Volle Gas

I'm back from holidays, rejoining the blogosphere!  What an adventure I've had.

I hardly know where to start.  One of the first things I did upon my return was head out for some Belgian food - after so many days on trains, in hostels, on the road, I was craving a good beer and a good steak.  I hadn't been to Volle Gas for ages, but I remembered that they offer a wide selection of Belgian and other filling dishes.  My pilates teacher had also taken a large family group here and said the staff had coped well, so I thought further reason for a visit.  Volle Gas means something like "à toute vitesse", or "full steam ahead!"

But what else did I miss about Belgium on my long trip abroad?  Well the food on my travels was filling and hearty (as you'd expect in a country that gets bone-chillingly cold in Winter, and wasn't exactly warm in Summer either...).  But this is a quick resume of my favourite things drink that I sought out as soon as I returned.....  Wasting no time of course:

1. Orval - No, it didn't take long to seek out my favourite beer.  This is the beer that prompts the raising of male eyebrows when they see me drinking it, and (I like to think) a certain respect - well from men of a certain age, anyway.  Tends to sell out in supermarkets worryingly often.  If you haven't visited the abbey a trip there is particularly pleasant in the Autumn, when the leaf colours down in the Ardennes are beautiful.
2. Super des Fagnes - Not very widely available in Brussels' bars.  If you see it on the list, try one!  Also comes in a very satisfying class with a feminine curve.  I like the blonde.
3. Leffe Brune - Not a very unusual choice, but a favourite nevertheless, and potent!  Note that I am not a fan of Leffe blonde.
4. Triple Carmeliet - A beer possessed of magic powers, or so Becinbrussels likes to claim.  At least drinking a couple of these seems to produce strange effects (in her)!  Effects unique to this beer, I should stress.
5. Corsendonk - More strong'uns.  They creep up on you.  I also stayed in the Corsendonk priory during one rain-soaked cycling trip.  Another beautiful bottle.  I'm pleased to discover that the Corsendonk makes the list of 1001 beers to try before you die.  Well, that's one ticked off then.  The blond Agnus is described as "spicy and perilously drinkable".  Enough said.
6. Kwak - aah, that beer, that glass!  If you haven't tried this one, get yourself down to Toone post-haste.
7. Frit Flagey - No, not beer, but visited in my first week back.  Delicious.

I'd better stop there, for now. I may add to this list later....  I haven't yet got my hands on a bottle of Westvleteren.  My excuse is that reserving and collecting seem complicated, and I don't have regular access to a car.  You could try though - see here for instructions.

So, how did I get on with my steak quest?  Turning up without a reservation is no problem on a weekday evening: we are briskly directed to a table, and everything proceeds swiftly and efficiently (perhaps a little too efficiently!)  Most people are outside on the terrace (Brussels' residents know to make the most of it, when the sun shines), but I like the interior of this bistro-like place, with its many nice touches (waiters in black and white, old bank notes on the walls, a vase of flowers, an old range, plenty of dark wood).  I thought the grey shrimp croquettes were very good.  We shared, attacking them with gusto, and then realised that we should have taken a picture for the benefit of my readers.  Apologies for the yellowish tone, something went wrong.

For my second course, I really should have remembered that quote from Mr. Frites at Le Coq d'Or.  In case you've forgotten what he said to me, it was:

"Moi, un 1kg200, je le mange comme ça.  Comme une entrecôte."

So really I should have gleaned from this comment that an entrecôte is quite big.  Or it is, if Mr. Frites eats one sans problème.  Anyway mine is very good, with its herby butter, and almost seems to cover the whole surface area of the plate.  No matter though, it is good meat, and is dispatched nearly in its entirety.  Meanwhile boyfriend is smugly tucking in to what he thinks is the lighter option, monkfish (lotte), with its perfectly cooked vegetables.  But actually this fish is cooked in so much cream that he is mistaken.  But it's very tasty nevertheless (and not as yellow as it appears here).

 
We think Volle Gas offers good, consistent food in pleasant surroundings, and plenty of choice (mussels, steaks, Belgian specialities).  There's also a pretty good beer list (a bit on the pricey side, mind you).  It probably comes into its own with groups of 6 or more, when everyone can try something different (really big groups have their own dedicated room).  No space for dessert though!  We also think the chips could be a bit more, well, Belgian.

Allow about 30-40 euros per person for a starter, main course and a couple of drinks.

Sogno d'Italia

Well, just a few hours to go and I will be on holiday. I'm a bit apprehensive about this one, and not only because I won't speak one word of the language.  Today in Brussels the sun shone, and lots of people were absent, and their dogs absent too (or so the clean pavements indicated).  I like Brussels in August, so what on earth was I thinking?  Why did I decide to go away?  Why not February, my most hated month?  Oh, and while I'm gone, would anyone like to write a guest article for the blog?  Too many places to write about.  Can't keep up.  Need help!  

This holiday will be to one of the most "unfamilar" places I've been to.  The sun will probably stay away too, and there will be no beaches or mountains.  No chance to practise my Spanish either.  I was feeling worried-bordering-on melancholic so I slunk off to the Cimitière d'Ixelles for my final Brussels lunch for a little while: a terrace lunch!  Parking is not too much of a headache down here and I'd recommend the area because there are plenty of places to eat and drink, as well as bowling and the studenty Le Tavernier of course.  The students never completely take over the place, but at the moment there is a particularly relaxed summery vibe. 

I have a few pizza places at my sleeve to blog about at some stage, but the ones here are pretty good, I think - nothing to rave about for pizza afficionados, but good nevertheless.  They also have Hawaiian pizza (unusually), with what tasted like fresh pineapple.  It's a nice spot for a lunch outside.  Saw others enjoying the daily special, which looked good value at 11.50 euro. 

Does anyone know what has happened to Monte Bianco on rue des Pierres, and the duo of brothers behind it?  Every time I've tried to go back it seems shut up and closed.  A shame, because the cook was opinionated and noisy and entertaining - and made very good pizzas!  Have they moved again?

Brussels, will miss you!

