I've previously reviewed other establishments on place Jourdan, but it took me a while to realise that Au Vatel wasn't just an upmarket bakery selling intricate cakes and also offers sit-down meals. It has the feel of an Etterbeek institution (albeit one that appears to have gone bankrupt in 2014 - strangely, I can't find any reports of the recovery it must have experienced since then).
In order to eat in you walk past that tempting cabinet of pastries and to a seating area at the back; there are windows but they don't really have much of a sky view, so the space is slightly dark and some of the furniture is a bit too close together. This definitely feels like a bakery with tables rather than a café. Oddly, this distinction was also reflected in the people serving: those behind the bakery counter (where you pay) seemed more jolly and engaging than the waiting staff.
I have a confession to make: I don't really like the idea of burger places. When I go out to eat I like choice, uncertainty, a bit of mystery even. I'm not that excited by restaurants that offer variations on one meal. Still, the high-end fast food joint trend of the 2010s has clearly reached Brussels, and one day (fortunately when I wasn't doing any proofreading work) I had the chance to visit Manhattn's (sic) Burgers.
By now, many of Brussels' expat residents will have headed back home - some by car, some by plane, and some by the (usually) trusty Eurostar. Regulars on that service will know that the vagaries of the booking system mean that, once the cheapest Standard class fares have gone, sometimes it's no more expensive to travel in Standard Premier. For your failure of organisation (or willingness to pay more in the first place), you get extra legroom, a small selection of magazines, and a meal. I realise this isn't quite the same as assessing a paid-for restaurant experience, but this year's final In Brussels, Will Eat review will do its best.
Woluwe-St-Lambert is a mostly genteel and fairly attractive suburb of Brussels, but the area around Roodebeek metro station is not exactly the jewel in its crown; on emerging amid driving rain, I was confronted with waste ground and strange, impersonal-looking modern buildings. One turned out to be the massive Woluwe shopping centre; the other Wolubilis (Latin pun alert!), the shiny new local arts venue. Only on a third glance did I realise that the semicircle of buildings behind it was occupied by Cook and Book, the object of my journey.
The main reason we decided to go to Déjeuner sur l'Herbe was that it seemed to be a highly popular establishment. A scouting expedition at lunchtime had shown its somewhat Belle Epoque-style, all fresh gilding and mirrors (and random tropical fish tank) dining room to be full. There are plenty of reviews online praising its quality, good value and friendliness. So it was with some trepidation that in the evening we poked our heads in, hoping that there might be a free table for three somewhere in a corner, only to find an empty restaurant and a waitress who was more than happy to seat us by the window. I realise that the edge of the Eurobubble, the hinterland between the rue de la Loi and St-Josse, is not exactly Brussels' hottest ticket on a Friday night, but although our experience was broadly good, atmosphere was not one of its highlights.
As previously demonstrated, I like dumplings of all kinds. A lot. So it's not surprisingly that I take every opportunity to eat dim sum that I get. One day I'll go back to Antwerp's mini Chinatown and review this place, where I had an unexpectedly good dim sum-based meal back in the summer, but for now let's stay in Brussels, on the genteel outskirts of Châtelain.
Unlike the subject of my previous Brussels review, La Piola is not easy to miss. It's just off the place du Châtelain, has a fairly distinctive frontage, and is an Italian restaurant located in an area full of Italian (and other) establishments. Nevertheless, we initially managed to ignore it and carry on up the street: an unfortunate mistake to make in a torrential rainstorm. We soon retraced our steps, but dinner wasn't quite good enough to make up for that extra soaking.
