Restaurants

My Jong Keukengeweld experience

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I hope most of you have seen  and tried the special “Jong Keukengeweld “event? This was an initiative from ‘Vlaanderen Lekkerland’ that selected 48 young  chefs, both new upcoming (as  Stephanie Wouters, Michel Timmermans, etc…) as set  talent like 2 Michelin start chef Gert  De Mangeleer (Hertog Jan), were young people between age of 18 and 30 could eat a 3 course menu for 45 euro’s including wine and water. So Basically By and For young people, something that I really encourage!!  So obviously I also wanted to go to one of these restaurants as I’m still not 30 years old (lucky me). The choice wasn’t easy, because they ALL looked great and inviting, but out of the 48, I made a list 6 from which I made my choice… The restaurant I picked was Pand 19 . Located in the heart of the Flemish Ardennes in a place well known by all you cyclists out there Geraardsbergen (from Wall of Geraardsbergen).

Anyhow, back to the food. What I didn’t know before I went to this restaurant, is that chef Ann De Roy is actually the sister of Kris De Roy chef of ‘Hofke van Bazel’ (a very renowned restaurant near Antwerp).

I have to admit that the location of the restaurant was really superb, with a view over the hills and valleys of Geraardsbergen .  I really like that a lot, it calms me  🙂 (ZEN)

It was a beautiful day, but too bad it was too cold that night to sit outside 😦

When we entered the restaurant, I really fell in love with the interior, it was really nice, this was actually a color we wanted to use in our home.

One thing I must really say, Pieter, Ann’s husband really  looks a lot like our former prime minister Guy Verhofstadt ! I wanted to take a picture, but that would have been awkward 🙂 , nevertheless the whole staff was friendly, it was pretty busy, so they couldn’t give us their full attention (but that’s very understandable). My start was already wonderful, we started with a nice glass of Champagne.

And man I really had the best view ever, basically the best of two worlds. At my front left and right I had the kitchen (so I could see everything) and right in front of me my beloved girlfriend.

But ofcourse I didn’t come to this restaurant to see, but to eat 🙂

The ‘Jong Keukengeweld’ menu was first some Tuna Tartare with fine vegetables and pickles (a yellow mayonnaise-based sauce with turmeric, mustard and crunchy vegetable chunks)  mayonnaise . Served with a German Silvaner Trocken  Weingut Sander wine.  Our main course was Wilde duck  with chicory, madras curry and appel/potatoe puffs, this dish got accompanied by an Italian wine from the Piemonte region (as if they knew) “La Luna del Rospo, Silente  (Barbera doc). The dessert  they gave us were pancakes (thin ones, not the American kind) with cinnamon, apples and calvados icecream. Overall a very nice dinner, only the dessert didn’t really convince me(but that’s a matter of taste)

I would for sure go back if I’m in the neighborhood. Ann De Roy is also running for the election to become BRU lady chef of 2012

Restaurant Pand 19

Website: http://www.pand19.be

Address

                Parochiebosdreef

                9500 Geraardsbergen, Belgium

Phone n°: +32 (0)475 36 12 52

Welcome in my livingroom

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I know it won’t come as a surprise, but this weekend I went to a  restaurant 🙂

I must say that this time I picked out something special., I went to restaurant “Carrod’s”. What actually initially attracted me to this restaurant, is that the owner Stephanie runs and works alone in this restaurant. So I really wanted to see how she managed to do this? On top of that Stephanie is running to become ‘BRU lady chef of the year 2012’, she is also part of ‘Jong Keukengeweld’ and lots of magazines are writing about her… So my curiosity got stimulated even more.

The only thing that might scare off some people about this restaurant is that it is located in Borgerhout, the multicultural part of Antwerp with not the best reputation (I don’t mind as I lived here in my childhood).

One advice, if you want to come here, you’d better book a table in advance. When booking your table you have to let know for which formula you’re going for, you can choose between day menu of a suggestion menu. The day menu would be a soup, main course and a dessert at 15EUR. The suggestion menu would be a 4 course dinner at 30EUR. Currently there is also the ‘Jong Keukengeweld’ menu, but this only  until the end of ‘Jong Keukengeweld’.  Both menu’s change daily, which is very remarkable  (The Jong keukengeweld menu  was the same over the whole period).  Knowing Stephanie didn’t study at cooking school, she has a modern art background… she only started cooking after having worked for a while at the Hilton hotel… after that she decided to get her chef’s degree and she has the restaurant for about 1 year now.  We went for the ‘Day menu’ as we didn’t have that much time to eat.

