It was raining. Not a light Parisian drizzle, but a soaking rain. More than a hundred people stood on Rue Saint-Benoît getting wet. Almost none of them left.

Our daughter had been insistent in a way that got our attention. Le Relais de l'Entrecôte, Saint-Germain. Don't be late to the line. There is one thing on the menu. Just go.

She knows Paris well. Left to ourselves, we'd have chosen somewhere quieter, more considered. A steakhouse with one thing on the menu wasn't exactly our instinct. But she was certain, and her certainty was persuasive.

So we went. We got in line. Then the rain came.

Umbrellas went up. Raincoats got zipped. Someone laughed. And then Scott introduced himself.

He was from Greenville, South Carolina. Before long he had a dozen strangers treating each other like old friends. He'd been in Paris a year, enrolled in a graduate program, and had no intention of going home. He was gay, he told us, and had felt increasingly unsafe in the U.S. Paris had given him something Greenville couldn't. He was visibly, unguardedly happy.

Standing next to him was his twin sister. She'd flown over to see his life — to check in, to understand. This was the one place he'd insisted they come.

Not Notre Dame. Not the Eiffel Tower. A restaurant with a line around the block in the rain.

We talked for the entire ninety minutes. Around us, five languages in ten steps — English, French, Japanese, Portuguese. Some were first-timers pulled here by someone's insistence, just like us. Others were back for the third or fourth time, bringing someone new.

When we finally got inside, the simplicity of it was almost startling. A walnut salad. Then steak, sliced thin on a silver platter, in a sauce the family has kept secret since the restaurant opened in 1959. The frites are perfect. Before you've decided whether you want more, a server is already beside you with a fresh platter.

The whole thing runs about 29 euros. In Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

Our daughter wasn't at the table. But she'd chosen this for us, and we'd gone because we trusted her.

Across from us, Scott's sister was watching her brother laugh with strangers in a city he'd made his own.

Outside, it was still raining.