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.