UPDATE: Closed permanently…
We’ve had ramen and gyoza before, but we had no clue what donburi, kara age, or onigiri were, when we first read it on the menu of Kumiko. Although the food menu is definitely Japanese, you can’t simply call the place a Japanese restaurant: there is a cellar bar more suitable for drinking than eating, and a nice courtyard terrace. There is some Japanese macro beer available, with the brewery in the same block, a Brussels Beer Project beer would be the obvious choice here, unless the CraftWorks beer tickles your fancy more.
The CraftWorks beer Kumiko was serving, was ‘t IJ‘s IJwit, a witbier. Apart from the BBP beers — of which two were ironically not made in the neighbouring brewery, but at Anders! in Limburg, the other changes regularly — the only other beers not from Moortgat or one of their subsidiaries, were from Bertinchamps, only available in 50 cl bottles, by the way. No craft beer from Japan, unfortunately, just the one Ichiban lager by Kirin. If only they knew someone with connections to breweries in Japan… (In case you didn’t know: Brussels Beer Project has a taproom in Tokyo)
The food menu is the complete opposite: almost everything on it is Japanese, except for the smokey beef burger with crunchy onions and tomato chutney. The main dishes are ramen (miso, shoyu, tofu, chicken, or pork), donburi, which apparently is a bowl of rice with various toppings (veggie, tofu, pork, chicken, or salmon), and onigiri, a dish made from white rice formed into a triangular shape, wrapped in nori, and with all kinds of fillings.
We both had a donburi, one with chicken, and one with pork. Contrary to what the description — rice with some toppings — might lead you to believe, it was surprisingly flavourful, and at no point we were left with just white rice. The chicken skewer came with a nice sauce as well, and the complimentary — because of happy hour — chicken gyoza were tasty as well. We ended up taking some leftovers home, since the donburi bowls are quite large.
Kumiko is not necessarily a beer destination, but if you’re lucky — it largely depends on that month’s CraftWorks and BBP offer — you can have a really nice beer with a Japanese dish that will definitely be tasty.
tl;dr
Beers
- 3 beers on draught
- 1 CraftWorks tap
- A couple of bottled beers from neighbour Brussels Beer Project
Bites
- Mains: Ramen, donburi, onigiri, and a beef burger
- Sides: skewers, gyoza, kara age, and other dishes
Kumiko
Aalststraat 7 Rue d'Alost
1000 Brussel
+32 473 36 94 81
http://www.kumiko.be
What have people been drinking here recently?
- Rutherford T. is drinking a Jungle Joy at Kumiko
- Remi A. is drinking a Coisa Linda at Kumiko
- Elena P. is drinking a Surréaliste at Kumiko
- Aksel K. is drinking a Surréaliste at Kumiko
- Martijn B. is drinking a Surréaliste at Kumiko
- Martijn K. is drinking a Surréaliste at Kumiko
- Xander Prijs is drinking a Surréaliste at Kumiko
- Zoltán Kelemen is drinking an Uijin Yuzu Blond at Kumiko
- Dylan Rijnen is drinking a Venus Effect at Kumiko
- Di Ong is drinking an Uijin Yuzu Blond at Kumiko