Le Tavernier

 

I read recently that not even Brussels' district of students and souls, the Cimitière d'Ixelles, has escaped the influence of the Brussels' bar entrepreneur.  Not content with setting up bars such as le Zébra, le Roi des Belges and, most recently, cocktail bar le Potemkine - it transpires that even le Tavernier, that most studenty of Brussels bars, is a Nicolay creation.  I was a bit disappointed by this, because although Nicolay is credited with rejuvenating areas of Brussels, his work is beginning to feel like an empire, slowly spreading its tendrils through the Brussels communes.  And I liked to think that Le Tavernier, with its live music nights, smoking terrace and warehouse interior, had been colonised and run by the students themselves, not designed with them in mind.  Perhaps for that kind of collective-run set-up, I'd have to go to Berlin.  The students are manning the bar, though.  And one flicks the bacardi bottle in an impressive fashion as he mixes my mojito.

But I have to give Nicolay some credit: he knows what makes a good bar.  He understands what the students want.  Le Tavernier is 12 years old this year and still seems to have a captive market in this area.  Outside there is the terrace, which is not particularly pretty (especially with the malodorous bins at the front), but is crammed full of people on warm days and evenings and strewn with lights.  After that comes the heated smoking terrace, like a smoking incubator, which ensures a steady lifeline of stale cigarette smoke for those in the bar beyond.  Then there's the bar itself, with rows of spirits in a rainbow of colours, and the mirrors tilted so you make eye contact with all the other waiting customers.  The bar is stainless steel: a good idea, easy to clean.  The toilets, at the back, also stainless steel, can be grim but you may still have to pay. There are plenty of wooden tables and chairs and more stainless steel seating outside.  There is also the loft above.  Last night I was warned from going up there (the natives were rowdy).  So I stayed downstairs, where the space is long and dark and boasts a few decrepit armchairs, which are comfy but probably don't smell too good.

A good time to come to Tavernier is on a warm, lazy afternoon, for your taste of a fresh Nicolay Juice.  Perhaps it will bring you success!  In the evenings, there are beer and mojitos.  Things can get noisy.  There may be music.  There may be dancing and flirting.  Some days there may be none of the above and you will be practically alone. 

The students have mostly finished their exams now, and gone - somewhere.  A few still remain, but over the Summer you're as likely to encounter more of us older types hanging out here than the under 20s. Le Tavernier will keep going throughout, although it's lifeblood has left.  This Summer it is hosting live Cuban bands every Saturday in July and August.  The place livens up; couples dance salsa hips in the middle of it all.  You realise that this place is just made for live music.  At the back bleary- eyed people emerge from the toilets and hurry down the steps, as if joining the musicians on stage.

 

We're a bit thin on the ground, but it's better than being crammed in.  We're listening to a Cuban 8 person band called Sonac de las Tunas.  There's my favourite, the waistcoated trumpeter, face contorting as he squeezes out the notes; the pair at the front doing the singing, extra percussion and the coordinated dance moves; the energetic piano players producing non-stop syncopated rhythms; the percussion guy (who looks like he's having fun); and the bassist who has a special pared down instrument (makes transport from Cuba so much easier).

The bands come recommended for those of you whose hips twitch involuntarily when you hear this.  And it's all a taster for the fiesta latina later in August - which I'm sorry to be missing this year!

 

Open every day from 11am
info@le-tavernier.be
445, Chaussée de Boondael
1050 Ixelles

Parlamentarium

One side of Place du Luxembourg is dominated by a monster, its two arms extending to clasp the diminutive station building in front of it.  Until a few months ago, visitors to this area could do little but wander around the paved area in front of this hulking monolith (as I like to call it), buffeted by the mischievous winds that like to gust through this exposed area (blowing hair up, skirts up, umbrellas inside out), be rained on unrelentingly, peer at the many windows that look out but do not welcome enquiring eyes.  The visitors wondered, understandably, what they were doing here.  And what all these young, well-dressed people were doing in there, emerging to smoke furtive cigarettes on the steps, or relaxing after work in a heady mix of beer, interns, lobbyists and burgers on the square outside.

I have also often wondered what I was doing there.  But I have at least been inside.  Ironic how an institution which prides itself on being elected by the people should have remained so mysterious and inaccessible.  Some kind of visitor experience - other than a centre suppyling leaflets in multiple languages - was clearly overdue.  

Generally I think most people would agree that an institution's attempt to say what it does and why it does it can only be a good thing.  So I was pre-disposed to like this new visitor centre, even before trying it out.  Yes, it cost more to kit out than the education budget of a small country, and doubtless involved much agonising about linguistic diversity and how to present the trickier bits of European history.  But a lot of thought has been invested in this new visitor experience - sometimes perhaps too much. 

It's a long way to a whole lot of places

I decide that for my second visit to the Parlamentarium (the fact this is the second is already a good sign), I would be accompanied by my boyfriend: someone with limited understanding of what the European Parliament does.  I'm interested to see what he will make of it.  

Part 1

It's Wednesday evening and we collect our audio guides and are soon at our first exhibit.  Not the best start, this.  Only minutes in, and we are struggling to use our new-fangled i-phone guides and trying to distinguish between three horribly similar white models. Now, which one is Strasbourg, which one Spinelli, which one Weiss....?  Who cares?  They're not the most imaginative of models.  To add to our confusion, neon text flashes by on the screen, as if we were on the trading floor of the NASDAQ.  And a lot of suspended signs tell us where Helsinki, Riga and Vienna are.  I am frustrated: by my inability to use the technology; and what this is supposed to teach us.  It's as if they only had a small space and were unsure what to put in it.  A guide takes pity on us and explains we need to sweep the back of our device across the smiling kids icon to get our audio to work.  But I know there is better to come, so we abandon this and move on.

Part 2

In part 2 there are more guides and a dark tunnel.  Screens embedded in walls give some of the historical background: a background of gas masks, destroyed cities, queues, rationing and evacuations in various EU Member States - the context which led to the development of the European Union.  This is interesting, although I struggle with the way it is presented and would have liked a more traditional format.  The oh-so-smart smart phone manages to get me on the internet and I need expert help to free myself of its tyranny.  Meanwhile some of the smiley face signs are already rubbed off.  There are no smiles in this dark corridor of history, anyway.  Sometimes there's no audio either and you just have to read your screen to yourself.   There's something about part 2 that is frustrating me.  So we keep walking, no better informed. I'm pondering one of the quotes on the wall:

'What, in concrete and practical terms does the independence of nations mean in the world of today, a world of the closest economic and political interdependence, which means the destiny of all mankind is indivisible.' (Julius Braunthal)

Sorry, Daily Mail.  I deliberate this throughout my visit and at the end I still think he has a good point. 

