Two hours from central London to Brussels? Amazing food, gorgeous architecture and some great art? Why had I never done this before?
Friday
A bit of wandering around to get our bearings before dinner at a down-to-earth brasserie recommended by the Independent, one of the myriad seafood places off Place St. Catherine – paper tablecloths, dodgy wood panelling and a mix of locals and tourists. The Indy said it has the best mussels in Brussels – difficult to tell, but we definitely ate well. We had croquettes to start – torpedoes of gooey prawny stuff – alright I’m not selling them brilliantly but they were perfectly fried and to die for. Mr. R&R’s foie gras was great too, with aspic, addictive tangles of caramelized red onions and a sprig of redcurrants. Then two huge buckets of beautiful mussels in white wine with tons of celery and chips, demolished in record time and in virtual silence, disturbed only by the ping of empty shells into the provided bowl. For afters, Mr. R&R had a sublime chocolate mousse and I had the sabayon with Grand Marnier, which was a warm velvety, foamy, alcoholic mass of bliss with cold ice-cream. I restrained myself from licking the bowl, but it was a close run thing. We had a bottle of their Pouilly Fuissé which went down a treat but gave us massive hangovers (we are both complete lightweights in the alcohol department). Staggered around the centre for a bit, then collapsed into bed.
Saturday
Followed the Grand Place audio guide from the Brussels tourism site on the iPad and iPhone – nice idea and well-paced, but not too hot on historical stuff and we would have done better following the maps in the Rough Guide. Made it up to the museum area for lunch at their café which is recommended. It’s self service but they make you up lovely salads on the spot, have a really good cheese selection, delicious bread and lots of cakes which looked great. There’s a coffee bar too.
The Magritte museum was fantastic – three floors taking you through his life and works with a brilliant audio commentary. I really got a flavour of the artistic movements of the time and his carefree attitude to people trying to interpret his works. Touching, as well, his long marriage to his muse Georgette. Really worth spending an afternoon to do properly.
By this time, I was a little weary (on checking my Ki Fit when we got home, we’d done over 18000 steps) but we ventured out again to Dandoy on the appropriately named rue au Beurre for some biscuit buying: traditional speculaas, almond thins and the intriguing speculoos spread and jam.
And so to dinner: Belga Queen, a bistro housed under an art nouveau glass roof, waiters bustling around in sculptural aprons. We went to the earlier of two shifts at 7.30 and the service was pretty speedy – fine for us, as we were famished but they’re probably more relaxed for the 9.30 session. The food was great though – some absolutely super oysters and more foie gras to start, then meatballs Belgian style for Mr. R&R, cooked in a spiced fruit sauce, and a hunk of more ordinary but tasty cod for me, with crispy bacony bits. The chips were insanely good. We shared the trio of white, milk and dark chocolate mousses for pud which was naturally yummy, but regretted not trying the icecream with speculoos.
More walking after dinner and a great nighttime view of Brussels and the Grand Place up by the museums.
Sunday
Last minute chocolate shopping at Laurent Gerbaud for slabs of chocolate with roasted cocoa nibs and Persian cranberries, others with bergamot, black pepper or yuzu, and dried pears coated with chocolate. The lady behind the counter knew Gobino in Turin, which we took as a very good sign. So far, it’s all delicious (although not quite as sublime as the stuff from the Chocolate Line in Bruges).
Then a whiz round the Flemish Primitives at the fine arts museum – a good audio guide here too and some stellar Bruegels, van der Weyden and various unnamed Masters. Rembrants, van Dycks and Rubens too. All good stuff but after about 1700 it gets a bit cutesy (hunting scenes, still lifes, pink cheeked children) and unfortunately we didn’t have time for the modern art museum. We’ll save that for the next trip, along with the art nouveau architecture tour, the antique shops, the speculaas icecream…
Then back on the Eurostar and home for tea. More photos on my Flickr stream.
Hotel: We stayed at the Dominican – slap bang in the centre, right next door to an enormous kitchenware shop and facing the back of the opera house (so from the street you can hear the singers warming up in the evening). Executive rooms are quiet (there’s an internal courtyard) and spacious with both bath, shower and a proper door to the bathroom, none of this glass/curtain nonsense. Great cafe au lait in the afternoon at the bar – didn’t have the buffet breakfast but it looked a little sad.
