Free moules in Paris?

[Fuffy]

My grandson has heard/read that in certain Paris eateries one can get free mussels if one buys a beer on a Wednesday or Thursday night. Sounds too good to be true.Anyone heard of this or is it a dream?

[Rio Yeti]

Not that it would be any good, but I'd go for a free couscous over free mussels... I'm not a health freak, nor a paranoid person, but in this case I am both...

[Ptipois]

I agree, but I have never seen anything resembling free couscous in Paris...

Fuffy, please report back. If anything, just to tell us that you're still alive.

[Rio Yeti]

I've never actually tried it... but I've seen a couple of place announcing "free couscous" on fridays. There is a small bar type place that does that on rue Oberkampf (closer to Menilmontant). Free couscous and Live Jazz Manouche...

I never had the courage.

[Parigi]

Besides Tribal Café, the other ulter-hipster place La Chope du Château Rouge also serves free couscous on wkend nights, if I remember correctly. I have seen it, have not tried it. I need not get diarrhea in order to be hip.

[Ptipois]

It is not that easy to get someone diarrheic on couscous. It requires more than negligence: malevolence of some kind, since everything is cooked to death. You have to mean it to make someone sick from couscous: very stale merguez (which you're not even supposed to serve with couscous), toxic vegetables, etc. So I suspect the worst one can expect from that free couscous would be dullness.

I would be more cautious about the mussels... But if they smell right, they should be right. Are the frites also free?

[Fuffy]

Lawks! Ptipois It wasn't aged grandmotherly me that was about to go for free mussels. It was my beloved grandson and his four friends. They trotted off at 7.30 or so to Tribal Cafe, no tables outside so they sat inside drinking beer until 9pm when mussels appeared - next morning they commented that they had seen larger plates of mussels in their lives. But they seemed perfectly content and no sign of any stomach upset whatever.
I saw on a Free Paris website that Tribal Cafe and a few other places do free chicken couscous (Tribal Cafe on Fridays and Saturdays).

[Parigi]

I think Tribal Café does that on certain nights of the week.
I actually ike Tribal Café on other less hectic nights.
And really, when it comes to seafood where freshness is make-or-break, - and I'm talking about health and not even the palette, - do you really want to aim for the cheapest?

[Fuffy]

Thank you very much. And yes my gaggle of impecunious and horribly young grandchild and friends most definitely want to aim for the cheapest. Plus it must lead to the kind of ambiance and clientele that would suit them. Diarrhea be damned.

[Parigi]

Tribal café is indeed hipster central. Your grandchild and his friends will be very hip diarrheacs.