An American tourist in Paris has issued a warning about a popular French street food after a shocking experience.
Mark Roberts, who was visiting the capital city, decided to indulge in a crepe near the Eiffel Tower, having realised he hadn’t tried them yet. However, he quickly regretted his decision and is now advising others on what Parisian street food to avoid.
After enjoying his snack, Mark was horrified to see the vendor walking past him with the ingredients for the crepes in a plastic bag which he subsequently stored right in the sewer. He shared his experience in a video on TikTok.
In the video, he said: “Why did no one warn me not to eat the crepes in Paris before I came to Paris? Because yesterday I ate a crepe in Paris and I almost instantaneously regretted it.”
Crepes are a Parisian delicacy
(Image: Getty)
The American tourist mentioned that initially, everything seemed normal. He had decided to visit the Eiffel Tower at night as he had heard it sparkles.
Upon arrival, he found this to be true and, spotting a crepe stand, ordered a Nutella crepe with strawberries and bananas from the friendly vendor. Mark went on to say that despite it costing 15 Euros, which he felt was overpriced, given the location near the Eiffel Tower he could somewhat justify the cost.
Mark recounted: “Nonetheless he gets done making my crepe and he hands it to me and this thing just looks beautiful, I’m ready to eat it. Now I like to sit down when I eat so I needed to find a bench and near the Eiffel Tower it’s super crowded so all the benches were filled so I had to walk a bit to find a bench that I could sit on but eventually I found an empty bench and I started eating my crepe and it was in fact delicious.
“As I’m sitting there having the last bites of my crepe I see the dude that served me the crepe walk right in front of me and he’s holding these clear plastic bags of something but I can’t tell what it is at first but I look a little closer and I realise one of the bags had crepe batter in it and another bag had chopped fruit.
“I’m just thinking that he’s like taking the leftovers from his business that day. Update: It was not. Then I see this dude walk up the path a little bit more and then he looks around to see if anybody’s looking and then he opens a manhole cover and proceeds to put the bag in the sewer and the worst part was before I realised what was happening I had already taken my last bite of the crepe.”
Mark Roberts found that some people knew vendors in Paris used the sewers for food storage
(Image: Getty)
He later learned it wasn’t unusual for street vendors in Paris to stash their supplies in sewers. Mark’s TikTok revelation went viral, amassing 23.9million views, earning 2.3million likes, and sparking over 12,000 comments.
The first comment read: “Sewer crepe was my first thought,” while the second shared: “I heard about sewer crepes a while back lol.” It seems many on TikTok were already clued up to this urban myth as another user warned: “They specifically say not to buy anything near the Eiffel Tower.”
Yet, there were still some who were taken aback by the concept of ‘sewer crepes’, only discovering it through Mark’s video. One such clueless user confessed: “The more I find out about Paris the more traumatised I get.”