I'm lucky to have friends, Alex and Katya, who live in Antwerp and when I visit the city for work, I try to meet up with them to play with their very fine Persian cat and go out for dinner. They have been living there for a couple of years so by now they know where's worth a visit and I've not been disappointed with any of their choices. Just before Christmas we set out to find some dinner and Katya and I decided we wanted mussels. Our craving drove us to stroll around the town centre until we found Het Vermoeide Model where we checked the menu boards outside to confirm the presence of mussels and headed in.
First Impressions
Entering the restaurant was like stepping back in time. The ground floor had a small room with bare brick walls, a complicated looking sink and beer tap to one side and a staircase heading to the first floor. The waitress asked if we wanted to eat upstairs or downstairs
and since the downstairs was completely empty, we headed up to the larger, busier and warmer first floor where we were offered a table tucked away in a smaller side-room.
The waiter, a young tall floppy-haired fellow, brought us a bunch of menus; an original in Flemish with the prices and a translated menu with the food in several languages but no prices. Very cunning I thought. He took our orders for beers and cokes and left us to ponder our choices. Katya and I debated which of the three different types of mussels to go for and sipped our beers whilst Alex deliberated over different steak options.
Ordering the food
When the waiter returned to take our orders we were pretty miffed and disappointed to be told that they weren't doing mussels because they were serving 'the Winter Game menu' or something like that. It's a shame he hadn't told us that when we'd first arrived or we'd have been out on the street looking for somewhere else. Now I was of the impression that the rules of eating oysters (i.e. they are OK so long as there's an R in the month) also applied to mussels and since they had been listed outside on the blackboards, we were annoyed. After a few more minutes consulting the menus, we both switched our choice to a dish called a Waterzooi (which Wikipedia informs me is a classic Northern Belgian fish stew whose name means 'watery mess'). Alex stuck with his beef medallions as planned.
As we'd all chosen to forgo starters, the wait for the meal was a long one and we were onto our second beers before the food arrived. I've learned that Belgian restaurants serve large portions so starters are best avoided, but it would have been nice if they'd offered something - in fact anything - to soak up the beers whilst we waited.
Was it worth the wait?
When the food arrived it was well worth the wait. The Waterzooi was a large bowl containing chunks of several different types of fish in a thin creamy, fishy sauce, not unlike a thickened mariniere sauce. It was served with lots of bread to soak up the juices and was very tasty indeed. Alex's steak was cooked just as he'd requested and came with a large bowl of fries which we decided were clearly too much for one person to get through and so Katya and I felt honour-bound to help him out. Whilst I had been disappointed about not getting mussels, I would have to admit that I think the waterzooi was probably a better choice.
We didn't really need dessert after such big main courses but thought it might be rude not to, at least that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Don't expect anything 'light' on a Belgian restaurant dessert card - there was nothing that you could in anyway kid yourself was the healthy option. I opted for a tarte Tatin (at least the apples would count towards my 5-a-day) which thankfully turned out to be a lot more apple and a lot less pastry than I'd feared. Katya and Alex ordered Dames Blanches, which turned out to be two of the most immense ice-cream sundaes I've ever seen with a mountain of whipped cream on top of each. The excess of whipped cream was even more exaggerated when the two teas which Alex and Katya had ordered also arrived. Somewhat oddly, the teas came before the desserts and were delivered with half a dozen full sized speculaas biscuits on the side and another bowl of whipped cream. So my advice if you are full after your main course, just order a hot drink and skip the pudding as you'll get plenty of generous extras with your drinks.
The Damage
When the bill came it was my turn to pay so I volunteered and was not too shocked by the cost. For three large main courses, three greedy-pig puddings, two bottles of kriek (cherry-flavoured beer), two bottles of another beer, two cokes and two coffees, the bill was a few cents over Euro100. A few months back before the pound devalued so badly, I'd have thought that a bargain and even now with the poor exchange rates, the amount showed up on my credit card bill at just over £90 for the three of us. Not what I'd want to pay every night, but I expensed my third and paid for my friends and thought it was a pretty good deal for a very pleasant night out.
Well at least it wasn't too disappointing even without the mussels! x
hiker 12.03.2009 23:10
I'm sure they don't tell you it's "off" when they give you the menu, because by the time you come to order you're too settled to walk out. We should all learn to counter this trick. Lx
exceptional by (7%):
very helpful by (93%):
