to us either had a plate or the entire table ordered it.
I recommend Ribouldingue to everyone who wants a fine dinner of offal and a slight adventure.

I thought this place was pretty good but I guess my fellow French Unilocalers have more discerning pallets. I guess it makes sense as Paris is a degustation paradise and what do I know with my simpleton American taste.
Anywho, I thought this place was great. Very different kind of meats that you rarely find served in the states. For starters I had the lambs tongue salad. Quite tastety. My partner had the cow udders. That tasted like milky cartilage, but it was fried up and who doesn’t like anything fried.
Main course was stewed venison. I was a little disappointed as it was a bit salty for my taste. My partner had cows brains. I was a little put off yet strangely intrigued by it and couldn’t help picking at it and taking small nibbles here and there. The cerebrum had a gelatinous texture, like a hard jello. The cerebellum part was interesting — it was a little more solid like sweetbreads and I thought it tasted fishy. The brain stem tasted a little bit more like meat but had a texture of terrines.
It was a very interesting meal.

This little bistro is absolutely delightful and the food was some of the best I’ve had in Paris.
It was worth the trip for the comedy duo front of house — a little gentleman who scuttled around and smiled at everything and an overbearing matron who made you feel like you were having school dinners again.
I was particularly pleased that the majority of diners appeared to be French too and like to kid myself that we’d stumbled on somewhere undiscovered. It was unfortunately in the guide book.
The chef specialises in offal, but the small menu thankfully had other options too. I couldn’t fault any of the food and the caramel rice pudding was actually to-​die-​for. It wasn’t cheap but definitely worth it.