Le Bier Circus

Le Bier Circus is one of those places you’ll find in a lot of tourist guides, offering exactly what a tourist would expect: typical Belgian dishes on the menu, and lots of Belgian beers to choose from. Coulrophobes be warned though: this place is full of clowns, as you would expect in a ‘circus’!

I had been here a couple of years earlier, and I remember thinking the portion of stoemp was quite small, in comparison to lots of other places. So I didn’t order the stoemp-saucisse for myself this time, but looking across the table, it seems the portion size has increased, but only slightly. The amount of stoemp however, that came with my “Apple, Raisins and Orval Cheese Meatloaf” — although I didn’t find a lot of apple, raisins or cheese in my piece — was again un-Belgian small: yes, it’s that yellow-orange cilinder left of my meatloaf, that would easily fit under the foot of my water glass.
Other dinner companions did have fries with their dishes, but the numerous bottles of Brussels Ketjep spread through the restaurant seemed to be there for decorative purposes only: none were on our table, and we were never asked if we would like some sauce.

Service in general wasn’t the most friendly one, or most flexible for that matter: one diner who wanted to go low-carb by replacing the fries or stoemp with a salad, was told he’d just have to order either fries or stoemp, and an extra side salad…

So after all those years, the food still didn’t impress me much. Judging by flavour — and a peek in the kitchen when I returned from the bathroom — they seem to rely heavily on microwave ovens, which is not something I’m really looking for in a restaurant.

Luckily there was beer! Before coming, I checked the extensive beer list on their website. Unfortunately, it turned out not to be up to date anymore, so I had to go without the Oerbier Special Reserva I had in mind, and have the regular Oerbier instead. The beer list might be long, but if you’ve been drinking Belgian beers for a while, there aren’t many interesting discoveries to make anymore.

So would we come back to Le Bier Circus? Probably not: you’ll easily find better Belgian food, more interesting beers — or at least the same ones cheaper — and more enthusiasm elsewhere.

tl;dr

Beers

• 5 beers on draught
• Quite an impressive bottle list, but not all beers are equally impressive

Bites

• Belgian cuisine — carbonnades flamandes, stoemp, rabbit… — although the portion sizes aren’t always very Belgian, and I doubt everything is freshly made

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What have people been drinking here recently?