Part 3

After a pause, where I put my head in Verdi's head in a corner (again, purpose of this uncertain), we're on to part 3.  Part 3 is good, and we've worked out how to use our i-phones by now.  Things have got more interesting.  We're in a well-lit space, with counters containing papers on the political genesis of the European Coal and Steel Community, and letters discussing the new Franco-German cooperation in the Ruhr region, and another letter showing that this was all welcomed by the US at the time.  The touch screens are a help rather than a hindrance (better than reading a lengthy piece of text on the wall.)  I read the story of de Gaulle vetoing - twice - the UK's membership of the EU, describing the UK as the "cheval de Troie des Etats-Unis".   Perhaps the most interesting part, though, is a wall of photos from the last few decades, capturing a moment in history in each Member State.  You can read a short synopsis of the event on your i-phone: moon landings, martial law, the Solidarity movement, Dolly the sheep....  The boyfriend is interested to learn that in 1963 there were already protests calling for a Federal Belgium; and to see laid-off workers in front of the Vilvoorde factory.   And then there are also the early mobile phones, circa 1986; 

"The only thing you can do with these early mobiles is make calls", says my audio guide.

"But making calls is really all I need it for.  Well, it's still my main purpose", I protest, glaring at my futuristic i-phone, accusingly.  By the way, the Parliament is obviously really, really proud that it helped make roaming charges cheaper.  But this is all European history, not about the European Parliament per se.  But no matter, we are interested.  Apparently the late 1990s saw record highs in European unemployment.  Both of us wonder if those records have since been broken.

Part 4

Part 4 is a wall of MEP faces.  There's not much more to say about those.  Moving on....

Part 5

This is where you can see the EP in action!  A 360 degree cinema; all action enhanced for dramatic effect.  You are seated in the auditorium to watch the orators, almost as if you were taking part in the debate: championing the rights of European citizens, protecting the environment, alerting us to dangerous hazards, human rights abuses, outrages in one's constituency etc, etc.  The people around me seem to enjoy it.  I learn something new.  Nobody walks out.

Part 6

It's a shame, but by the time we're on to part 6 (my favourite part) the attentive (and multilingual staff) are hovering around us, indicating it is time to take our leave.  Meanwhile, the boyfriend's face has lit up with glee at the prospect of what we're supposed to do next: trundle wheelie-screen boxes across a map of Europe, pausing to hear historical snippets and facts about different European cities.  Again, the link to the European Parliament is not always obvious, but as we only have time for a brief play around here I cannot remember if we learn about particular pieces of European legislation at this point.  I think we do.  Anyway, as I said, this is fun so make sure you spare some time for it.  Along the wall there are globes to be spun, which show the European Parliament's cooperation with third countries.  

After this we pass by the final exhibit, a bizarre collection of belongings from a handful of MEPs, where you can see their owners talk about future challenges - for the Union, I guess - or possibly the Whole World.  All a bit odd.  But then comes the final flourish.  As the young staff look on, visitors are free to express their hopes for the future - via a high-tech neon screen, bien sûr.  For better or for worse, there's no censorship.  We say whatever pops into our heads and then leave, satisfied with ourselves and our visit.

In summary: a visitor centre (long overdue), helpful young staff, doesn't cost a single euro cent.   There's also a café and a gift shop selling various things with questionable links to the European Parliament.  Said café goes untested for once.  We say this Parlamentarium is worth a visit.

Parlamentarium - The European Parliament's Visitors' Centre

Willy Brandt Building

Rue Wiertz 60/ Wiertzstraat 60

B-1047 Brussels

Belgium

For opening times see:

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/visiting/en/parlamentarium

(Open until 20:00 Tuesday and Wednesday)

Suggested visit time: around 1.5 hours

Food and Wine

I know.  Here it is: not for the first time, you are invited to contemplate my lunch. 

It's the moment before I start eating the sea bass.  It sits, perfectly grilled and plump on a line of olives and gently-warmed ratatouille.  Potatoes, pine nuts and parmesan are scattered about.  The roquette and pesto add green, a reminder of Summer.  It is my favourite tasting dish, and - who knows - is probably healthy as well. 

The sea bass has lured me back to Food and Wine again, a bistro-like place on rue Belliard, full of be-suited folk (all capable of creating as much noise as the road outside).  I'm in the garden, and it is sunny. 

Later, our dessert has orangey sauce to lavish on a chocolate tart, and panna cotta with a dribble of coulis and strawberries in (look, enjoy!)  When they took our not-quite-finished rosé away, we objected and received full glasses back (no apology though).  No sulking, just more rosé.

The photographs - of my lunch, breakfast, dinner - are the constant.  A year, and then some, of eating.  But behind them is me.  Just writing, sometimes: about things I've learned, keeping up appearances, not knowing what you're doing with your life, choosing to leave something because whatever others say it's better than continuing.  Being courageous, being cowardly.  Being incorrigibly untidy and indecisive.  Laughing.

I fear it may be time.  Time to start blogging again.


Food and Wine
rue Belliard 181
1040 Etterbeek
Brussels
02 282 94 98

Open for lunch and dinner Monday to Friday.
It's a 5-10 minute walk from the European Parliament and the Commission, and a 5 minute wander from Place Jourdan.

Le Dolma

40 years is a long time.  But that is how long Le Dolma veggie restaurant and adjoining organic shop have been open.   And 38 years here, in this location at the tattier of the two tatty ends of Chaussée d'Ixelles, incongruously situated near a shisha bar, a plumbers and high-end hifi shop.  I must have trudged past it numerous times in the last 56 months.  I have ventured into the shop, but I'd never tried the restaurant before until now.  It must have been the curtains at the window that deterred me.  Plus there's a bar at the front where nobody ever seems to be eating or drinking and you can't see in very far.  What does one do in here?  They claim it is a restaurant.

But I did enter, and then I discovered Dolma's speciality: the all-you-can-cram-in vegetarian buffet!  It's been available since 1997 and is now the most popular thing they do, concocted by a team each day and including a choice of around 12 different starters and main dishes, including a soup and other side dishes.  The week's menu is available online so you can pick your preferred day in advance.  Some of the dishes are vegan.  This week Tuesday and Wednesday win out for me.  

