Places where you can go for lunch or dinner, and enjoy a nice beer with it.
Food places keep popping up in Brussels all the time, introducing cuisines from all over the world. We’ve seen Mexican or Tex-Mex on some restaurants before, but so far, they haven’t been able to impress us. Cali-Mex, or Californian Mexican however, was new to us, and I believe to Brussels.
After having tried this Cali-Mex food for the first time at CHEZWaWa, we’d say: welcome, and bring on the giant burritos, the soft tacos, and the hot salsa!
Update: Out of business…
Viva M’Boma is not your typical restaurant, since it is specialised in offal dishes: livers, kidneys, tongues, intestines, cheeks, udders… For the less adventurous eaters, there are more familiar Belgian dishes on the menu as well, like stoemp saucisses and carbonnades Flamandes with chips.
We decided to have a mixed starter dish, consisting of boudin blanc, dry pork sausage, and bread with rillettes, followed by the ‘safe choice’ stoemp saucisses, and the fried liver with cream sauce and bacon. We thoroughly enjoyed al dishes served, and are curious to try some more!
When you pass by Fin de Siècle in the evening, there are usually a couple of people standing at the bar. They’re not there just to have a drink, but they’re waiting to be seated. It’s a logical result of their no reservations policy, but it’s always a good sign if you see people are willing to put up with the wait, isn’t it?
We were lucky when we went for dinner there this week, we only had to wait for a couple of minutes before being shown to ‘our’ table. ‘Our’ between quotation marks, since you’ll rarely have the table to yourself here: you’ll be seated where ever there are some places left at the long, communal tables.
“Eat more fish” is the motto of Bia Mara. “Good luck with that”, was my first thought, when in 2013, I first walked past the now famous chippie. And foreigners from a soggy chip country selling chips to Belgians?
I’m not a fish eater at all: in most restaurants I usually just skip the seafood section of the menu. But after the first time I tried the Classic at the lively fish and chips shop on the Marché aux Poulets, I was hooked — pun intended. Because of Bia Mara, I’ve eaten more fish in the last three years, than in the preceding thirty years!
The fish and chips at Bia Mara — seafood in Irish Gaelic — are nothing like the fish and chips you might have eaten in the UK. Simon and Barry made their own version of the classic dish, using herbs and spices from all over the world and Japanese tempura or panko for the fish, making it more crispy than usual. The chips are more like potato wedges than ‘normal’ chips, and nicely seasoned with seaweed salt. If you really want vinegar, just ask for the spray.