La Kasbah

The other night I was out in the Saint-Géry area, near Place Sainte-Catherine.  I'd decided to sample another restaurant.  It is easy to think of Brussels as the Capital of Europe, but if restaurants are an indication then this city is not European, but somewhere near to international.  Within a few minutes of the Bourse building I could have chosen Thai, Basque, Vietnamese, or Malagasy cuisine.  Disarmed by the options on offer, I had a look round the How do you do....Brussels? exhibition in the Halles de Saint-Géry, which presents short snapshots of foreigners living in Brussels.  Black and white photographs are accompanied by short quotes: a Polish lad describes Brussels as "shy, but with potential".  There are the songs too: The theme of rain is obvious, but I particularly liked the choice of La ballade des gens qui sont nés quelque part, by Brassens, and the "entre guillemets ", both of which seem to reflect Brussels well.  I listened to them both afterwards and am happy in my selection!  Unfortunately I was too late to visit the upstairs part of the exhibition, which meant I missed the feature on my friend, the Tasmanian. I craned my head from below to see if I could spot her, but she was too far away.

Afterwards I tried La Kasbah, a Moroccan restaurant that has excited my curiosity for while, I suspect mainly because of the oranges piled up in the window that remind me of the orange seller carts in Marrakech.  There are teapots hanging up and the bar obstructs the already dim interior, so you really have to bring your nose to the window to spy the diners beyond.  The place is always busy, but then a lot of places are!  Eating out is a pleasure in Brussels because there are so many restaurants to try and everything seems to cost less than in London or Paris.  I struggle to remember a bad meal in the four years I've been here.  Of course there was the salade verte I ordered from a restaurant on the Sablon once, when I was with my parents.  It turned out to be just that: lettuce, with not even another ingredient or shade of green to redeem it.  At close to 10 euro I really should have complained, but it was the Sablon and perhaps I was intimidated, and I suppose I could have received the sarcastic reply that is was salad and green, and what on earth did I expect?  Anyway I passed by recently and found that the place had closed.

Meanwhile new restaurants seem to open each week, a phenomenon I find inexplicable in the current economic climate.  Would a café serving up English fried breakfast go down well with Brussels diners, I wonder?  Should I change my job?

The waiters in La Kasbah create a good impression with their friendly welcome and their traditional black and white, which is unexpected considering the exotic interior of the restaurant.  We're given a table against the wall, tucked away, and I don't mind because we haven't reserved and it allows me to photograph the interior.  It is almost like being in Morocco: the ceiling is hung with 120 coloured lanterns, which give a beautiful effect but not much light.  We're told that the place was originally a bakers, and that the original owner sourced the chairs from Eygpt and tables and lanterns from Morocco.  Nobody seems to know who features in the old photographs of Egyptian thinkers and artists on the wall.

The arrival of my tajine is rather a spectacle, like the appearance of an earthenware birthday cake with cherry on the top.  The lifting of the lid releases an outflow of steam that I'm not really prepared for.  After my glasses have de-misted I'm faced with a chunk of pretty hefty lamb on the bone, surrounded by sauce.  The meat is tender and the sauce a delicious combination of prunes and almonds, but I wish I had more of it to soak up the couscous and bread.  My friend orders merguez, and in a return of the salade verte incident, is a little disappointed to find just sausages, salad and potato on his plate.  However this time round I do not share his sentiments: the plate does offer that rare and wonderful thing in Brussels - a jacket potato!

Afterwards I consider a dessert, but decide against it.  Perhaps I'll be back for a tajine and dessert some other time, but now it is time to go dancing.

La Kasbah is open 7 days a week. 

12:00 - 15:00 and 18:30 - 23:30

rue Antoine Dansaert 20
1000 Brussels
02 502 40 26

http://lakasbahresto.com/
 
The How do you do.... Brussels? exhibition is on until 31 May and is open 10:00 to 18:00 everyday.
http://www.howdoyoudobrussels.com/

English Fried Breakfast

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that writing about food does not make you a good cook.  Instead my Friday ambitions for a summery combination of pasta, bacon, pesto,and minty mozzarella turned out to be a bland disappointment.