Actually there are plenty of customers, but they're all cocooned away in a extension at the back with the Friday-Saturday piano, talking not too loudly, drinking things that are good for them, eating wholesomely and fully- and rounding it all off with a chocolate slice or apple pie.  I relish the feeling of serenity; warm yellow walls, pine and Tibetan influences just a few strides from noisy Place Flagey.  Regulars at a neighbouring table advise us to just go and attack the buffet rather than wait.  We do.  And then we go back again. Now, stomach tightly packed with every variety of bean, pulse, rice and grain, I rue my earlier expressed desire for "a light, healthy meal".   But nobody stops you returning, not even my dining partner-in-crime, watching me with amused eyes while I scan others' plates for more of that delicious tofu something- or-other, the feta frittata or that sweet potato puree.  This is serious refuelling that unfolds in serene stages.  At dessert, some kind of restraint is required, in the form of a polite notice asking us to eat just the one slice.  I take mine and as I slowly chew on cinnamony apples, I watch the other guests do the same.

I wasn't expecting to overdo it with vegetarian food.  But then, if I could cook like this, I would eat vegetarian more often. It's nothing complicated, certainly - just simple and delicious, and my digestive system approves.  I cannot eat another bean.

Fascinating fact: I tried Tibetan meditation in Brussels last year.




Le Dolma is open Tuesday to Saturday 12:00- 14:00 and 19:00 - 21:30 (although the buffet closes at 22:00)

The buffet costs 18 euro at lunch-time and 22 euro in the evening (not including drinks)
For reservations call 02 649 89 81


Chaussée d'Ixelles, 329
1050 Ixelles
Brussels

Le Greenwich

Becinbrussels is cold, and craving homely places with an open fire.  She would much rather not attack the washing up.  So instead of writing about other places she has been promising to write about for ages - or writing about herself, for a completely different purpose - here is another take on Le Greenwich, but focussed this time on the food.

It is rather beautiful, you see.  So beautiful I want to sit in here of an afternoon all on my own, cradling my beverage and looking dreamily at the dorures.  And then a last walk through past turquoise walls, mahogany, regimented tables, black-white tiled bathroom and cash register, out of my Victorian gentleman's club.  But the chess players and their smoky haze are gone, and with all those gleaming lights, knowledgeable - but commercially minded - waiters, dark wood and gilding it's hard to imagine them coming back.  Which is a shame, because that was supposed to be what Le Greenwich was all about.  

Even though the liveried waiters seem to presume that you will eat here of an evening, and that scruffy artists are no longer exactly welcomed, Le Greenwich is now a striking place to linger over a beer.  The bar has been scrubbed, preened and beautified - 5 million euros of regional funding and the owner's investment have been lavished on it, after all.  No wonder they want you to eat.  The food prices are a little higher than you might expect for a Brussels brasserie.  As my friend observed; "il faut rembourser les dorures!"

I say thank goodness someone stepped in to save Le Greenwich!  For too long this dark, dingy, sad bar had traded on a reputation long since lost in its years of damp and grime. However, despite the efforts to replace chess players with hungry tourists, I would say savour the surroundings over a beer - have one, have two, have seven - but leave the food alone for the moment.  And perhaps, eventually, if we all insist in turning up with chess boards the management will relent and let us play!

Probably the only thing you could eat here before were some peanuts as you hunched over your chess game, oblivious to all the hidden beauty.  In my imagination I want to see the overgrown, unwashed beer drinkers of yesteryear come back in; I want to see Magritte's face and know what he makes of it.  But instead all the curious characters we're likely to see are tourists: and the owner has wisely chosen a selection of Belgian meals to pull them in: including such staples as lapin à la kriek, boulettes, carbonnades and, I think, eels.

We have a burger and boulettes (meatballs).  I decide that trying a Belgian cuisine staple is a good way to test  culinary pretensions.

The first few mouthfuls taste fine.  But then, an alarming discovery.  I think I spy foie gras on my friend's burger.  "No, no, it cannot be!"  Says my friend.  "It's like low quality pâté."  This cannot be foie gras.

It is foie gras; the waiter confirms it.  In any case, foie gras just adds pretension to a burger that isn't actually very good.  "I don't think it's a good idea to add foie gras to a burger", my friend says.  In any case, we judge the burger not worth the 16 euros we paid for it.  You can have cheaper and better elsewhere on my blog, but then there is the question of the surroundings - and those dorures.

I start the boulettes and several mouthfuls in we have another problem: a salty problem.  True, I don't add salt to anything much, but this meal is providing my weekly allowance of salt in one overloaded sitting.  I can feel it coating my lips.  Midway through, the dish has to be abandoned.  I have a headache and am ravaged by thirst.  The chips are thin, salty and moreish; Morgan Spurlock tormentors better at home in a fast food restaurant.  Perhaps the chef just slipped with the salt shaker?  I'm left wondering how in a land of such of renowned frites, we're left eating fries of such low quality. 

Meanwhile, the bread is judged to be pretty good.

Bread conversation in Le Greenwich, sometime in May 2012

Lui: "Pour savoir si un pain est bon il y a deux critères.  La croûte doit être épaise et croustillante, et la mie de pain, elle doit avoir des gros trous."

 (Pregnant pause, while Becinbrussels absorbs this nugget, wisely deciding against questioning this juicy piece of received French wisdom)

..."Mais pas partout, quoi"

Moi: hein?  Et ce pain-ci? 

And so, the verdict on this bread: Not bad at all.  It has one of the two criteria: the holes.  But the croûte (crust) is molle (soft)....  

More about my bread tasting another time.  

With such an effort made on the surroundings, the food has a bit of catching up to do.

rue des Chartreux 7

1000 Brussels 

Tel: 02 511 41 67

Friterie Tabora

Back with my parents for a few days, I catch my Dad with bemused eyes taking in my waistline.  He asks, all innocent-like, if I have been doing much café reviewing lately.

Yes, I say, mortified that the beer drinking has so quickly and obviously made its way to my belly.  I resolve to start running again, properly.  I pantingly manage five laps and twenty minutes of the local park, but I am a long way from my 20km fitness of last year. 

