Belgium Restaurants International
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Restaurant Mich (Antwerp, Belgium)
by koshkha ~Belgium - a small land but a culinary giant~ Belgium is a strange place. Widely considered as a bit of a joke country (though obviously not by the Belgians) it always strikes me as a place that's got its priorities right - excellence in chocolate, beer and chips, the holy trinity of food and drink indulgence. Unlike their ... Dutch neighbours who seem to lack a passion for food which is demonstrated by an unnatural obsession with eating bread and cheese with a knife and fork and drinking slight 'off' milk, the Belgians see food and drink as a national pride and a source of great joy. I've never been to an empty restaurant in Antwerp - this is a city with a high population of ex-pats, people on excellent salaries and with money to throw around. I should rephrase that and say I'd never been to an empty restaurant until this week. On the first Tuesday after the Easter school holidays, we found nobody in Restaurant Mich and had the entire place to ourselves. Apparently there had been a table earlier in the evening but they'd eaten and already left before we arrived. We'd been booked for 8 pm but were about half an hour late and I'm sure the staff must have started to wonder if we were actually going to show up or if they should shut up shop and save on the lighting bills. It was explained to me by our local man that the media have predicted that Belgians will put something like 17% of their April salaries into their savings accounts. After overspending at Easter, they're starting to think about paying off the bill for the Easter ski-trip or saving up for the summer holidays - they're not out eating in restaurants. Perhaps they ate too much of their excellent chocolate and are now working on what one of my German colleagues calls his 'bikini body'. Whatever the reason, it felt really weird to spend an evening in the Marie Celeste-like Mich. ~Mich~ The restaurant is located on Waalsekai, one of the roads that borders the giant outdoor parking area about one block back from the riverside. It took us a while to find it and a few minutes more to find a parking space. A small wooden decking area outside was empty due to rather cold weather but we hadn't expected the interior to be just as bare of people. The waiter greeted us with a sense of relief and perhaps even a little excitement about actually having some customers at last. He asked if we wanted a high table (perched on 'Blind Date' style high stools) or a low table and we went for the low. In retrospect if I'd realised there was nobody else there, I might have asked to go for the high table just so that any passers-by could see there were actually customers inside but that might be because I'm just a bit of a softie. The colour scheme is cream and dark brown with bizarre pictures on the walls. The picture beside our table had a woman with three Chihuahuas and a heap of bright red lipstick. The lighting was subtle, bordering on a bit dim so maybe they were trying to cut back on the electricity bill. Table cloths and napkins were of heavy cotton. The enthusiastic waiter bounced over to ask us what we'd like to drink and to provide some suggestions. I'm not quite sure how but we ended up with something unpronounceable that consisted of a spiced Campari-like spirit mixed with cava and fizzy water. The menu is available in French or Flemish but if you can't read either, don't worry, Mr Enthusiasm will happily explain everything and the menu is very short. I asked how they would characterise the menu and was told the dishes were a mix of French and Flemish influence - just like Belgium itself. Also - and this was a real downer for a non-meat eater - they pride themselves on their meat. The chef is apparently an ex-butcher and knows his dead animals, sourcing the meat from specific farms, probably checking that the cows have been listening to classical music and getting a massage each day. Well it certainly explained the absence of much choice for me as a fishitarian and proper vegetarians should probably give up and try elsewhere. ~Steak Specialists~ This is not a cheap restaurant with starters ranging from Euro10 for something I couldn't identify on toast to Euro18.50 for the foie gras. Main courses start at Euro19 for steak tartare and go up to Euro32.50 for one of the steaks. Sauces for the steak or side salads are extra but - this being Belgium - all dishes come with fries with mayonnaise (or croquettes, or gratinated potatoes). My spell check doesn't like the word 'gratinated' and is suggesting 'gravitated potatoes' instead but they sound a bit too heavy. Enthusiastic waiter