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- Worst meal I've ever had
Me and my friend were visiting Paris for a weekend in October. Since it was one of few restaurants with vegan options in Montmartre, we decided to visit Au Grain de Folie for dinner. The location is nice, but that is the only thing positive I can say about this place. I ordered a mixed plate with seitan, and my friend ordered a mixed plate with a vegetable pie of some sort. We also ordered some wine. We received the wine and two dirty glasses, and then the waiting began. There were three other guests at the restaurant who had arrived just before us. After 15 minutes, they received a soup of some sort, but we kept on waiting. 20 minutes later they received their mixed plates, but we kept on waiting. When we had waited 45 minutes, my friend asked our server what was taking so long since the other guests had received two courses, to which he replied "This is the way we do things". We finished our wine, visited the restroom (which was also a broom closet), and waited some more. After an hour we received our food. The food was what the most ignorant meat eaters would say vegans eat: some lentils (overcooked), some raw shredded carrots and kale, some sliced cucumbers, brown rice (overcooked), a vegetable stew of some sort (overcooked) and seitan/vegetable pie. It was all topped with some sort of herb salt, and just looked like a brown mess. I would be surprised if Au Grain de Folie has updated their menu since they opened over 25 years ago, it certainly didn't look like it. We were both hungy after our long wait, so we felt we had to eat, and after the first few bites, I couldn't stop laughing. It tasted just as bad as it looked, and I told my friend that I was so happy we visited this place, because anything I would eat from that moment on would be better than this. We also made a deal that sometime in the future, without notice and at any time during the day, we would give the other person 10 minutes to prepare a full meal with whatever she had at home, and compare it to what we received at Au Grain de Folie. I am convinced it will be a million times better than what we had just eaten. If you want a meal that looks and tastes like it was prepared in the 70's, this is the place for you. But if you, like most people, realize that vegan food has evolved a lot the last couple of decades, and actually want something good, don't visit this "restaurant". I really wish this place would go out of business. It gives vegans and vegetarians everywhere a bad name.