In de Nieuwe Visbank

Do you remember that scene in Pretty Woman, where, as part of her initiation into upper class society, Julia Roberts is in a restaurant eating snails?

Sometimes in restaurants I feel like Julia's character.  I ate snails for only the second time in my life here, at In de Nieuwe Visbank.  The first time was in a dimly lit restaurant in the Latin Quarter, where I bravely chose them for my starter.  Unwisely as it turned out, because the neighbouring tables of impossibly gorgeous  young men and women on evening dates were

rather too close for comfort.  Unlike some of the other customers, I did not feel an urgent need to impress, but I still felt curious eyes swing towards me when my garlicky snails arrived, along with a curious long metal implement, that looked like it properly belonged beside a dentist's chair.  In fact there were two implements: one like a mini forcep for gripping the snail; and the other like a long metal toothpick.  This second one was a little disturbing: it reminded me of an ancient Egyptian embalming tool, used for extracting tissue from body cavities.


Rather inexpertly, I managed to grip the snails with my forceps, and scoop out the buttery, garlicky interior.  I reflected that embarrassment could happen several ways: either I would succeed in pinging the snail across the restaurant onto the dress of some beautifully attired French girl; or I could catapult it into her companion's wine glass; or propel it into the path of a waiter, who would catch it deftly, Pretty Woman style.  The prospect of garlicky breath for hours after was of little significance compared to these other potential disasters!  And yet somehow this eating episode passed without incident, and I felt proud of myself for forgoing the steak for a change, and trying something new.

Fast forward several years and I am 30 years old, and thankfully less readily embarrassed.  I've been to In de Nieuwe Visbank in Grimbergen several times, and think it is a great place to eat things that you don't eat very often. Yes, here I have eaten delicious, exceedingly garlicky snails.  On another occasion I've had frogs legs - I hadn't realised quite how bony they were, but again they are quite delicious in garlic!  And on still another occasion I've eaten lobster in front of my boyfriend's parents, probably only for the third time in my life.  The restaurant has tablecloths, a lobster tank, well presented dishes and attentive table service, but I am much more at ease here than I was in that Parisian restaurant.

Of course you can eat steak, and plenty of other meat dishes.  But the name of the restaurant refers to fish, and that's what I generally have for the main course.  There's sole, red mullet, snails, and many other fish, but I am stumped by the French names and still would not know the names in English.  Fish is one of the big gaps in my general vocabulary.  Note to self: I need to learn the names for fish, plants and birds.

What would I recommend you eat?  Well, I like the homemade fishy croquettes as starter, as well as the snails and frogs legs, of course.  For the main course you could have sole, or half a lobster prepared in several different ways.  Mine (pictured) is aux petits legumes, with a creamy sauce.  I realised when eating it that I would have preferred a more low-key sauce, because the creaminess detracted from the flavour of the lobster.  

My lobster aux petits legumes

Prices are reasonable, but understandably slightly higher than places where lobster, snails and frogs legs are not on the menu.  A two or three course meal for two could cost at least 100 euros, with or without wine.  However if you have a starter, you will probably not require dessert as the food is generally quite rich. 

On a warm evening, eat outside with the view of Grimbergen's church.

Something meaty: canard?

 Tel: 02 270 94 04

Les Super Filles du Tram

What makes a really good burger?
Is it simply the sum of all its parts, providing you use quality ingredients?  Or is it really just a matter of what meat you use and how you cook it?   As I continue resolutely with my burger eating challenge perhaps I'm finally approaching some kind of an answer.  However after every one I sample the list of potential burger joints does not seem to diminish.  Yes, I will be eating burgers for some time yet. 


The staff in Les Super filles du tram are breezy and friendly.  On my second visit we get in without a reservation and join an already busy group of customers, chatting animatedly.  While we wait there are the wall murals to look at, and the smell of chargrilled burgers wafts towards us from the kitchen at the back.  I am tapping my feet in anticipation: after a couple of scorched hours at the Brussels beer festival, squeezing past people to sneak down two Super des Fagnes beers, I am ravenously hungry.

This time the burgers arrive, not on wooden chopping boards, but on curved and personalised plastic trays.  The chips are still in their customary flower pot, but I must admit I find the trays a little off-putting: they remind me of school dinners or the youth hostel meals where food is served on wipe-cleanable trays.  I suppose wooden chopping boards were not as hygienic, but the plastic trays also have the effect of making the burgers appear smaller.  They are smaller than other burgers I've sampled recently, but they are tall, and impaled on cocktail sticks to keep all the ingredients together.