bounced back to tell us again that we were going to have wonderful meal and we were going to really enjoy our evening. Hmm, thanks, but I'm not sure such things can be forced. He told us the specials which included asparagus Belgian style as the main extra starter and I also recall a duck with foie gras which sounded very rich. For my starter I chose the carpaccio of scallop only to be told that they'd sold out because the earlier table had all ordered that. As this was the only fishy starter except for a smaller version of what I'd chosen for my main course, I was a bit scuppered and had no alternative other than to take the asparagus. My boss chose the same and our colleague went for Vitello Tonata, a veal dish. Jeez, take a poor non meat eater to a steak restaurant and then eat poor little milk-fed baby calf in front of her, why don't you? For main course I had the Scampi Curry. It wasn't a hard choice - curry or grilled prawns - good job I'm not averse to shell-fish. When asked how I wanted my potatoes, I answered that a curry surely needed rice. Enthusiastic waiter was more than willing to do rice and said the chef wouldn't mind but my colleagues persuaded me that curry and chips would be a more suitable Belgian 'twist'. Hey, I love Belgian chips and the waiter told me - enthusiastically of course - that they were hand cut each day from really good potatoes. My colleagues each picked different types of steak. "You are going to LOVE this meal" said the waiter as he bounced off to the kitchen. ~Thoughts on my Meal ~ I don't dislike asparagus but I wouldn't go out of my way to have it and I wouldn't have chosen it if there had been an alternative. I once went to an asparagus banquet in Holland with five courses, only one of which didn't contain asparagus. There's a whole aura around early crop asparagus in this part of the world but I don't really find that white asparagus actually tastes of much and the three giant spears appearing on my plate tasted of very little indeed. The Belgian 'style' is with finely chopped boiled egg and melted butter - again, not much taste in that either. I thought the asparagus could have used another minute or two in the pan and asked my boss what she thought. She agreed they were a bit on the hard side and our colleague told me I should say something. I explained that in the UK if someone serves you up a bowl of sick and you barely touch it, when the waiter comes to take the plates, we'll politely claim it was "lovely but I wasn't as hungry as I thought I was - too much bread". Fired up by the urge to be less British I told the waiter I thought they were a bit hard. He looked at me like I'd just told him his wife was ugly but he was VERY polite and said he'd speak to the chef. I did say that I wasn't a great asparagus eater so maybe it was just me (oh dear - backtracking into the British behaviour again) and he explained it needs to be firm enough to cut (good point) but he'd mention it to the chef. Let's hope he didn't spit in my curry sauce. As a frequent traveller to India and a lover of Indian food I am on a bit of a mission to see how different parts of the world interpret the term 'curry'. In Germany it's an evil yellow stuff that will stain anything it touches but this was actually quite interesting. The sauce was very thick and sticky, had a good kick of spice, but was a bit too rich and creamy which wouldn't really be a style I'd choose under normal circumstances (i.e. when there were other things on offer). However, despite my initial reservations about the sauce, I did like it a lot and it was jam-packed with really tasty big prawns, split down the middle and curled up during cooking. My rice instinct was right - I should have gone with my initial request because chips really didn't work, despite their hand-cut fresh loveliness. My boss's steak was absolutely enormous and was served with a pile of rocket and tomato salad and capers perched on top. This so-called 'Bavette Robespierre' was presented with a flourish and the pronouncement that it was "250 grams or guaranteed pleasure". Two hundred and fifty grams! That's about half a pound. I swear my bowels groaned in sympathy at the thought of Kerstin having to process such a large lump of cow. She managed about half of it and it did look to be beautifully cooked but I think she was shocked by the size. Our other colleague had another substantial chunk of beef with a pepper sauce. Dessert lovers will be disappointed to know that we skipped puds and had coffees, or in my case with so much creamy sauce coating my stomach, a fresh mint tea. The waiter brought me mint leaves in hot water and an Earl Grey teabag, explaining that some people like to combine the