Once she opens the restaurant door for you, you immediately  feel at home. First off all because the 3 tables are in the former living room of the house, but also because of the friendliness and spontaneity of Stephanie,who also immediately wants to know what you want to drink. We went for a glass of Spumante. The soup  was fennel soup with watercress and pink peppercorns (I’m really not a soup eater, but this was some good soup!). The main course was a spaghetti carbonara like pasta, but with brussels sprouts, turnip (knolraap), sweet potatoe, trout and I think I tasted some goats cheese. With our main course we drank a 2007 Refosco from Villarosso.  To finish our meal we had a Dame Blanche. Overall a very nice meal and I honestly felt like being at a friend’s house for dinner, the same cosiness and great talk as I would have at a friend’s house (with nice food) . During my dinner I also saw some dishes from the Suggestion menu pass by and I must say they really looked very nice and I’m returning for sure to try the suggestion menu.

So basically if you like the ‘at home feeling’ and none of that fancy panths thing, this place is definitely the place for you!

Restaurant Carrod’s:

Website: http://www.carrods.be

Address:

                Krugerplein 18

                2140 Borgerhout, Belgium

Phone n°: +32 (0)498 06 23 21

Meat and eat, what’s in a name :-)

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I could try to give this post a better title, but why… the name speaks for itself.

A while ago I was at this event near the marnixplaats in Antwerp and that’s when I noticed this little restaurant  that really attracted me a lot called Meat and Eat…  I think it was because it is small restaurant, where you can see the chef prepare your meal.

So last week I decided to go there with a buddy of mine. The place was really full, and people really kept coming.. So lucky for us we made a reservation 🙂. As you might have already imagine, this restaurant is specialized in meat, so if you are a veggie I wouldn’t really recommend this restaurant…

The story behind this restaurant is actually also very nice. This restaurants used to be butchery from the father of the current owners. The 3 brothers wanted in some way continue in their father’s foodsteps… what they did with opening a meat restaurant, where you get served good meat for a normal price. And I really want to add that the owners are of a remarkable friendliness .

As it was Thursday, we took the Thursday special which includes a piece of steak of 700g for 2 with French fries, salad and a bottle of wine. ME LIKE 🙂

I enjoyed myself and would for sure return!

Bistro Meat & Eat:

Website: http://www.meat-and-eat.be/ 

Address:

Vrijheidstraat 63

2000 Antwerp, Belgium

Phone n°: +32 (0) 3 238.11.15

And yet we went to another vineyard

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Today my aunt asked my something I have never heard before… she wanted to invite us to a restaurant???? She never did this, as she makes everything better herself. So not accepting it is not an option. Apparently lately she does this more often together with some friends 🙂 (which is really great)  She invite us to this very nice restaurant near the Slovenian boarder, Azienda agricola Stanig aka “Al vecchio Gelso” Which is also a vineyard 🙂 (I like). She actually wanted to take us to Stanig, as she had already been here a couple of times and liked very much. But also because she knows my brother is really crazy about the local wine called “Ribola Gialla” which you have in the form as a regular white wine and as a kind of spumante that I actually didn’t know also existed. So she wanted us to taste it and when maybe even take a few bottles for my brother. When I arrived at this restaurant I immediately knew this was something I liked, surrounded by vineyards, apple trees, etc…. lovely.

We first got offered a glass of this famous “Ribolla” or as they call it “Ribollicine”, and I can guaranty that it was indeed good. The grape has a realy nice smooth taste with tones of citrus in it. Really worth trying!!

But ofcourse we didn’t only come to drink :-)!We also had some delicious food. Do you remember my blogpost from Piemonte when I talked about restaurant Gemma? Well this was the same kind of restaurant, everything homemade, with love, very friendly people and more food than you can eat. As an antipasto, we started light with some San Daniele ham and some local cheese. We then took a Trio from pasta (as we couldn’t choose) Orzotto with the first broccoli from the season (like risotto, but with orzo instaid of rice), a kind of lasagna with pork sausage sauce and tagliatelle with porcini.   To accompany this we had a local red wine “Schioppettino“, an interesting taste, a more herbal kind of wine… I don’t think it would match with everything, but the bottle was empty at the end, so it couldn’t have been bad. (btw if you don’t finish your bottle, they give it to you to take home) We didn’t finish eating yet 🙂 as ‘secondo’ or main course we took the ‘involtini di’anatra’ (duck roll), roast and rabbit. They all came with a slice of white polenta and for the whole table we took some “zucchini”, “potatoes baked in the oven with rosemary” and some spinach. There was NO more room for dessert, only for a coffee.

As we were at the vineyard and I had wanted to take a few bottles of “Ribolla” for my brother I also took the liberty of buying an extra box of wine for me and my brother with an assortiment of the regional wines… And may I just say that the wines from Stanig have a nice tase. One of my preferred red wines from this region would be “Merlot’ (more than Cabernet’, for the white wines my preference would go to the Tokai Friulano (previously known as Tokai), but the Malvasia and Sauvignon are also very nice.