And what of those ingredients?  Well, here the emphasis seems to be on pleasing everybody, but with a trend towards using posher burger ingredients.  For non-red meat eating customers, there's the chicken breast and lemongrass scampi burger; for the fish eaters, the salmon burger; for vegetarians a vegetable cake burger; for the conscientious beef consumer, an organic burger.....   All of these come with flavours galore: not just cheddar cheese, but comté, gorgonzola, mozzarella, St. Marcellin.  Not just red onion rings, but caramelised onions, grilled red peppers and courgettes.  There's even a foie gras burger....  Never one for me.

So what was wrong?  I'd returned here to try the burgers a second time, but it only reinforced my view that the burgers are too dry - not juicy enough - and hence somehow do not bond together with the lovely ingredients and melt together in a satisfying way in your mouth.  Perhaps I'm answering my own question here: it seems that luxury ingredients count for little when the meat itself is not juicy - just give me a simple cheeseburger instead!  And yet it's obvious that Les Super Filles du tram try very hard, and that the restaurant is popular with many people, it's just that one fundamental aspect is not quite right.

It must be partly linked to fat content of the burger, we muse, as we slowly finish the remnants of our ingredient pile.  You can have a healthy, good quality, lean burger, but if there is no fat then the flavour is hard to recreate without recourse to artificial means (incidentally cheap fast food burger restaurants understand this very well).  It can be the same for roasting joints: in our rush to reduce fat at any cost we forget that it is precisely fat that gives meat a lot of its flavour....  But perhaps fat is not the problem, but then what is it?

Time for an interlude.  And a trip to the toilets: a little hidden grotto resplendent in its cloak of multi-coloured post-it notes carpeting the walls.  I finger a piece of paper and pen by the sink and wonder whether I should leave some kind of mark for those that follow.  What should I write: "Becinbrussels was here"?  No, that would be no good at all.  I've never been one for leaving notes on toilet walls!


Later doubts begin to crowd in: should I be writing about places that are not as good as I'd hoped, when others may disagree with my view?  I seek advice from a few friends: write as you find, they say.  So that's what I will continue to do.  Given the choice, I'd eat a burger at one of the other establishments I've reviewed.  And it's the same for the chunky chips too. 

Becinbrussels ate a Jurançon bio ou presque burger and her friend ate a Classique.  She awarded her own 6 out of ten.  She still has a long way, and a lot of burgers, to go.  Perhaps she is in denial, but really she should just do some more sport.

http://www.superfillesdutram.com/

rue Lesbroussart, 22
1050 Ixelles

Fat Boys

There are collective gasps and groans from the crowd in Place du Luxembourg.  We're squeezed on benches outside an American style sports bar; a bar with a European twist for we're dining al fresco and cheering on France versus Lithuania in a basketball game.  It's amazing the waiters keep tabs on what's going on.  To make things more challenging there's an open air techno concert just getting underway, so there's no hope of conversation.  We're here for eating, drinking, cheering for the underdog.

In Fat Boys, time is measured in parts of seconds.  The basketball game is divided up into chunks, fast-moving with "time out" stoppage time.  Compared to this, football seems positively pedestrian.  As eating or drinking carries on around us, we the audience are subjected to an excess of stimuli.  You cannot do anything - sip, chew, speak, burp - without a TV screen flickering within a 30 degree tilt of your head.  A sports bar, yes, but here you eat calorific buffalo wings, burgers and fries; while watching your favourite team or teams in action.  Your energies are expended cheering loudly and squeezing the French's dressing or ketchup.  Everything you need for entertainment and satisfaction is here, within reach - it's like a wonderful (or nightmarish) vision of the paranoid mother watching her baby playing video games.  Fat Boys and techno lads, you bring Place du Luxembourg alive!  How appropriate that football, rugby and basketball screens are competing with the Vertical Stage techno blaring from the former Luxembourg station building, and that the parasols of this excessive, hyperactive bar are emblazoned with Red Bull advertising!

As we prepare to order our burger, the techno is vibrating in my core and the basketball match is reaching a gripping climax.  Despite the will of the crowd, France are winning.  My burger, smothered with homemade chili and golden melted cheddar, arrives, and I can barely see it in the darkness.  It is thick, chargrilled and juicy, with onion, gherkin, crisp iceberg lettuce and golden fries that crunch.  The chili topping is delicious paired with the iceberg and molten cheddar.  The baps are ordinary - slightly sugary - not stealing the show.  Iceberg, chili and nachos - as I chew I am reminded of Texas and I yearn to go back. My feet start tapping as I attack the burger, while the music pounds and the crowd groans in dismay as France score again.  