Not so the following morning!  My first ever English fried breakfast goes astonishingly well, and is even deemed a success by my (French) sous-chef for the morning.  Praise indeed!

Fried bread, bacon, egg(s), sausage, tomato, mushrooms and baked beans commonly make up the "Full English" breakfast, but you can add to that things like black pudding (which I would avoid, if I were you).  Sometimes there are fewer ingredients, but more commonly you'll be offered cereals, toast and marmalade with your Full English as well.  Enjoy! 

Maison Antoine

Friday evening came and it was time for my usual walk home, this time stopping off to buy something summery to eat.  With a bag of frozen peas under one arm and clutching a mint plant I strode purposefully past the tables on terraces, imagining myself as the "fille avec la menthe" subject of some arty French film, which would of course be set in Paris.  However encounters on my way to and from work would not feature in any film.  There's the man I observed one morning extracting bottles from the bottle bank with an improvised fishing rod, presumably in order to collect the recycling vidange money.  There's also the corner shop, which is the only place in Brussels where I can expect to attract the attention of some bored-looking youths.  But only in Summer.  Today one of them looks down at the mint and then up at me.  "Vous êtes ravissante", he says, somewhat optimistically and certainly unconvincingly.  I smile shyly and look down at the green shoots on the mint plant, my green jacket and green peas, and reflect that this kind of thing doesn't happen very often.  Green me: the "vous" is already a bit of a giveaway.  I walk on.

Anyway I'd already decided I was going to write about frites again.  This time the subject of the scribbles in my beer-stained notebook is none other than Maison Antoine, which has been serving them up since 1948 and will forever be remembered for its crown of " best frites in the world".  This of course was the view of The New York Times, and must appear in some article somewhere that I've never managed to find.  I'd better not upset anybody here.

On Wednesday I queued dutifully for frites from Maison Antoine, happy to put off meeting a group of unknown people in a nearby bar for my first appearance at a Spanish conversation evening.  There's certainly no hurry in the food preparation and here the anticipation is part of the thrill.  By the time you've reached the end of the queue you are definitely hungrier than when you started, and you find yourself considering others on the long list of menu choices.  Should I have a small or a large portion of frites?  And what of the sauce?  There are 29!   Better order everything now because you don't want to queue again....

I'm glad to say that we did opt for the smaller frites.  The larger portion was enormous, but the small was also to prove too large for our appetite, so it's a good thing that we weren't tempted by any of the other brochette or burger offerings.  Our appearance in the bar with our parcels of chips helped break the ice with our new group of Spanish language enthusiasts, and gave me an excuse not to speak, at least until a few chips had been consumed.  It transpired that I was the worst Spanish speaker there.

Because initially I didn't feel confident enough to say much at all, I was able to devote my full attention to the chips.  It's great that several of the bars surrounding the square have decided to become partners of this famous baraque à frites, meaning that you can sit, eat and drink at the same time.  The Grimbergen blonde I'd chosen seemed a happy match, because the chips were all a lovely uniform golden colour, perhaps a little too uniform.  After about a third of the cornet I came to the slow realisation that I have tasted better.  It was almost a shock to acknowledge that they were, yes, rather lacking in flavour!  Surely this could not be right... 

So I kept munching and tried to be as objective as I possibly could.  How did they compare to others I have tasted?  In research for previous frites articles I had also been hungry, so it was not my appetite at fault.  Yes, I'm afraid they were lacking the lovely beefy taste of the frites from Le Coq d'Or, and also, more controversially, were not as flavoursome as the chips I had had from Fritland.  No doubt I should sample these latest ones again, but perhaps my next stop should be Fritflagey.

Maison Antoine

1, Place Jourdan

1040 Etterbeek

Brussels

02 230 54 56
http://www.maisonantoine.be/

Café de la Presse

An uninspiring corner down the office block end of Avenue Louise may seem a surprising location for a new food and drink venture, but this is a café-starved area a short hop away from the welcome shades of the Bois de la Cambre. Perhaps the canny owner has spied a captive audience of office workers and thirsty joggers, and my recent visits have certainly proved him right - Café de la Presse is popular on weekdays and weekends alike.