two - so being an amenable sort (other than when I'm challenging the al dente asparagus) I went along with his suggestion after mentioning that I do rather like Earl Grey. The waiter came back with a handful of Earl Grey sachets for me to take away. Sweet man! ~Value? No Idea~ I have absolutely no idea what the bill came to but it cannot have been cheap. If forced to guess I'd say around Euro50 a head but that is just a guess. If you like meat and value quality, it's probably very good but that was not easy for me to judge. As a speciality meat restaurant it's unlikely I'd choose it again as there just wasn't enough choice for me, but I can't fault the style, the presentation or the enthusiasm of our waiter. My food was good quality but not entirely to my taste but I had a very pleasant evening. No, I wouldn't go again but that's more about my eating preferences rather than a judgement on the quality of the restaurant. ~Details~ Restaurant Mich Waalsekai, 10 Antwerp Read the complete review |
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Ferrier 30 Restaurant (Antwerp, Belgium)
by koshkha ~ Eating in Antwerp ~ I usually go to Antwerp every couple of months but due to illness at the end of last year and treatment that stretched into this one, I'd not been since last summer. Considering that my favourite colleague and good friend Karin is based there, my absence was becoming a bit of an embarrassing issue. I ... booked to fly over and see her, returning the next day on the stupidly early flight from Antwerp to Manchester, ensuring I had the opportunity to take her out to dinner. She asked where I wanted to eat and I said that I didn't mind where I went so long as it was somewhere new. Antwerp has so many restaurants that I'm sure I could go once a week and it would take years to run out of new places. Karin's Dutch but her colleague Elli is a local and is a bit of a restaurant expert and it's rumoured she doesn't actually have a kitchen in her apartment because she eats out all the time. She's always our first port of call for a restaurant suggestion and Ferrier 30 was her recommendation. During my last night out with Karin we had a fairly dreadful Thai served so badly that she'd finished her food before mine even arrived. So this time we decided to go Italian at Ferrier 30 in the city centre. We parked up on the road about a block away. It's worth being aware that they run a very strange on-road parking payment scheme which requires you to send an SMS to start your payment period and another when you leave. Whatever you do, don't leave without cancelling the parking period. ~ No tight bummed waiters with giant grinders ~ If your expectations of an Italian restaurant are for cheap and cheerful food served in a gloomy place with a mural of the canals of Venice on the wall, several decades of dusty souvenirs cluttering up the place and food served by a chap in over-tight trousers who likes to wave his over-sized pepper grinder at you in a lascivious manner, then Ferrier 30 will disappoint. It's really not THAT KIND of Italian. Instead what you'll find is a classy joint with an attractive outdoor terrace (not in use due to the weather on this occasion) minimalist black and white décor and stripped wooden floors, neat waiters and waitresses in black uniforms and small but well made dishes. The ground floor dining area is split into two zones by a glass panel and there are additional tables downstairs in the basement, though these were not used on the evening we visited. It's worth being prepared for some economic bad news because Ferrier 30 is not cheap. You won't learn that from their pathetic website which seems to be broken, showing only a small selection of dishes and no prices. After looking at the menu for a few minutes, I asked Karin "Is it just me or do you also think 20 Euros is a bit steep for a starter?" She agreed. It seemed strange to me that many of the starters were more expensive than the main courses and the cheapest starter on the menu was a shade under ten euros. Main course pastas and risotto were between 13 and 20 euros with meat and fish dishes in the 20 to 25 euro range. ~ Our Meal ~ We ordered drinks - a generously large glass of white wine for her and a glass of Hoegaarden beer for me. The waitress also bought a plate of thinly sliced meat, a bowl of large green olives and a white bread roll each with some olive oil for dipping. I pushed the meat in Karin's direction and settled down to munching on the olives which were excellent, even though my preference is normally for black rather than green. Having chosen the most expensive of the risottos for my main course, I picked the cheapest starter, the fish soup. Karin chose a