"I've never eaten a burger while dancing before".

The burger isn't excessive and is dispatched.  France have won so I wander inside the bar to console  Lithaunians in the queue for the Ladies toilets.  Inside the bar is emblazoned with football scarves from Germany, England, Spain.  Televisions are stridently blaring, people are drinking out of plastic goblets and nobody is concerned about your age.  I wonder again about the Tex-Mex inspired menu: hot jalepenos, the buffalo wings Louisiana style and the very American idea of excess.  Fat Boys does not aspire to the kind of quantities served up in many US establishments, but there's a feeling of  bravado: of chomping and slurping large quantities while gobbling up coverage of goals, strikes and cheerleaders.  Not less, but MORE is more!  I smile at the memory.


Meanwhile my toes are tapping and my Texas cowboy boots are on.  As others stand around we decide to dance lindy hop to techno in Place du Luxembourg.  My mouth tastes of onion, and I've never attempted to dance the Charleston on cobblestones, to pounding beats from up above in a former railway station.  Nobody bats an eyelid, but somebody gives me a high five!  And after tiring of techno an hour or later, we discover that dancing swing to techno is considerably easier than dancing swing to R n'B on a proper dancefloor. 



Becinbrussels ate a Chili and Cheddar burger off the grill, washed down with beer.  She liked the burger very much, learnt about basketball and came to the conclusion that techno was much more exciting than R n'B.

Burgers range from 12 euro for the "Plain and Simple", to 20.50 for the "Fat Boys Mega" ("Not for the faint hearted" says the Menu)

http://www.fatboys-be.com/ 

02 511 32 66

Tout Bon

Ah, Tout Bon.  I like coming to this corner of Place du Luxembourg for breakfast - or a later brunch on the weekend.

Munch away contentedly on your breads, croissants and jams, just across the square from the monolith European Parliament staring you down with its myriad of glaring, reflective, waspish eyes.  Big Bully.  I know where I'd rather be.



Choosing my breakfast formule is not as simple as you'd think.  I usually opt for ze Continental, which seems to reflect both where I am and who I am these days.  There isn't a English breakfast as such, but there is a good variation on it: you can add bacon and beautifully presented custard yellow fried eggs to your bread selection.  The Continental comprises freshly squeezed juice, tea or coffee, a fresh croissant or pain au chocolat, and a basket of breads.  All breakfasts seem to include access to ze Jams of Delight, placed strategically within fighting distance in the middle of the table, and including chocolat-noisette spread, miel des ruchers mosan (from near Dinant), strawberry and blueberry jam, marmalade, and brown gloopy poiret from the Ardennes (pears slow-cooked without sugar or additives).  For me, the Jams of Delight are the best bit.

However there's another good thing about Tout Bon.  They do real hot chocolate, not the horrible Cécémel stuff.  This one will coat your throat with wonderful chocolatey-ness and fill you with joy.  Unfortunately no formule offers both orange juice and hot chocolate, so you just have to order it separately, instead of your coffee or tea, for a small supplement.  Then I pretend to be French, smearing my bread in jam and dunking the lot in my chocolate.  Wonderful.

Breakfast formulas at Tout Bon cost between 5 and 14 Euros.  They also do decent sandwiches to take away at lunch-time, including posh ingredients such as artichokes.

At Tout Bon Becinbrussels eats:

• pain au chocolat
• lashings of honey
• a bit of blueberry
• un petit peu de poiret
• a slurp of strawberry
• a morsel of bread and marmalade

and then she waddles off.....

www.toutbon.be
+32 (0)2 230 42 44

Choosy Juicebar

Carrot, fennel, celery, beetroot, garlic, cucumber.  All of these are great smoothie ingredients, but only one of them, beetroot, will turn your tongue a pinky red colour.  I also choose beetroot because I don't think I've sampled it in a smoothie before.

Beetroot gives you energy, promotes blood production, encourages your appetite and is easy to digest, I read on Choosy's website afterwards.

Choosy juicebar is run by Laura.  I was glad to come across it yesterday in town, because it was scorching hot and I was still dehydrated from the mojitos and dancing at the boisterous, brilliant Fiesta Latina the previous evening.  Laura's shop is cool, pink and green; one wall taken up by a mural of a forest and with pink birds in the window to populate it.  I'm usually a fan of guapa, the juice shop chain that is taking off in Brussels.  However, Laura's shop does not benefit from industrial sized blenders and juicers, and she uses vegetables that guapa don't, namely beetroot!  Oh hang on, guapa use beetroot too. But I prefer Laura's beetrooty version.