The pavement is not the most welcoming of terraces, but if you've battled the shopping hordes and walked or run the length of Avenue Louise to get here then you deserve a cool drink in the shade and, well, you never know what you might see.  Today the interesting character is a dog poking its head out of a black Hummer.  While these monster trucks seemed to be beginning a long fall from grace in the States when I was last there a couple of years ago, in Belgium I seem to come across them on a weekly basis.  Strange times.

The Hummers share their American connection with Café de la Presse.  Inside I am welcomed by a long counter, cake stands, fluorescent strip lighting, retro 70s wallpaper, bright "splatter" paintings.... and the Rolling Stones.  The rule seems to be "have as many armchairs as you like, but whatever you do make sure they don't match."  Customers are free to occupy these armchairs as long as they wish, reading the international press, surfing the web or just loafing.  That suits me just fine!

 

The cake selection is excellent and includes brownies, flapjacks, cheesecake, loaf cake, as well as Lilicup cupcakes.  Only the resident board games seem to be able to compete on choice.  So far I've restricted myself to cake and drinks, but there are also sandwiches, salads, fruit, and bagels aplenty - as well as weekend brunches and pots of sweets.  

Yesterday my only gripe was that the fresh juice was rather small and served in plastic, rather than a glass, and also that my cappuccino was tiny and not served with sugar, which was definitely required.  I've been rather spoilt by the giant cappuccinos offered by Marks and Spencer so perhaps some readjustment is required on my part as well, but nevertheless I am still in search of the perfect cappuccino in Brussels.  In my quest I've sampled plenty of specimens embellished with a dollop of cream, but I'm really after Italian style with a frothy milk top, preferably in a fairly generous size.  Can anyone help?

Meanwhile Marks and Spencer offer cappuccino in three sizes.  Believe it or not, this is their medium version, and my cappuccino of yesterday was perhaps a quarter of that....

Cappuccino, M & S style!

Café de la Presse

491 Avenue Louise

1050 Brussels

02 649 09 35

Open 7 days a week: 07:30 - 19:00 weekdays; 09:00 - 19:00 weekends

L'Archiduc

 
At night ring the buzzer to be admitted to this art deco bar, like a small theatre with upstairs gallery, faded upholstered chairs and wood panelling.  Two large aquamarine pillars hold up a ceiling with the curves of an grand old ocean liner, the walls are custard yellow and a huge vase of cream lillies sits atop the piano, which is centre stage, shrouded in black. 

In another life I'd have liked to have been a jazz pianist: instead sometimes I find myself dancing around this piano, while mysterious regulars at the bar look on shrouded in smoke.  The drinks list is extensive, including whiskies and cocktails prepared by people who know how.  Imagine encounters between stocky greying men in white shirts and gold watches, slowly drawing on a cigar while their blond companions daintily sip their G&Ts, or come to observe solitary enthusiasts from up high in the gallery.

Most recently I came to listen to some "jazz après le shopping" on Saturday.   Slumped in one of the balcony armchairs I savoured the little bit of glamour that remains here and in places such as Café Metropole, and wished I could dress more suitably in a 1920s cocktail dress to enjoy the table service, the chocolate wrapped in gold paper, the view over peoples' heads.

I listened to a rendition of "Kind of Blue" played by young lads in shirts.  I had never heard a double bass made to sound like a didgeridoo or sitar before.  The jazz is languid, matching my mood: just another timeless Saturday afternoon in L'Archiduc.

L'Archiduc hosts “le jazz après le shopping” and "Round about 5" on Saturday and Sunday.

L'Archiduc

rue Antoine Dansaert, 6

1000 Brussels

Tel:+32 (0)2 512 06 52
e-mail: info@archiduc.net
http://www.archiduc.net/

Open every day from 16:00 until 05:00