spinach salad with thinly sliced cheese on top. My main was the mushroom risotto which seemed expensive to me at Euro19.50 and Karin chose a ravioli, though I forgot to check what was inside the parcels. My soup looked beautiful and was smooth, deep red with a slight sheen of olive oil droplets and a lot of large chunks of white fish. I could pick up a slight taste of fresh baisl but on the whole, it was a bit bland for me. The portion size was huge, as was the salad which Karin ordered. This was probably a good thing because when my risotto arrived it was such a small portion that I almost asked where the rest of it was. Despite being tiny, it was so rich that I soon realised that any more would have been too much. The rice was short grained and quite chewy with firm slices of mushroom which were probably porcini. The sauce was rich, probably with lots of butter and maybe some cheese and was the sort which - if the room were really quiet which thankfully it weren't - would probably allow you to listen to your arteries furring up with delight. I ate it very daintily, so the tiny bowl was eked out to give maximum impact. The pudding menu was brought after our plates were cleared and included all the classics - tiramisu, crème brulee and chocolate mousse for example - but I was too full and Karin was trying to be good. We ordered drinks instead - a cappuccino for her, a peppermint tea for me which was made with a bunch of fresh peppermint leaves. We didn't mind having skipped the puddings as the drinks came with a plate with 4 small wrapped pieces of turron and 3 fine chocolates which we polished off with delight, feeling quite smug for having resisted pudding without actually missing out. ~ It's not cheap ~ The total bill came to Euro76.50 for the two of us as a result of us ordering 'carefully'. Karin's Dutch (they are famously careful with money) and I'm still suffering the exchange rates so we didn't go crazy. This bill covered two courses each, one wine, two beers and two hot drinks. If we'd had a bottle of wine and pudding I don't think we'd have seen any change from Euro100-110. The service was quiet and professional throughout although it was a bit disturbing to get three or four different staff during the meal so there was a sense of discontinuity with all the changes of personnel. I thought the drinks were reasonably priced at Euro5 for a large glass of white wine, and half that for a wine glass of Hoegaarden beer. By the end of the evening the restaurant was absolutely full to bursting and Ferrier 30 is clearly a favourite with the locals. Maybe if you're on Belgian salaries it doesn't seem expensive to see a Euro24 starter. ~Details~ Ferrier 30 Leopold de Waelplaats 30 2000 Antwerpen Read the complete review |
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Tot Straks (Antwerp, Belgium)
by koshkha Those old enough to have had a misspent youth will recognise the title as one of the classic songs by the self-proclaimed "rudest, crudest, lewdest, drunkest band in Christendom" in other words, the Macc Lads. Perhaps not too appropriate for a review of a genteel Belgian restaurant but in the land where beer and chips rule ... supreme, I can happily pass up on the sex and gravy. ~Better than the Canteen~ The factory I visit in Belgium is based in the Merksem suburb of Antwerp. Or possibly it's not a suburb - it might even be a separate town, I'm really not sure. The company has a canteen but it's pretty dire (bread and cheese, bread and ham, bread and .........), so if I'm lucky to visit for a special event or to find a frustrated colleague looking for an excuse to escape for a hot lunch, we pretty much always go to Tot Straks. My recent visit coincided with the 'leaving lunch' of a colleague and since she technically works for me, I was invited along. Tot Straks - which translates as roughly 'See you later' - is on Bredabaan in the centre for Merksem. I believe it's open for both lunch and dinner but I've only ever been there for lunch although I have been many times. The restaurant doesn't have a car park but there is on-road parking at parking meters in the street directly outside and the tram passes directly in front of the restaurant. Despite not being far from the factory, we generally drive to maximise the amount of time we can spend there. ~First Impressions~ From the outside it looks a little like a small café and it's only once you get inside and see the menu that you realise it's a fully fledged restaurant. The ground floor dining room is not very.big and has only around eight to ten tables. Most are tables for two or four people but they can be persuaded to push tables together for larger groups. I suspect there are more tables upstairs