"Why smoothies?"  I ask Laura, when she has a short break from making sandwiches, smoothies and washing up.  "Because I like juice", she says simply.  I couldn't think of any more interesting questions to ask this young entrepreneur, so that was it.   

Carrot-ic evidence: this place is good for you!

 I still don't understand why when I make smoothies at home, they never taste as good as at Choosy, even when following a recipe.  So I will come again!  Laura's list is long....

Becinbrussels and her friend drank a Choupi: pineapple, apple, beetroot, ginger, orange!  (Detox digest)  And a Willy: carrot, ginger, orange.

Small smoothies are at 3.50 euro and large at 4.50.  The large size is generous and particularly good value.

www.bechoosy.be

Monte Bianco

It's Friday evening and I'm seated next to cookery books in various languages, jars of pesto and dusty wine glasses.  I move one of the books beside me to reveal a copy of Harry Potter and then start reading the first chapter of a sinister German children's book with a murderous character called Mouse.  On the walls are a still from la Dolce Vita, murals of an Indian priestess and ancient Eygptian, and a wheel. Who invented the wheel, the Romans or the ancient Eygptians?  It seems the right answer is not that obvious: Wikipedia says "the question of which culture originally invented the wheeled vehicle remains unresolved and under debate".  But it's not worth arguing over someone's choice of wall decoration.  This doesn't feel like a restaurant though: I'm in someone's front room, surely?

It was quite successful really, Friday night.  I walked past bars that I didn't know existed, many of them interesting-looking, and I made mental notes to return.  Then we came across this Italian trattoria in a non-descript street off the Boulevard Anspach, with shutters up and chalk-scrawled blackboards listing pizzas, along with the phrase "nous sommes ici pour vous."  There must have been a front door too, somewhere, one of those ingenious ones that fold away so the whole front of the room stays open to the balmy Brussels night.  Inside to get to the toilets you walked past the kitchen in the back, which was open, crowded with tomatoes, pizza dough, and piles of washing up in the sink.

It soon becomes obvious that we will not need to supply our own entertainment for the evening.  Our hosts are two Italian brothers, dressed in black.  One moves slowly around the dining room taking our order; the other works noisily in the kitchen shovelling pizzas into the oven.  We order a selection of home-made pasta and a pizza, and sit back sipping our wine.  Suddenly, disaster strikes.  A newly replaced tome on Italian cooking slips from its propped up position on the shelf and skids over our side table, sending wine glasses across the table and glass to the floor and over us.  In moments such as these I realise that I would not be the best person to thrust suddenly into an emergency, as for several moments I am incapable of doing anything.  There is silence, all heads turn, and our neighbouring table decide that now is a good time for a cigarette break.  The waiter brother seems paralysed, preparing to run out and leave us there with glass around our feet.  Suddenly the cook in the kitchen springs towards us with a broom, balancing our pizza on his other hand.  He shoos us quickly to another table, sweeps up the shards of glass, and returns moments later with my pasta selection.

Anyway "Ils se prennent pas la tête!" Says my friend, in some relief.  I was half expecting a scolding.  Instead we are left to eat as ring-side spectators, while the cook seats himself among the other customers and pours himself a glass of wine.  He is one of those fascinating people who cannot stop talking: his stream of words do not seem addressed at anyone in particular: they tumble out fast; combining Italian with some strongly accented French, and a perplexing range of subjects, which seem to include the Karma Sutra, Lenin, Libya, football and Berlusconi.  Meanwhile his silent brother sits at a table watching him like a docile creature waiting to be stroked.

One of the customers jokingly observes that the chef has poured himself a better glass of wine than is on his table.  The chef waves his hands in mock exasperation and tops up the glasses of the people around him.  We customers have long given up talking to each other, and the focus is on the noisy brother.  As one man puts it, "In whatever language you speak, it's always Italian!"  The trattoria  is discussing football again.  I can only try to listen, my stomach swelled with pasta and my brain slowed by wine.

Forget the pristine starched white tablecloths, over-sized pepper pots, sterile service and pricey pizzas of some Italian restaurants in the EU district.  Well, perhaps there's a place for those too if you do business lunches.  But I'm coming back here once memories of the wine glass incident have faded, to pretend I'm eating in a trattoria in a small Italian village.  In any case the jovial chef is not mean with the tasty ingredients: I am unable to finish my selection of pastas: samplings of mushroom gnocchi, spinach lasagne, tomato pasta and pesto spaghetti.  And the pizza has plenty of mushrooms, proper ham and a good base.  The tiramisu was homemade too, but sadly I didn't have space.

