A tourist in Paris posted a TikTok video to share why he regrets getting a popular sweet street food while he was there. The video has had a huge amount of views, likes and comments.
A tourist in Paris tried a street food without hesitation – but soon regretted it afterwards.
Mark Roberts, an American visiting the French capital, was by the Eiffel Tower when he came across a stand selling crepes. Upon realising he hadn’t tried one yet during his visit to Paris, he decided to get one but he wished he hadn’t. He is now telling people what street food to avoid in Paris after what he discovered.
After savouring the dessert, he spotted the man who served him his crepe walk past him holding bags containing the crepe ingredients. He was disgusted as he watched the vendor put the bags in the sewer and Mark posted a video on TikTok to tell the tale.
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.”
He explained that “everything was normal at first” and he decided to visit the Eiffel Tower at night after hearing that it “sparkles”. When he got there he was glad to see that it did indeed sparkle and while he was there he spotted a crepe stand and decided to buy one.
The American tourist headed to the stand and spent 15 Euros on a Nutella crepe with strawberries and bananas. He admitted he paid “way too much for it” but since he was at the Eiffel Tower he could “kind of justify” the price and he thought the man making the crepe was “super nice and friendly”.
Mark continued: “None the less 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.”
After looking this up online he found that street vendors storing their stuff in the sewer is not unusual in Paris. Mark’s TikTok video has got an incredible 23.9 million views, 2.3 million likes and 12,000 comments.
It seems some users on TikTok were familiar with Parisian street food vendors doing this as the first comment under the video is “sewer crepe was my first thought” and the second is “I heard about sewer crepes a while back lol”. TikTok users who saw Mark’s video appeared to already know about street food in Paris as one claimed: “They specifically say not to buy anything near the Eiffel Tower.”
Some people, however, hadn’t heard of ‘sewer crepes’ before watching Mark’s TikTok video. One user said: “The more I find out about Paris the more traumatised I get.”