but I can't confirm that because we've only ever eaten downstairs. On my most recent visit, we were a party of seven. The décor is clean and simple with light tiled floors, dark wood tables, fabric table runners and often a few seasonal nick-nacks about the place - little pumpkins or gourds round Halloweend, Christmas decorations in December and other small touches. Wooden screens are used to divide up the space and create more of an illusion of privacy and the restaurant is generally well lit with a combination of wall and ceiling lights. ~I hope it's chips, it's chips, I hope it's chips, it's chips~ With table filled and everyone settled, the waitress came to take the drinks orders and then returned with our drinks and a few tiny pots of mini pretzels to nibble on whilst we chose our food. On this most recent visit I noticed that the prices seemed to have increased quite a lot since I was last there and I was pleased that the local boss was picking up the tab. I don't mind paying Euro15 or so for a dinner main course, but I think that's rather a lot at lunch time although the portions are always more than generous. On previous visits, I've paid around Euro12 to Euro15 for lunch including one or two soft drinks. This time there was really very little on the main course menu that was under Euro18. If I eat somewhere that looks and feels fancy, that's not a problem, but I can't help thinking that the food is too expensive for the rather plain café-style setting. I usually order off the section of the menu described as 'snacks' which is only available during the working week. Don't worry, despite sounding like these are going to be small meals, the portions are still enormous. This section includes a variety of 'toast' based dishes, omelettes and burgers and my favourite - the salad Nicoise. Before you get the idea that I'm making a nice healthy choice, I have to 'fess up' that the reason I like the Nicoise at Tot Straks so much is that it comes with chips. You've got to love the Belgians for combining the self-righteous and the self-indulgent so seamlessly. ~Tucking In~ With our orders taken, the waitress returned with plates of snacks. We each got a small china spoon with a mouthful of shrimp pasta and shared a bowl of small cheesy biscuits to nibble on whilst the chef prepared our meals. As you'd expect for a lunch time service, the food was turned around quite quickly and within ten to fifteen minutes our dishes were all delivered to the table. A wide variety of dishes were chosen by those around me. The person directly across the table had a giant vol au vent dish (with chips) containing a mountain of chicken in creamy sauce. The waitress placed a really big bowl of chips between the two of us - far more than two people could really aspire to get through so we shared them around as widely as we could. I don't recall all the dishes probably because I don't tend to pay a lot of attention to what other people are eating if it's got meat in it. Two colleagues chose a dish with an enormous slab of salmon served in an obscene amount of oily sauce and another had a dish of asparagus and creamy potatoes served with some kind of meat but I wasn't paying attention to precisely what it was. In the case of that dish, it was so large that it could have fed a family of three and the salmon dishes were also enormous. My salad was very big but I'd have to say not terribly authentic. It's my usual choice so I wasn't disappointed because I knew what to expect but somehow, despite including almost all the required elements of a nicoise (tuna, hard boiled egg, olives, anchovies) there's always a lingering feeling that something's missing. It must be more than just the absence of green beans that makes me feel that something is not quite right and I think it's probably what they add that gives truth to the old adage that 'less is more' - in short there's just too much salad on the bottom and it includes unexpected things like carrot and cucumber. They really are alien interlopers in a salad nicoise. However, lest my reticence leads you to think that I wasn't enjoying my salad as much as I should (especially considering it was costing the boss nearly Euro15), there's one thing that means no matter what they put in or what they leave out, I'm going to go away feeling happy. Quite simply nobody in the world makes chips as good as the Belgians do. Belgium may indeed - as we often remind Belgian colleagues - be an artificially created country that exists merely to keep the Dutch and the French apart; it may be a place that's been invaded so many times throughout history that there must have once been a busy trade for flag-changers; most people who don't live there really