Do you have baselines for trying out new restaurants? Those dishes that, if they get just right, you’re an instant fan and will come back to try everything else on the menu? Mine include a classic champagne cocktail, scrambled eggs on toast and the perfect black and blue steak. For Japanese restaurants, my must-get-right-dish is seaweed salad, while Mr. R&R’s is california rolls. At Nozomi (at Urbanspoon here, we started brilliantly – the salad was gorgeous, three types of seaweed layered with a nutty dressing and the rolls were gorgeous (and not indelicately huge either – I’m not good at those complicated rolls that you have to either shove down in one, or messily dissect).
Baselines established, we got stuck into salmon tataki that was more citrusy than expected but in a great combination with asparagus, and a delicious tuna tartare. We had a bit of a wait for the hot dishes, but they were totally worth it: the seared scallops were blissful and the foie gras was verging on indecent. From plate-spotting our neighbours, I’d definitely try the langoustine tempura next time round.
It’s not a place for a quiet meal (a proper DJ at nearly bar decibel levels on our weekday evening visit) but the main dining room has a high glass roof, so even if it’s loud, it’s not at all claustrophobic. It’s as if they wanted to create a Knightsbridge pick-up joint for the beautiful, but oddly decided to incorporate a really good restaurant. Perhaps they realised that once the in-crowd had moved on (and I rather think they have), the odd client might hang on for the food – what a strange notion…
I really did want to like Saf (here on Urbanspoon). My contrarian instincts extend to my own opinions too, so that a gourmet vegan restaurant that seemed like the very sort of place I should detest, actually might have been a perfect counterfoil for my sausage-eating tendencies. I wanted to put all my preconceptions aside and embrace these strange, pale vegan beings with their weird ideas about nut cheese and not heating things beyond 40˚C.
Initial impressions – it looks like someone has installed a cocktail bar in a green-walled vegan cafe. Were there pot plants and packets of incense for sale alongside the lavender cocktails? Might as well have been. There’s also a glass-walled kitchen where there’s a distinct lack of actual cooking and everything looks depressingly raw. (The chef – robustly barrel-chested – certainly isn’t eating Saf food.)
We sat in a courtyard out the back – a lovely opportunity to escape from the messenger-bag-wearing Shoreditch hordes outside. It was an August night in London, meaning that the efficient heat lamps, whilst giving us an extra suntan, were rather welcome.
A real shame that efficient is one word that could not be applied to the service – everything was painfully slow, from our initial order, to the interminable waits between courses to bill paying. One of us had to nip inside on two occasions – that’s just not good enough, especially when they’re not actually cooking most of the food.
On reflection though, I think the slowness may be a management strategy to induce such hunger in their patrons that they will be happy with just about anything that comes. Certainly, this was the most excited I’ve been about julienned raw carrots, ever. To be fair, I ordered spectacularly badly – I had the sea vegetable salad to start with (julienned beetroot, carrot, daikon and seaweed) followed by the pad thai (raw julienned carrots and courgettes, raw cherry tomatoes and some frighteningly hot raw chillies with seeds and all. Not imaginative or particularly appetising.) Other starters were better – a caesar salad with tofu was decent, according to Mr. R&R and the mushroomy gyoza were wolfed down. For mains, the risotto I tasted made with spelt, courgettes and broad beans was pretty good, although by this time I was starving.
Contrary to one review I came across, desserts were by far the best bit, and Mr. R&R is still talking about the coffee ice-cream – not bad for a gelato-obsessed Italian. The coconut/lime sorbet and green-tea/cardamom ice-creams were delicious and the daily special chocolate and orange cake was nutty and tasty (although not as orangey as it promised).
There was a final blow however: our friends who had generously stumped the whole bill found out on the way home that they’d been charged for three dishes we never had.
Bloody vegans. Sorry…
Went to this cute bistro for lunch on Wednesday – it’s so welcoming with its patio doors thrown open to the pavement, big mirrors and distressed wood tables. We were greeted by smiley and efficient waiters bearing a toothsome bread selection (they have their own bakery at the front) and seated on a table that was close enough to the adjoining one to allow eavesdropping (but not so close that you have to choose between bum- or belly-brushing when you leave). On a weekday lunch, there was a good selection of chattering friends, relaxed business lunchers and well-heeled tourists. The menu seems bistro classic and from our experience very nicely executed – I had the roquefort/fig/walnut salad, Mr. R&R the chicken, both delicious with lovely (and not garlicky) dressings, then a wild strawberry tart to finish (good pastry, tasty fruit). We emerged back into Chelsea with jet-lag nicely assuaged and will definitely return.
