Friday I had another fabulous dinner, this time it was at restaurant “épicerie du cirque”

It was already for a while now that I wanted come here, but it wasn’t easy to find a free table here  :-).

Friday I finally managed to get a table and who better to accompany me, than my mom.  I have to admit after hearing nothing but positive comments  about this restaurant, so my expectations were pretty high…. So I was really hoping the expectations would be granted

I cannot start a dinner without a nice glass of bubbles to loosen up  the appetite (well not that I really need that, but it’s the thought that counts) They proposed us their ‘house’ apero, a Cuvée Vourvray  made with the Chenin blance, which is not a traditional “champagne” grape.  But they bubbly wine is made on the traditional way and a great way to start what turned out to be a wonderful evening (besides the great company of my mom ofcourse)

At « épicerie du cirque you can choose between the menu “Les Saveurs du Cirque” (The taste of the circus)  where you can take either the 3, 4, 5 or 6 courses (35-65 EUR p/p)  which come with accompanying wines, beers or the restaurant also has a “water’ card. Or you can choose “à la carte” which contains a lot of dishes that also tickled my taste buds … but you cannot have it all, we took the 3 course menu (as more courses would have been too much for my mom).

Together with the glass of bubbles the served us a little “amuse bouche” , a sunroot (or Jerusalem artichoke how it is originally called)mousse with porchetta  and tuna. It might seem like a strange combo, but it worked (I like eating porchetta)

Something that I liked was the way they served there bread :-), it came with a little cup of celeriac paste/mousse with a crumble of bacon 🙂 instaid of the usual butter you get.

Ok, so we already had a great departure, hopefully the rest of the flight will be as nice or even better…

As a starter  we got Chickpeas , young spinach leaves, Soprafino oil, some white topped with a Poached egg  and served with a light, not too strong, but gentil tasting  2010 « Cuvée Henri »Domaine de l’Aumonier  whic is a Chenin blanc from Touraine (France). Simple, but a true harmony in the mouth and that’s the way I like it :-)(the words of Ingrid Neven (from Pazzo) come to me now, “keep it simple”)

The main course was  a  nice piece of Canette Barbarie (duck) with pak choi, pipe Onion as mustard puree (and mustard soaked mutard seeds)  and a I think soy sauce (but I could be wrong) to accompany the choose a 2007 red  “Oltre” by  Serafini & Vidotto, from the Veneto region in Italy. If this wine would have been made in the Bordeaux region, they would have called this a Bordeaux as it is made from the traditional Bordeaux grapes: Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc….FYI, the merlot was mostly present in this wine, see if you have remember my Bordeaux blog post, what  Merlot does to this wine 🙂

Now the moment arrived to start the landing of this great flight, the dessert. I’m still not sure why, but for some reason we got a “pre-dessert”, I suppose the our dessert was not ready yet. But the more things I can taste the better 🙂 :-). This dish showed again how the simple things are always the best… They gave us, pineapple with cranberry, whipped cream (FYI , I don’t really care about calories (in case you didn’t know this yet) and muesli

Not long after this we received our real dessert, we had a dessert that combined  Tonka, chocolate  and Bergamot ,  I can only say that this dessert was heavenly… the bergamot ice that went with it was  a little bit too sour for me, (but that’s a matter of taste). If you are a chocolate lover, this plate is definitely for you!! We didn’t take the dessert wine that normally accompanied it, as I’m not really in to dessert wine, toooooooooo sweet for me (I’m already sweet enough 😉 ) I tried one of the waters they had on their ‘water’card… I never had a better landing 🙂 and they little sweets with the coffee was like the cherry on a pie.

I can only say that I will be taking more “épicerie du cirque” flights in the future (thanks to the pilot and his cabin crew) , as this restaurant could become another  restaurant Pazzo for me…

I know I talk a lot (in all my blogpost ), but I’m always so excited when I’m writing my posts

I can’t wait to share my great experiences with my readers, to try to convince them to visit the restaurants I’ liked …. As I always like it when my readers say to me I was right 🙂

Restaurant épicerie du cirque:

Website : http://www.lepicerieducirque.be/

Address: (they will be moving in a few weeks, just to the other part of the street)

Leopold de Waelstraat 7

2000 Antwerp, Belgium

Phone n°: +32 (0)3 238 05 71