And then there are the frites.  The latest offerings here are from Friterie Tabora, which promises non frozen specimens, although the meat stacks under the counter appear barely defrosted.  The housemates and I are hungry.  Very hungry.  We're about to try Scottish dancing, some of us for the first time.

Monstrous!  These were NOT mine

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you this wonderful carb-tastic Belgian creation: the mitraillette (sub-machine gun)!   Fried burger (or some form of meat-like substance), a dollop of mayonnaise, some additional sauce like andalouse, cocktail or pickels, and a generous two handfuls of chips, encased in a hefty, doughy, white demi-baguette.  Crikey.  I can just imagine it sitting in my stomach like a log.

It's too much for the first of my housemates.  We enjoy the standing in the queue talking to the friendly chip man, and advising giggly American girls on saucy options.  I choose my usual cornet of frites with the distinctly unsaucy, non-piquant Provençale, but in extra large this time.   

It's rather hard to judge your frites, unless you're willing to sample several cornets of an evening.  And my waistline might suggest otherwise, but I don't eat chips very often, and fear mitraillettes would provoke chronic indigestion: a kind of  punch-up between stomach acid, potato and beef fat, with some egg and spice to make it twice as nice.  I like these chips, but perhaps chips vary a bit like the weather: you get a good batch; you get a bad batch.  People move on, and so the reputations of different frietkots move with the people who run them.  They're a lovely golden colour and deliciously tasty.  They are better than Maison Antoine (where last time I was stung by their mediocrity, for a place so famed!)  Those at FritFlagey are more misshapen and not so uniform in colour, which is a good thing.   I think they still win out over Tabora and Fritland, but it is difficult to say.  And probably it doesn't matter.  Tabora's are really pretty good.

"So what do you think of these chips then?"  I ask, to nobody in particular.  With eyes glazed, and cheeks rosy, my friends are chewing away at their mitraillette determinedly and placidly.  Nobody says a word. 

rue de Tabora 2
(staggering distance from Bourse, the Grand Place - and Fritland - and always there for the really, really hungry)

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

Café Merlo

"If you don't like it, I'll drink it.  I'm also thirsty!"  Says the barman at Café Merlo.  We've just scuttled in, like beetles shrouded in winter coats, after several minutes of purposeful walking, heads down, through the May drizzle.  Once inside and warm my glasses steam up and I don't know what to have to drink, as usual.  On the list there are very few beers I don't know the name of; I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not.  Mainly just to please our affable barman, I pretend I've never had Rodenbach before.  I have, but think I disliked it, and I hope to be proven wrong.  My friend has the "Brussels calling", with its tagline "bitter is better."  The barman's advice: whenever you see the name Brasserie de la Senne, try one of their beers because they are always good.   Good, and they're from Brussels.

Sadly for the Rodenbach, it is not a beer I appreciate or will pick ever again.  But I don't think I can hand it back.  Instead I am left wondering how a beer can taste so much like Worcestershire sauce: kind of vinegary, like it should be a flavour enhancer added to an under-performing bolognese.  

Our host is happy to talk, in-between serving everyone at the rectangular bar that encloses him.  Stools and seats are in short supply: I'd have to come earlier on a Friday to be sure of a seat, even though there are some more spaces - and another bar - upstairs. Up there it feels like a private room.

How to sum up Café Merlo?  Perched on my stool I watch Duvel being expertly poured and strain to read the "Loi de l'ivresse" perched in its frame above postcards, spirits and a bottle of Laphroaig.   Flemish is predominant here, but French, English, Italian or Spanish will probably do as well.  This time the crowd cannot be idly typecast from atop my bar stool. 

We decide this is a bar for lazing on a summer terrace.  Outside this is the non-business end of Place Sainte-Catherine.  Inside we could sit in the window nook, with the Scrabble.  Yes, the board games have been duly noted for next time. 


Café Merlo
Baksteenkaai 80
Brussels
1000 Brussels

Au Daringman

Mid-way down the rue de Flandre there is a tiny bar in the corner, Au Daringman.    It has red neon strip lighting and a darkly wooden interior with an old Stella hoarding.  The bar at the back has a mirrored backdrop and a huge vase of white roses.  With its red-brown wood panelling, old benches and flowers it reminds me of L'Archiduc.  I like it here.

When I arrive my friend is already shivering in front of Café Monk.  Tonight Café Monk is heaving.  I like it in there too but tonight it looks overrun, forcing raucous patrons to speak loudly to be heard over the din.  Not the best place for a first date, as I know from experience.  I prefer the smaller bruin café just a couple of minutes away.

My objective for the evening had been to try some new beers, and on the list there are several that are unfamiliar.  My housemate told me they speak Flemish here.  The pretty bar girl, with her bat-wing eyeliner and tiny waist, definitely prefers Flemish or English.  I can only order two hot chocolates in Flemish, and the first time I tried that I received two cappuccinos instead.  English it is then.  I order a new beer, and it's really good, but later on leaving we realise we've both forgotten its name!  Next time I will note it down, because I've yet to notice this beer anywhere else. 

Everyone squishes up at little tables: regulars and new faces.  The place has a lefty Bohemian air: a copy of Libération is casually discarded on a table beside me, and there are a mix of young students with dreadlocks and untidy hair, and slightly older groups who are more mysterious and resist attempts at stereotyping, but I suspect they like jazz.  My hair is also not at its best, but I like the fact that nobody pays you any attention, certainly no more than you deserve, and nor are you made to feel unwanted either.  We listen to 60s classics and more Miles Davis.  Later, we shift up on our bench to make space for a lady with a sharp dark bob and strong jaw, above eyeliner, leather jacket, and patterned tights in clumpy boots.  I notice her hands are masculine; she sits dreamily and writes in her book.

When we leave Au Daringman the cobbles are greasy with rain, and it's disappointingly, unseasonably, unsociably cold.  A few minutes later, we are relieved to arrive at our next bar........



rue de Flandre 37
Brussels
+32 (0)2 512 43 23
Au Daringman is also open lunchtimes Tuesday to Friday.  I've heard that sometimes there are concerts upstairs in the evenings.

Madagasikara

Madagasikara is a resturant squeezed down the end of the rue de Flandre.  On the way there we pass some amusingly-named little side streets and yet more enticing bars.  Now here's another area of town I need to research: the list of beers and bars papering one of the walls in my kitchen is growing, teasing me.  I need help.  I'm fed up with being rained on, too.  And of days withering at a desk, while something is busy dying inside me.  On the plant on my desk there is a single green shoot.  Grow little shoot, grow! 