The brothers have been serving pizza and pasta in this location for five years - before that they were somewhere else in Brussels.  You can enjoy a pasta dish, a pizza and a bottle of house wine for around 35 euros.    

rue des Pierres 24,
Brussels

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel

'T Zoet Genot

In Brussels whatever clothes you leave the house in will always turn out to be the wrong clothes!  So goes the saying of one of my friends.  Earlier I cycled back to work in the sunshine, arriving a little sweaty.  We were planning to go rowing.  A few hours later the lowering sky became progressively gloomier, and lights spontaneously flickered on in offices.  I sat uneasily in my deserted office waiting for the inevitable strike - not wanting to commit myself to cycling home or rowing.  When the rain came it was with a roar and a thump and a full percussion section, battering down on the streets until they were awash with greasy water.  I sat wondering if there could possibly be any more rain in the sky, and whether these violent storms were really a consequence of global warming....  Then, when there was some respite, I abandoned the bike and walked home, splashed by raindrops and accompanied by thunderous groans of indigestion from the sky - but avoiding the worst.  The weather was bad.  Later I was shocked to learn that some festival-goers at the Pukkelpop festival near Hasselt were killed and others injured by falling stage debris in a violent storm.

Then, tantalisingly close to home, the rain came down again.  "Mauvais, hein?", said a neighbour, sheltering in a doorway.  I arrived, doused again at my front door, in my spattered white jeans, convinced that my friend was right about the clothes.

 Meanwhile I'm reliably informed that this weekend will see some warm weather and temperatures of 30 degrees.  Finally some perfect weather for pancakes, waffles, cakes and ice cream on the beach!  My housemate introduced me to a great place to eat all four last month.  Of course the day was blustery and distinctly cool-ish.  I don't want to risk confusion here, so I'll tell you now that 'T Zoet genot is in Oostduinkerke.  Go inside and the place smells heavenly: of cooking pancakes and batter and cream and sugary waffles.  Basically there's enough sugary delight in here to lift you even if the weather won't!  Both inside and on the beach terrace there's a lot of choice and mixing and matching going on.  I combined a traditional pancake with a healthier wholegrain one - all for tasting purposes because it turned out that my lemon and sugar pancakes came with two sizable pots of brown and demerara sugar.  I think my friends had pancakes with chocolate and banana or waffles with whipped cream and chocolate, but I was mostly concentrating on my pancakes - and on an eye-catching ice cream and fruit creation on a neighbouring table. 


't Zoet Genot
Zeedijk 476
8670 Oostduinkerke

Tel: +32(0)58 52 07 47
Mail: Info@zoetgenot.be
http://www.zoetgenot.be/



Did I write the other day that Brussels' roads had become more comfortable places to ride?  Well, I retract that.  Friday afternoon and the horns, angry gestures and near-misses are back.  I narrowly avoided being run down on my bike in the middle of a junction, having patiently waited to follow in the wake of a car turning left into my road.  I received an angry blast from the horn and a wave of the arms in response to the only words I could mouth through the windscreen, quite polite ones I thought, "Mais qu'est-ce que vous faites!".  Presumably Mr I-must-get-home-never-mind-anyone-in-my-way felt that "priorité de droite" still applied even though I was mid-way across the junction, but actually I think he was too impatient to look properly.

I feel I'm seasoned enough at the ways of Brussels' roads now to be able to judge them with a reasonably unbiased eye.  I'm a fairly regular car passenger (not having a car or anywhere to park one), a fairly regular but still rather timid cyclist, and a fervent believer in walking, as much as possible.  When doing the latter and using pedestrian crossings I've learned to make eye contact with the driver beforehand and to nod or mouth a thank you as I walk.  I've seen cyclists act as if they were truck drivers, not flesh and bone on a flimsy aluminium frame.  I've seen pedestrians risking their legs by stepping out in front of vehicles, and I've seen more than enough cars acting as if they, and only they, were the Kings of the road.  And the traffic signal timings are bad and don't seem to relate to actual traffic flows....  Is it any wonder that nothing runs smoothly?  Politeness goes out of the window.  I won't bore you with tales of the many times I've been scared, shocked, furious!  Ultimately my take on the situation is this: irrespective of whether the cyclist or pedestrian is right or wrong; in a contest between their flesh and bones and your welded metal bubble with its air-filled cushion; irrespective of how well your bubble crumples on impact; the cyclist or pedestrian is always going to come off worse.  So please take care.

As for me, the only way I get to take revenge on Mr Mr I-must-get-home-never-mind-anyone-in-my-way in the dark glasses is to write about him and share him with you, dear readers!  For he drove off too fast for me to collect my thoughts or note his number...