TranTranZai — Restaurant in Paris

While visiting Paris, this place happened to be nearby our hotel and after walking by it for a few days seeing that it was packed nearly every day, we decided to check it out... and I'm so glad we did! Walking in, the sights and sounds transported us to an Asian street market with the walls adorned with vintage artworks and neon signs. Taking quick peeks at other tables on the way to getting seated, we knew we were going to be in for a great meal.

We ordered an appetizer of pork dumplings in spicy sauce (Ravioli au porc à la sauce piment soja). With the slight imperfections in each wrapper, it was clear these juicy flavor bombs were handmade with love and a perfect way to kick off our meal. For our mains, we went with the DanDan noodles with Minced Pork (Nouilles DanDan au porc haché sans soupe), Beef Mianyang Vermicelli Soup (Soupe de vermicelle mianyang au boeuf), and (different) Pork Dumplings (Raviolis au porc sans soupe). Each dish was loaded with flavor. The DanDan noodles had great chew and enough spicy heat to be enjoyable. The beef in the Beef Mianyang was suuuuper tender and the noodles seemed like spaghetti noodles which was suprisingly pleasant (even though my brain was highly confused). Our second round of dumplings were more wonton style. Also, the portions were enourmous... and we crushed it all. The lady ninja had to have dessert (#CuzVacation), so we tried the Tai Chi Match Panna Cotta and it was heavenly.

Overall, the service was great and the food was epic. For some reason, I was not expecting Asian food to be this good in Paris and I'm happy to be wrong. Everything was hand-made with no shortcuts which you can taste with every bite. There were several moments that I forgot that I was in Paris (until the server came around and started speaking French). If you're in the mood to shake things up from standard French fare, I would definitely encourage you to...

Atmosphere: buzzing and lively interior and exterior space- filled with animation design, lanterns and funky colors. It works super well with the street food vibes. Really works well with marais vibes too

Food: EXCELLENT. Everything we tried was amazing with my personal favorite being the dandan noodles without soup. You can pick your spice level from 1-6, its important to note when eating dry noodles spice sticks onto it stronger so a 3 would be slightly over medium spice- whereas if in a soup a 3 would be a perfectly medium spice level. The DANDAN was excellent, the porc hache and the peanut with spicy oil- im salivating as i type. The beef noodle soup was hearty and savory, very satisfying on a cold day. The vegetarian dumplings were excellent too. Nothing let me down. The star of the show was really their home pulled noodles that has this thick chewy fresh texture that honestly makes me want to go back for more right now.

Service: easy simple service with friendly staff. Prices were super affordable for the amount of food you are receiving. Some of the dumpling options were unavailable but the server was quick to recommend other similar options.

Final notes: 100% would go back again and again if they keep this standard of food. I highly recommend this for a casual day or night in the marais. One of the best noodles i have had and i truly enjoy all sorts of asian food- definitely a good place to get...

The dumplings were great, the noodles felt heavy like there was some type of heavy cream in the soup. We arrive, the inside has lots of empty tables so we go to sit there, they tell us that they have only outside available, but that it is heated. We go outside, it’s the perfect temperature. We try to seat on one side with lots of free tables but the server says that those were meant for groups of four and she points to the other side. We try to sit at a table which still needs cleaning because it’s the only one which has no other people, but the server tells us to move to a table next to other two people still sitting and eating (in a display of tables which was meant for four people, so two strangers sitting next to two strangers but as close as if they came together). Of course we had to stand up to let them leave (not a problem) and we still had to stand up when the server came again to clean up their part of the table after they left. Again, not a problem at all, but why do that when there were all those tables fully available? Also afterwards we saw other people in groups smaller than four (groups of two, even just one person by herself) sitting on that side. I don’t know, but the servers were still quite nice,...