And may I also add that I like the look of the bottles (I know what is in it is more important, but they really look nice)

After our diner and wine purchase we did a little walk across the vineyard and set sail to go back home (to eat some more in the evening) after having a wonderful and tasty lunch.

FYI, as this is an agriturismo they also have rooms available…. Just a suggestion

List of nice hotels and restaurants in Piemonte

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Let me list some nice address in Piemonte. Because otherwise you’ll have to always read through my posts…

ALBA Region:

Hotels, Agriturismo:

–          Il Boscareto 5* L (if you really want to spoil yourself)

           Strada Roddino, 21 – 12050 Serralunga d’Alba (CN)

–          Ai Tardi

Via S. Sebastiano, 81  – 12055 – Diano d’Alba (CN)

–          Casa Ressia (Agriturismo)

          Località Altavilla, 42 – 12051 Alba (CN)

–          TorreBarolo

           Via Gioberti ,4 – 12060 Barolo (CN)

 

Restaurants, Osteria, etc…

–          Osteria Da Gemma (A MUST!!!!)

          Via Marconi 6 –  12050 Roddino (CN)

–          Ai Tardi

Via S. Sebastiano, 81  – 12055 – Diano d’Alba (CN)

–          Ristorante RossoBarolo

Via Roma, 16 – 12060 Barolo (CN)

–          Trattoria della Posta

Località Sant’Anna –  12065 Monforte d’Alba (CN)

–          La rosa dei vini

        Località Parafada, 4 – 12050  Serralunga d’Alba (CN)

–          Ristorante Bovio

         Via Alba, 17bis – 12064 La Morra (CN)

 

TORINO

Lunch spots

–          Eataly

        Via Nizza, 230 – 10126 Torino

–          Mood libri & caffè

         Via Cesare Battisti, 3 – 10123 Torino

–          Pastificio Defilippis

         Via Lagrange, 39 – 10123 Torino

–          Brek self service

          Piazza Carlo Felice, 22 –  Torino

           Piazza Solferino, Via Santa Teresa, 23 – Torino

I can also suggest to look in the Guide from L’espresso (Italian newspaper) not only for Piemonte, but for whole Italy.

For all you funky soul brothers!!

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Last week I had dinner with a buddy of mine at the Funky Soul potato. One of  our favorite places in Antwerp actually 🙂! Not fancy, cheap, good and consistent 🙂 just what you need to relax and to be funky. Sitting here feels like being back in LA at the “Baked Potato “, but then without the live music (maybe an idea for the Funky Soul?), especially on a sunny evening like last Wednesday.  Each and every time I enjoy the jacket potatoes they serve.  I ALWAYS take the “Mustang Sally”, it comes with bacon, fried onions and cheddar cheese.

 

My buddy took the “Ting Dong Thai” JThey have the funniest names for their dishes, I think it is great.. This potato was served with chicken and a kind of Thai curry.  Drinks wise, there is nothing better than a jacket potato and a great beer.

 

Mmmmm, writing about it makes me wanna go back!

 

Funky Soul Potato

 

Website: http://www.funkysoulpotato.be/

 

Address:

 

                Volkstraat 76

 

                2000 Antwerp, Belgium

 

Phone n°: +32 (0)3 257 07 44

 

 

If you want to sin, do it well ! Ghent’s best snackbar!

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Snackbar Martino has been in the two years that I lived in Ghent, one of my preferred spots (together with “Fin du monde”). This snack bar has a great reputation and is considered as one of the best snack bars of Ghent. So it is definitely a MUST DO! It is also said that the “Broodje Martino’ (sandwich with ao. Steak tartare in it) has been invented here… Sadly enough the sandwich is not available or made anymore in the snackbar. Now the restaurant serves Cheese-Eggburgers with homemade French fries (with tomato sauce, cheddar cheese and a fried egg on top) that I really love. I usually even eat a double burger (I would even eat 2 plats). Lots of people say that their spaghetti Bolognese is also very good, but I just can’t eat this dish in a non-Italian restaurant. Flushing it down with a few nice pints of Belgian beer…. It is just wonderful

The fact that this place is FULL the whole time from 6pm until they close confirms how good they are… So finding a free spot is tricky, but really worth it!