I'm not the only one floundering at the moment: my housemates and I decide none of us feel like cooking.  Usually we all cook for ourselves rather than work together on some big communal meal.  The oven is temperamental and when finally you manage to light the gas at the bottom, you jump back startled, your fingers smelling of singed pork and missing a few strands of downy hair.  One housemate always cooks plentifully and the leftovers stake out the fridge for quite a while until one of us succumbs to this particular endurance contest; the other shares my boundless love for mashed potato and makes a delicious OREO cake (I hope she's reading this, we haven't had one for a while).  And me, well I like baking, and I cook a lot of mince.  When the supermarket runs out I even cook Américain mince, but don't tell any Belgians I said that.

"Don't worry", says the lady in Madagasikara, after I've made my meal choice.  "Don't let it put you off.  Your fish dish is cooked with these special leaves.  They produce a special effect in your mouth.  It's not unpleasant; just kind of.... ticklish.  It's OK", she continues, as a flicker of pained worry crosses my face, to be replaced by the beginnings of a sly grin.  I can hardly not try ticklish leaves now, can I?  My housemates opt for the safer options of chicken curry and gambas, but I take the meal complete with its own disclaimer.

 I can hardly complain, it's my own fault.  We all have some cold pickled vegetables on our plate, which we like.  My friends are busy enjoying their mild coconut curry and rum-soaked gambas.  But at the first mouthful of the lime and leaf infused fish stew my tongue recoils in horror.  The dish is overpowering, smoky brininess seeping into every morsel.  The lime doesn't stand a chance.  Then I place the fish in my mouth and more troublingly, I realise I have several bones in there somewhere, my cheeks contorting as I try to locate them.  For a moment everything comes into perspective - tedious days in the office, contrary weather, absent friends and unexplained bad temper - and I hope that my housemates remember the Heimlich maneouvre.  I've never choked on food and didn't expect to have to pick through sauce and a little clutch of bones.  I'd rather hoped that the restaurant would do that for me.  Still I was warned, and the cook and his wife are genuine and friendly.  I just ordered the wrong thing.

The others like their food, but nobody is overflowing with praise.  It's possibly because the food is slightly overpriced for the not over-generous quantity you get: we pay 75 euros for a main course and three soft drinks.  You can have tajines and tapas for less.  I'm also a little disappointed by my non- alcoholic cocktail, which promises much with its list of ingredients, but turns out to taste a little like normal juice, and is gone in 6 mouthfuls...

Particularly when the team behind a restaurant hasn't done anything to deserve my ire, I don't like to criticise.  The decor, music and company has all been carefully considered to give me an enjoyable evening.  I like the blackboard map of the island as you come in, the husband and wife team are smiling, and I've had my first experience of a country I have never visited, eating something authentic and different.  I've spent the 1 May holiday in the sun, walking in the fresh air in a place near Brussels which not many people seemed aware of: they were at the Laeken greenhouses instead.  So maybe it was just the fish. My friends liked their food.  You know I'm not fond of salty food, and this tastes like Lapsang Souschong.  I'm Becinbrussels, I'm a wanderer.  And the most important thing I learnt at university: to keep exploring, keep learning, there is no right answer.  Hey readers, you don't have to listen to me.

Madagasikara

10 rue de Flandre

1000 Brussels

Tel: 04 73 44 40 74

info@madagikara.be

Closed Sunday lunch and Wednesday

Arpaije

"To be honest, at the start of my training, I was only at Arpaije to pass the time; but gradually my supervisors inspired me to work in this profession, and now I'm completely immersed in it and will never want to leave".   (Diaby, trainee)

I've never been a good cook.  For one thing I lack the precision and patience to present dishes imaginatively; not to mention my inability to manage several bubbling pots, an angry spitting frying pan and hold a conversation at the same time.  Cooking for others is worse.  Perhaps that explains why I don't host dinner parties - or get invited to them - very often.  And why I have a healthy respect for people who choose to work in busy kitchens - and emerge at the end of the day, not burned, not scalded - unscathed!  


In Arpaije, I notice that I am savouring my food more than usual; taking time to admire the little details of presentation.  It makes a difference to know that the people in the kitchen preparing my food might not have taken to cooking at first: they might have tried various professions: waitressing, bed-making, washing up hundreds of dirty plates.  They might have come from overseas; have been excluded from traditional training programmes through their lack of formal qualifications.  They probably have spent some time unemployed.   Fortunately Arpaije is there, training its recruits for the demanding work in restaurant kitchens.  It's like Jamie Oliver's Fifteen, without the benefit of a famous face and all that publicity. 


For the selection it's "un petit test, rien de compliqué".  The supervisor chef has been watching me as I enjoy my three-course lunch, and particularly today I have no desire to take photos, to ask questions, to draw attention to myself in this calm setting.  But I feel strongly that this little restaurant deserves to be written about - and the chef  needs an explanation as to why I am taking pictures of every single dish that arrives on our table....  Arpaije has been running for about 11 years - and you only need to read the testimonies on the website to see that it has been successful in helping young people find jobs.  "It's just a shame you're not open in the evenings", I say, thinking that the customers would stream in.  But the chef is firm: the recruits are in training from 8:30 until 16:00, and that is enough.

La suggestion du jour (very good, said Becinbrussels' friend)

People of Brussels, if you're free of a lunch-time, or can sneak out for a longer lunch than usual, flock to enjoy one of the best value three course meals in Ixelles!  A princely 12 euros 50 for a three course meal to rival anything you'll eat in a mid-price restaurant; served with the knowledge that yes, you're assisting in a non-profit training programme, but you're getting a very good deal out of it as well....  Our three course meal with an apéritif comes to just over 30 euros.  Arpaije, forget La Truffe Noire, your tables should have a waiting list!  Instead, I reserve the day before and the restaurant is only half full.