would struggle to name more than about three 'famous Belgians' (and at least one of those may well be paedophile and it's unlikely anyone can remember the chap who's 'president of Europe') but it is undoubtedly the country where food and drink priorities are right on target. If I were to frolic on a mountainside singing like Julie Andrews about 'my favourite things', then Belgium's got most of them - chips, beer, chocolate and mussels. It's heaven on earth despite the bad weather and the awful traffic. As a result of the mountain of rabbit food in front of me, and the similar mountain of chips, it took me a long time to get through my dish. Everyone else had long finished and I was still chomping away whilst the boss was presenting my colleague with a small present and making a long speech. When I was eventually finished all the plates were cleared and the waitress came back to try to tempt us with puddings. We all declined and ordered a few coffees and teas to extend the lunch break a little longer. ~Happy Birthday~ Just after the drinks had been delivered, the waitress returned with an additional plate full of desserts as a birthday offering to one of our group. This was a very kind gesture for the blushing birthday girl - blushing all the more so because her birthday had been 3 months earlier. When reading the menu she'd mentioned - within the hearing of the waitress - that there was a note on the bottom saying to let them know if it was anyone's birthday. The waitress had asked her if it was and she had jokingly claimed it was her birthday. Her fibbing chickens came home to roost with the delivery of not only a large platter of different desserts, but even a lit 'sparkler' sticking out of one of the balls of ice-cream and 'congratulations' written carefully in custard around the top edge of the plate. I have never seen Natasja speechless before and certainly never seen her go so beetroot red. So take care - if you want a big free pudding, fib about your birthday. If you don't want to be embarrassed in front of a room full of diners (thankfully nobody sang), don't tell the waitress it's your birthday - especially if it isn't. ~I'll be back!~ I will undoubtedly go back to Tot Straks again and will most likely have my not-quite-Nicoise salad many more times. It's not the greatest restaurant in Belgium or even in Antwerp, but it certainly beats the factory canteen and the chips alone make it worth a visit. In my opinion it's a bit pricy for a quick lunch and the prices have gone up several euros on a lot of the dishes just in the last 6 months but the service is good, the food is well cooked and the portions are more than generous. Tot Straks is open daily from 10 am Monday to Friday and slightly later on the weekends. It closes at 9 pm Monday to Thursday and at 10 pm on other days - so don't go too late or you might get caught out. ~Details~ Restaurant Tot Straks Bredabaan 332 2170 Merksem/Antwerp www.tot-straks.be Read the complete review |
Belgium Restaurant International |
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1 review Address: Bredabaan 332 / Restaurant International / 2170 / Merksem / tel: 03 647 25 34 |
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1 review Address: Waalse Kaai 10 / Restaurant International / 2000 Antwerp / Belgium |
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1 review Address: Rue Grétry 51 / Restaurant International / 1000 Brussels / Belgium |
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1 review Address: Leopold de Waelplaats 30 2000 / Restaurant International / Antwerp |
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Address: Rue des Chapeliers 1- 3 / Restaurant International / Brussels / 1000 / Belgium / Tel: 02 513 64 79 |
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1 review Type: Fish & Seafood / Restaurant International / Address: Marnixplaats 12 / 2000 Antwerpen / Belgium / Tel: 03 257 13 57 |
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Restaurant International / Place Debrouckère 19 / 1000 / Brussels / Belgium / Tel: +32 2 219 12 19 |
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Address: Kemelstraat 8, 8000 Brugge, Belgium / Restaurant International / Tel +32(0)50/33.55.20 |
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1 review 423, Avenue Louise, 1050 Bruxelles Tel: 02 / Restaurant International /648.80.41 - A traditional French-style restaurant on Ave. Louise in Brussels (note there are two restaurants in Brussels with this name which are not connected) |
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Location: Dijver 5, 8000 Brugge / Restaurant International / Tel: 050336069. |
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