City wanderings - and a pilgrimage to some of the best eating and drinking spots in Brussels. Or maybe not eating or drinking - ah, oh well.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

In de Patattezak

This hallowed place for lovers of tasty spaghetti bolognese serves up industrial quantities of slinky al dente spaghetti with a generous sauce to cheese ratio. 



One trip advisor reviewer has described it as "the BEST spaghetti bolo in the world".  I wouldn't go that far, but this has certainly become a regular haunt of mine, and I credit my trips here with teaching me (finally) how to eat spaghetti with a spoon and fork.  I suggest you turn up after wearing yourself out playing sport -  lots of it.  For me In de Patattezak is a regular post-badminton, end of weekend place where you can just get on with eating without the need for time-wasting conversations.  Anyway surely the only worthy distraction from your spaghetti is to debate spaghetti itself: how much of the stuff is served up here in one year?  Next time I go I intend to ask, but a steaming pile of spaghetti usually appears in front of me long before I've had a chance to ponder such deep philosophical questions.

Choices are limited to bolognese, veggie bolognese, seafood bolognese and cheese and ham bolognese.  Unless you've run, swum or pedalled a considerable distance beforehand, I'd say the regular size would be enough for an ordinary mortal, but then the difference in price is small, and the difference in quantity considerable.....

October 2011.  It is several months later and I am seated at a table In de Patattezak again, after their Summer break, twisting spaghetti around my fork and slurping it swiftly to avoid telltale orange smears.  Finally I remember to ask the question I've been meaning to ask for almost a year:  just how much pasta is served up here - per week, per month, per year?!  And the answer is... I fear I may have to keep you in suspense just a little longer because, incompetent researcher that I am, I cannot find the scrap of paper I'd jotted the response down on....  So this will have to remain a mystery for a while longer.  But please remind me to hunt for said piece of paper - or you could always guess in the meantime?

November 2011.  Readers of this blog were not clamouring to guess spaghetti quantities.  Nobody asked, nobody guessed.  But anyway I did come across a piece of paper in a box one day while tidying my flat, and on it was...  The answer!

8 packets of 15 kilo per day.  One kilo feeds four people.  Then roughly 600kg of pasta per week.  Put it another way, if you have one customer who weighs around 60 kilos, then every week they sell pasta weighing the same as ten people.  (Becinbrussels exclaims: Eek, that's quite a lot of pasta!)

Bolognese (regular) - 9 Euro
Bolognese (Maxi) - 12 Euro
Seafood bolognese - 16 Euro




In de Patattezak
Oude Mechelsestraat 48, Brussels 1853 Strombeek-Bever, Belgium
02 267 52 52
Open from 18:00 until 01:00 7 days a week, and weekday lunchtimes. 

Located in a residential area outside central Brussels: you'll need a car (and possibly GPS) to get here.

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