I’m not too much into all the Valentine fuzz, but the restaurant where I wanted to make reservations just happened to have an open spot at the same date 🙂 So if it makes you happy that I call it a Valentine’s day dinner, I will…

It was already for a while that my wife and I wanted to eat at Vietnamese street-food restaurant ‘BÚN‘ in the city center of Antwerp. Every time passed by it, it just looked so cozy  and the plates very tasteful. Also every time we said we have to come here some day…  I had also read the host of BÚN  Huibrecht was the former maître of restaurant Pure C and the hostess Hao Truong that worked a long time in her sister Truong Thi Quyên aka Gwen ‘s famous restaurant ( know from a cooking show on the Belgian Food channel Njam about Vietnamese food)  Little Asia in Brussels. So a winning combo I’d think and a reason for us to go?!

Our ‘we have to go here some day’ took a bit longer than expectedfirst of  all because  of the fact the restaurant can only sit around 16 people. So finding a free space is harder and if you want to make reservations it has to be after 20h 🙂 Which in our case means finding a babysit of have a sleepover at the grandparents for our little baby girl… which you only want to do when your  baby is not sick and the fact it’s winter time doesn’t make it easier 🙂 BUT luck was at our side like I said before on valentine’s day 🙂 You can also go before 20h, but in that case it’s just the walk in principle as no reservations are taken before 20h

When I think of Vietnamese cuisine, I think of Chinese food but a bit more spicy and spring rolls aka Nems (as I used to eat lots of these in a little Asian place behind highschool 🙂 ) I know sad of me!! Keen on learning/ eating something new we entered the restaurant to.  What was funny to me was that Huibrecht (who used to work as maître) was cooking and Hao (who I think used to cook) serves the customers… I would have expected it the other way around. Nevertheless I had a very nice night with a lot of coziness. I know not everybody likes to sit at the bar to eat, but in our case it just felt right! Coziness, but obviously also loooooooots of love in the air. Us sitting at the bar brought back lots of great memories of the time we used to life in Gent and had lots of nice dinners at a little restaurant (Fin du monde)  at the bar… aaah good old days 😉

On the menu all dishes I didn’t know, so we just took almost everything on it 🙂 Except the soups, as I’m not a too big asian soup fan… but I did have Tofu (my wife ordered it while I was in the bathroom 🙂 it was nice, but Tofu will never become a friend of mine..

For drinks we took wine, but they do also have a nice assortment of fresh fruit juices like a ginger with pumpkin and mint juice 🙂 for the lovers 🙂

As a dessert we took the suggestion of the evening a coconut/rice beignet  with passion fruit (I could feel the electricity in the air)

If this is street-food than I can say that I’m a big fan of street-food! I do enjoy that they serve their dishes tapas style to share and at non exuberant prices which allows you to take more  and discover more of this kind of cuisine

See you again very soon!