Kevin W.
Yelp
Sometimes French restaurants greatly disappoint me and I wonder to myself what value to the world would be lost if all of them except the falafel restaurants were to forever disappear without a trace off the face of the Earth. King Falafel Palace is one of those restaurants that restores my faith in the French people's ability to provide me with a thoroughly satisfying meal that doesn't suggest the establishment to be one giant price gouged tourist trap. It has the unfortunate disadvantage of being located right next to the most popular falafel restaurant in town, but this one still holds up on its own.
The only reason I came here was that its great competitor L'As du Fallafel was closed on the Tuesday afternoon I visited, despite their store hours suggesting they would be open at that time. Basically the same routine for making a falafel applies here as well. You stand in line and wait for your turn, whereupon you make your order and say what you want in your falafel. The available ingredients are laid out behind a counter with a glass window for you to see. It's not very complicated; just think of the pita being stuffed with vegetables in a manner similar to Subway. I do have to admit some of the items they use look kind of odd, like fried insects or something, and it's rather off-putting.
To be honest, I'm not exactly sure what most of the ingredients here are, since the falafels mostly come in package deals and you generally just specify what type of falafel you want. But just by eyeing what they have, it looks like you can get tomatoes, cucumbers, maybe eggplants and lettuce, and some other stuff. They have this beige-colored sauce that tastes really good. When all the things are put together, it'll be really hard to tell what's in there because it's all mixed together in a way that makes the individual items hard to discern. The taste is great, though, and you most likely won't care about what went in it after you've taken a bite.
For some reason, there are flocks of pigeons that like to populate this part of the Marais. They are extremely annoying and filthy creatures, so they kind of put a damper on the whole experience. Also, the falafel is so wide that it's basically impossible to take a bite out of it like you would a sandwich without making a huge mess. That's what they give you forks for, but it's kind of weird eating a sandwich-like food with a fork. You'd probably eat most of the filling before it's safe to start munching into the pita. The servers here wrap up the falafels in aluminum foil and hand it to you in a napkin, but it's kind of tight in a way that makes peeling back the foil difficult, and of course you don't want to eat the foil.
These are all just minor complaints, though. This restaurant is outstanding among the restaurants in Paris, although I wouldn't say it's quite as good as L'As du Fallafel. If you're in the area and the other place isn't open, then you owe it to yourself to try this place out. The fourth arrondissement of Paris is full of excellent restaurants, and this one is a great match for it.