Snackbar Martino

Website: http://www.cityzine.be/nl/gidsen/gent/restaurants/martino

Address:

                Vlaanderenstraat 125

                9000 Gent, Belgium

Phone n°: +32 (0) 9 225 01 04

My other reason to play the lotery

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Here is the list of restaurants I hope to finish one day 🙂

 I could keep going on with the list and I’m sure I forgot some on this list, but this is a nice list to start with 🙂 + My list gets extended every day, as people always give me new restaurants to add to the list. Also the ones I’ve already plannend going to are not on the list anymore

What are the restaurants you would want to visit? Maybe I can add those ones to my list…

Some damn good meat…or maybe even a gift from heaven :-)

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HI Guys,

Yesterday I had some of the best steaks ever, really!! Once again, I was staying in Germany  for my job and fortunately for me, I’ve got some great colleagues (believe it or not, one is one of the Happy Birthday singers from my Josephine’s blog post) who also enjoy  good food. In Italian they people would be called ‘gente di  buona forchetta ‘. Usually we always go to the same restaurants close to our hotel and work, but sometimes we are tempted to go to Cologne (that is only 15min drive).

Last night was one of those nights, we went to restaurant “El Chango”, an Argentinian Steakhouse.

I already went to this restaurant a few months ago when we were celebrating the “bachelor party” of a friend of mine but I had to go back to double check because my memories were not very clear after all those beers.

The restaurant is located close to the Heumarkt. This might scare some people away as it is a touristy place. It is alsotrue that the place looks quit kitschy, so it is not very appealing.  But once you taste the meat, all those thoughts come to dissapear. The meat gets grilled on an authentic Argentinian grill and is seasoned in the way it should be. I remember the first time I was pretty surprised to eat only meat with a tin foiled potato (without sauce, etc…), but as the meat has so much flavor that you don’t need anything extra. This time I only went for a normal 300gr filet steak (Bife De Lomo), because last time I took the double filet steak from 400gr

The only thing that disturbed me a little bit, is that the staff didn’t really seem motivated… But then again, these are things that happen to all of us, I didn’t lose my appetite because of it .

 Did you guys already have great meat like this? Let me know!!

Restaurant El Chango

Website: http://www.elchango.com/

Address:

Bolzengasse 9
50667 Köln, Germany

Phone n°: +49 (0)221 2581212

Restaurant Bar(t) a vin is a well hidden treasure!!

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Last Friday I went to a restaurant that has been on my list for quite a while. Why  haven’t I gone there before? Maybe because the restaurant is located in a district I don’t often go to or pass through that much? I’m talking about restaurant  Bar(‘t) a vin, located in the heart of the abattoir district also called “Den Dam”. When I was younger I used to come here pretty often with my dad to buy meat for his restaurant. People who know this district will agree that it is not the most attractive neighborhood, although I must say that the last few years the government (city) has done  its best to make this a sparkling part of Antwerp again. When arriving here I was actually surprised about the amount of restaurants!! But for me the true pearl of this district is without any doubt restaurant “Bar(t) a vin”. When entering  this restaurant, you immediately get stunned  by the ‘honest’ interior with . original tiles on the wall from the time this place was a pig abattoir.

The fact that the kitchen is incorporated in the restaurant and being able to see chef Tom Van der Borght doing  his thing, shows that this restaurant has nothing to hide.  Bart Adriaenssens, the owner of the restaurant, is the maître and helps you to make your evening a true experience.

Food time J  We first started off by having a glass of Portuguese sparkling wine (that I don’t remember having seen before). The restaurant has no real menu card and wine list. For the food they have a little blackboard with at the left the classic dishes that the restaurant always serves and at the right the daily suggestions. As a starter we took a mix of fine meats, cooked and grilled vegetables together with smoked mozzarella.  The assortment of meat was not only your typical piece of ham, they also added freshly made ‘kop’, different kinds of salamis, etc…

As  I can’t stand on one leg, I obviously also needed something to drink with that and as they don’t have a wine list, Bart tries to find together with you, the perfect matching  wine (although I think he already knew what kinds of wine I liked, just by looking at me). I had an Italian red wine from Tuscany and my girlfriend had a French Shiraz kind of wine. Both wines were chosen well   (fyi, the restaurant has around 200 different kinds of wine). As a main course, my girlfriend took the Steak Tartare (raw meat) that to her opinion was one of the best she has ever had (and she already had it lots of times) and I went for rays fish (rog). I know it is strange to take fish in a restaurant in the meat district, but is was Friday, so fishday…. But nevertheless, I really enjoyed it. The main course was accompanied by a nice glass of Rioja.

We finished off with a freshly made “moelleux au chocolat” and a “crème brulee” . I’m really glad that I visited this restaurant and I’m sure I will be going back (my dad and brother would just love this restaurant). And may I add that this team of 2 is really wonderful and of an unseen friendliness!! Keep up the good work guys

 Basically, restaurant Bar(t) a vin is a well hidden treasure!!

Restaurant Bar(t) a vin

Website:  http://www.bartavin.info/

Address:

                Lange Slagerijstraat 3-5

                2060 Antwerp, Belgium

Phone n°: +32 (0)474 94 17 86