We are gently shepherded through our lunch by a calm, serious, smiling waiter.  He tells us about the sister traiteur and café on Malibran, but here it is "plus gastronomique".  All the recruits are professional: I find myself trying to be more polite to match the patience of the trainees; patience being something that for people in this industry, it is all to easy to lose.  I only see one of the trainers intervene once to show a recruit how to pour red wine the sophisticated way.  We praise the food regularly and fully, and that's because it really is very good.  Particular highlights include both the fish tartare and mozzarella tomato tart starters; the main courses (particularly the delicious honeyed sauce to accompany my cochon de lait); and the desserts - aaaah, that pain perdu!  The coconut milk and mango rice pudding is delicious, but that pain perdu with strawberries wins the Battle of the Desserts.  Actually, that's the whole menu, the highlight: "magnifique à tout point de vue", we agree.  

That pain perdu

rice pudding

Arpaije's menu changes every two weeks (check the website for the current offering).

Becandbrussels and friend ate:

- ENTREES -

°

Gâteau de tomates-mozzarella & crumble d’olives
ou
Tartare de dorade royale sur écailles de pommes

- PLATS -

°

Cochon de lait grillé aux asperges, sauce miel aux oignons nouveaux, gratin dauphinois
ou
Filet de bar printanier poché

ou

Suggestion du jour

- DESSERTS -

°

Pain perdu aux fraises, boule de glace
ou
Riz au lait de coco sur coulis de mangue

*

However my final word on Arpaije must come from the trainees themselves.  

Rosiya writes: 

 

"Je voudrais remercier tous mes chefs d'avoir cru en moi et de m'avoir donné le courage de rester jusqu'au bout".

  

Kaly writes: 

 

J’ai choisi de faire une formation de cuisine pour la simple raison que je n’arrivais pas à préparer ma nourriture! (...)  C’est grâce à un formateur d’ARPAIJE que j’ai trouvé mon premier travail à durée indéterminée dans une brasserie bien connue de Bruxelles."  

Grégory writes:

"Ça fait 4 mois que je suis en formation ; la journée se passe bien, mes collègues sont sympas et peu importe si on n’est pas tous de la même nationalité, car on apprend tous les jours quelque chose. J’espère finir ma formation, vite, pour commencer un job en cuisine et gagner ma vie !"

As well as the testimonies of previous trainees, the website also includes the CVs of young people who have recently completed their training.  I hope that someone reading this will be able to help one of these recruits find their next job.

Restaurant 
Open 12:00 - 14:00 Monday to Friday.  For reservations call 02 646 21 31.
50 Chaussée de Boondael
1050 Bruxelles


Siège Social, Cafétéria, Service Traiteur & Service Catering
Arpaije asbl
49 rue Malibran
1050 Bruxelles
Tel: 02 644 59 57

contacter@arpaije.be

Psylophone

Since living in Brussels I've had an inexplicable urge to take bus 95 as far as it can go.  Not to the terminus in the centre of town, you understand, but to the other end, way away from the shopping crowds, to places with strange Germanic names like Heiligenborre or Weiner.  Then I stopped getting bus 95 so often, and I now have a similar urge with tram number 7.  I want to carry on, past my stop, and see where the tram takes me.  Preferably the driver will be not one of those that likes alternating violent breaking with violent acceleration, so that I can concentrate on looking out rather than stopping myself falling and crushing the elderly man next to me.   And then I'll write about it and share it with you.  There's no promise that this experience will be interesting.

I haven't spent much time in Watermael-Boitsfort, but I have cycled and run through it, on a tour organised by Pro Velo or as I struggled onto the final third of the Brussels 20km.  At the time my brain dimly registered that my pounding feet had taken me to somewhere villagey, where people lined the streets and clapped us passing.  So it's good to return, on the recommendation of my neighbour, M, and her troupe of tango-dancing friends.

To get there, we stay on bus 95 for some time, winding our way through calm residential areas, before finally getting off at Fauconnerie.  I step off the bus and immediately notice that the air is cleaner out here- I can smell leaves and the approach of Spring.  All that is missing is a meadow to run across madly, our arms waving in the air. 

The Psylophone nestles on the corner of a side street, in a real local community.  Inside framed photographs show rosy-cheeked residents enjoying themselves at the annual two-day "Fête du Quartier".  "It's been going for about 20 years", says the waitress breezily.  I'm reassured and instantly at home in this custard-yellow painted hideout, with its tall green plants.  I sit on the wooden bench next to the old stove and take in the wooden furniture, the yellowing map of the world on the walls, the small kitchen window at the back where the cooks are at work....  Then my eyes fix on the poster, and everything makes sense.  It is a man and a child, in black and white, with the proud headline "Alternative libertaire".  Underneath it reads;

"Un mensuel différent pour des lecteurs dissident". 

I'm not quite sure if I'm one of those, but I like to think I am.  And this is the ideal place to tuck yourself with a book on a weekday evening (at the moment I'm avidly reading The Help, and I'd like to read it here in the Psylophone, company or no company).  I suspect it's very busy later in the week, but on a Tuesday I only have my friend, a couple of staff and a few other customers for company.   The staff are friendly but not fussy, and tonight the customers are middle-aged ladies, wearing silver jewellery and scarves and looking like they're just back from a trip to Goa.  My exotic adventure to India is still only a half-baked idea in my head.  Perhaps next year.

Anyway, psylos are psychedelic mushrooms, my friend tells me.  He's full of useful pieces of information like that, always expanding my French vocabulary.  I look sharply over at those plants again, but no, they're just plants....  "Ca fait un peu Guy Debord; mai 68", he muses, and I recall my attempts at reading that Debord pamphlet several months ago before my meeting with Jan Bucquoy.  Here I feel welcome, especially when the waitress offers us bottled or tap water.  Now, that never happens.  The toilets have ancient plumbling and smell faintly of bleach.

The food is delicious!  An eclectic, wide choice of Belgian with cuisine du monde, priced fairly and colourful on your plate.  The portions are generous like at La fin de Siècle, but we're missing the background noise.  You can have keftas, curries: we had tasty aubergine farcie à la kefta and curry de poulet à l'orange.

Afterwards I don't really have room for dessert, but we share one anyway.  A cinnamony clafoutis à la rhubarbe.  My friend knows I am unable to resist any dish with rhubarb or ginger in.....

Then we slip out, into the chilly night, leaving the staff and their friends to eat together in front of the bar.  As the warm beacons fade into the distance, I realise I have found another bar I feel I belong in, that reminds me of the pub where I used to work in the narrow streets of my university city.

