Belga Queen, Brussel, Belgium

Seafood platter

Saumon massé à la Rodenbach et herbettes, sauce à la moutarde douce

Cornet de frites BQ

laitue au vinaigre de bière et huile vierge

Boulettes liégeoises

What a coincidence – your favourite gluttony sinner was on a trip to Belgium to visit an old friend currently living there. A couple of newspapers were in the accompanying luggage to bring something from home to Belgium. Dinner reservations were already made and about 30 minutes before leaving the friend starts to smile, turns over the NZZ and says this is where we’re going. So a day after the NZZ mentioned the Belga Queen your truly was already there for dinner. Staying ahead of the Tagesanzeiger is child’s play, staying in tune with the NZZ, well….. So Belga Queen is in a former bank building in the downtown Brussel. The crowd dresses to impress (clearly this seems the place to be) and the hall is amazing. Wandering downstairs there’s an old vault which has been turned into a cigar lounge and bar, so this really is my type of place. Sitting down yours truly got a bit cocky. Skimming the menu a seafood platter with all kind of mussels, oysters and shrimp sounded enticing. The lack of experience quickly showed, except for the shrimp, everything was raw on the platter. My limited grasp of the english language made me carelessly overread the Common Periwinkle on the menu. And rest assured the Common Periwinkle is a fickle beast, you have to pry it out of it’s shell. A nice change was the next dish, a salmon which was treated with Rodenbach beer and herbs. Slightly sweet, a nice distinctive beer taste and a good mustard sauce to go with it, this was my favourite dish of the night. Mains were meatballs cooked in special sauce of stock and pear/apple syrup. Flavour wise it was interesting and made a good combination, but the execution was very sloppy. A couple of small bits of inedible offal meat in the meatball as well as the sides were a turnoff. The salad was a sloppy quarter of a lettuce head and the french fries were lukewarm at best. Another bit of advice be wary of the belgian wine, the white is okay, but the red is like a Schaffhauser Nordhang Cuvee. Overall the place is sleek, trendy and posh, but not really great in terms of food. Like a complicated, but beautiful woman, great for a night, but lacking substance. Price for four:

Bill