When in Paris, dining out can set you back a few euros. However the next hotspot doesn`t. East Mamma ( of the Big Mamma group ) is an "Italian Trattoria Popolare" serving original Italian products bought directly from producers in Italy. Located near Bastille in the heart of Paris, this restaurant is open every day and takes no reservations. Arriving a bit early already a line of enthousiast diners was forming. And we weren`t the only enthousiast there. The East Mamma staff is a young bunch and the last preparations for the evening service were completed on the tunes of The Prodigy. One last sigaret and then the doors of East Mamma opened !
When you get to your table a simple menu is awaiting you and water is presented.
You can also ask for a counter seat so you can have a look at the kitchen and the dynamic staff.
Our drinkselection is a fresh homemade lemonade and a bitter Chinotto based on grapes.
During our stay in Paris we went to East Mamma twice because the food was so good and cheap and we wanted to try more from the menu. Everybody loves some good Italian.
The dishes we tried were:
Fresh pasta with black truffles from Bologna with a mascarpone cream and small mushrooms vs the pizza mammargherita with buffalo mozzarella DOP ( DOP being a label guaranteeing the authenticity of a product )
Nice presentation on both dishes - maybe a bit odd though to present the food on top of the menu - and the taste was great, however personally to eat an entire truffle pasta becomes a bit boring after a while.
The big mamma salad with fresh peaches and Bresaola vs the pizza Marinara with tomato sauce and herbes
I actually had this salad the first night and the flavour combo was a real suprise and eye opener towards peaches on salads. Nice colours on the plate aswell. I do like some bread with my salad though.
Service at East Mamma is very quick so if you re only having one course, it will be a short dining experience.
So after a great salad I went over the menu again looking for interesting desserts, I saw these fresh strawberries with whipped cream, merrengue, blueberries, raspberry and strawberry coulis ( which resemble my favorite desert Pavlova ) so I decided to give it a try ... for BLOGs-sake.
Although nicely presented this dessert Frutti Coquins did not fulfill my expectations.
As the pizza only was 9 euro and this dessert 8 euro, still being relatively cheap, it felt a bit pricy for the 1 or 2 sliced strawberries with a lot of whipped cream and a bit of merrengue on top... and 6 berries.
Another funlooking dessert was the Nutella pizza, which basically is some pizza dough and a giant pot of nutella with a huge spoon. This dessert gets posted a lot on the East Mamma instagram page.
Anyway lesson learned the next day we just had a coffee. I tried the coffee with Nutella and it was a small strong coffee with a teaspoon of Nutella. Notice the "call me mamma" napkin btw.
A mention aswell for the hand cream at the toilets, a nice touch.
So another dining experiment with some winners and some "less to my likings", but I would recommend having lunch or dinner there if you re in the neighborhood, visiting Bastille, the Opera or the Père Lachaise Cemetery. Like I said you can not make reservations there and on the nights we passed by the restaurant there always was a line of hungry diners.
East Mamma is part of the Big Mamma group. You can check out East Mamma and other venues at their website. Until next time !!
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