I was in two minds as to whether to write about this place.  Because the 95 bus, the Psylophone, and Watermael-Boitsfort, might become my next little retreat.  A place where I can escape the city, when I haven't really escaped.  So come, by all means, just not all of you at once!

rue de l'Hospice Communale, 90

1170 Watermael-Boitsfort

Brussels

Take Bus 95 to stop Fauconnerie.  Retrace the bus' path about 100 metres and turn left up a small side street.

Ashok's

Some days nothing can beat a good curry.

I'm an expat.  No matter how absorbed I've become by daily life in my adopted country, no matter how delighted I am by the quality of its restaurants and beer; still the ready availability of baked beans, a pool to swim in, cheddar cheese, custard and curry remain as fundamental to my emotional well-being as they always were.  I even have to import the right cheese and beans in order to smother them gratuitously over whatever carbohydrate is to hand - usually a giant jacket potato or toast.  "Why?"  My Belgian friends ask.  At this point it seems important to reassure them that only certain culinary products are lacking; that Belgian beer is far superior to anything flat, warm and English, and that my appreciation for British beery and chocolatey offerings has fallen in proportion to my time spent living in Brussels.

But my love of real, strong, tangy cheddar has not diminished.  Nor has my love of tomatoey baked beans.  Not sad, imitation lurid orange red leicester and 1 euro cans of Heinz, with the mini supermarket cashing in wilfully on my need for some "comfort food."  No, I resist those.

So aside from occasionally missing the ready meal aisles at Marks and Spencer, there really isn't much I lack.....  Save perhaps for a favourite Indian.   I didn't know where to go, until now.

At the last Indian restaurant I'd tried in Brussels, the chef explained to me with some regret that he was unable to source the fresh spices like his counterparts in the UK.  The restaurant was okay, but the naan breads were flat and biscuity, and I reckon I could taste the absence of fresh spices. Old colonial links have their uses!

Tonight I'm going to a real Indian.  Many of the British "Indians" or "curry houses" are actually Bangledeshi, but I'm unsure of my footing where this cuisine is concerned and not sure I'll be able to tell the difference down to each individual dish.  I have my favourite dishes, however, and I spend part of my afternoon scanning the menu and deciding what to have.

Approaching Ashok's it looks rather grand, with dark maroon eyelids obscuring its mysterious windowed eyes.  I scout around outside for D, dining companion and fellow curry fan.  She must be inside.  But first I am met by a dramatic black, semi-circular, full-length entrance curtain, obscuring the interior but banishing the draught outside. Fumbling around for a break in the fabric, I feel like I'm about to make my first tentative debut on stage, or about to emerge and serenade the audience at Chez Maman.  Finally there is a hole, and I emerge into the semi-gloom where diners and waiters have been looking at the flailing curtain and now at me.  I should bow now.  Instead I see my friend and scuttle over to her.

We're both impressed by the efforts made in interior design.  The floor looks wooden and solid and the interior is dim, restrained sobriety in very good taste.  Indian cushions in the window, a wooden wine rack taking up the whole length of a wall and crammed with bottles.  The music in the background is under-stated but modern.  No strange Indo-pop or slightly odd decor from the 1980s. The menus have classy embroidered covers, and the dessert menus, when we get that far, are pasted in Hindi comics, which look a bit like versions of Asterix and Obelix, as far as I can tell.   There are plenty of staff around, smiling and attentive.  With only a couple of occupied tables besides our own, we never have to wait long.

Just to be different, and because I can, I try a rose lassi, and D has cardamon.  Neither rivals the best mango lassis I've had, but I've never had the choice of rose before.  It tastes of sweet rose, perhaps a bit too sweetly, and is probably too pink to be true - pointing to the presence of food colouring.  Still, I need to stop myself slurping it down too quickly.

We decide on the 25 per person tasting menu as a good starting point, and I'm not about to admit that I've spent most of my afternoon debating, and eventually deciding, I would have fish moli.  I've never had fish in an Indian - and I consult housemates and my Mum over this, because I am determined to choose something good.  Never mind.  When the food arrives probably my face betrays me - I am dismayed by the quantity.  The serving dishes have decorative flourishes to their stainless steel, but this does not disguise the fact that the rice we've been given is less than the size of one portion in an UK restaurant.  Given the fact that we only have three sauces (one lamb, one chicken and one Indian cheese) with our rice and naan bread this strikes me as a bit steep.  Yes, we probably should have gone à la carte.  Another slightly odd thing: with each dish you are asked to specify whether you'd like it mild, medium or hot.  I thought this was always something associated with the dish: imagine a hot chicken tikka masala - cum vindaloo! 

Despite my initial disappointment at the amount of food, it was deliciously tasty, with plenty of tender meat chunks in the rich sauce.  The naans were crispy and did not fill your sides with a dull, doughy ache.  When we ask what we're eating the cook himself appears, in his imposing, white-hatted finery.  I understood almost nothing of what he said, but I did glean that we were eating a special Indian cheese and, when he had gone, I sketched him covertly under the table.  The waiters come over periodically to check that everything is up to standard.  When I mention liking the naan, they look anxious; "But which one is better: this one or the UK one?"  Anyone who claims to know anything about a good curry: note that the British curry is held in high esteem in Brussels.

We didn't manage to eat everything.  

Our meal is rounded off by gulab jamun and some (cardamon) ice cream.  Which are delicious.  Someone once tried to make these sweet doughy balls at home for me (in the house with the dodgy wiring that rattled), but now, several years later, I know finally what they are meant to taste like.

Everything was going so well until the bill.  It seemed a bit high....  Only afterwards we realised that we'd been charged separately for the desserts which should have been covered under the menu charge.  A small mistake, which meant our meal cost more than it should have done, the price of a main course.  All in all, I'll give the menu a miss next time and go off piste.  The food is highly recommended, but Indian food in Brussels is not the cheaper option it is generally assumed to be in Britain.

Afterwards, too full to sleep, D and I went for a stroll.  It was certainly the best tasting Indian I've had in Brussels, with plenty on the menu to tempt me back.

Let me know what you have and what you think.  And if you've a favourite Indian you would recommend, then don't keep it secret: tell us about it!



 http://ashoks.be/Ashoks_Brussels_menu.html
192, Chaussée de Vleurgat
1000 Brussels