Restaurant review: Cantina Cubana, Brussels

Telling foreign acquaintances that you come from London invariably prompts a spontaneous tirade against the expensiveness of London’s restaurants. This is somewhat ironic, given that Brussels is ludicrously pricey when it comes to eating out (balanced, I suppose, by the fact that even someone of moderate means could happily afford to rent a small chateau in the Belgian capital).

Ignoring the price, the food also tends to be fairly hit and miss – although I think this is the understatement of all understatements when it comes to the place we visited on Saturday, the Cantina Cubana.


We stumbled on the place due to my foolish suggestion that we take the scenic route to our intended goal, the pretty good Kika Kitchen. The Cantina had some tasty looking dishes on offer, and so we decided to take the plunge.

Once seated at our table, the evening followed an arcane ritual, which I think that Magritte and his pals would have described as “radical deconstruction of the dining process”:

Drink menu comes – twenty minutes pass – drink order taken – twenty minutes pass – drinks arrive, incorrect drink sent back – five minutes pass – new drink arrives – twenty minutes pass – food menu arrives – twenty minutes pass – food order taken…

Suffice it to say, we were salivating like a pack of feral mongrels on heat when the food finally came, only to find that the long-awaited meal was really rather unpleasant. The so-called African potatoes – a slurry-like concoction of spud and some sort of oil – were particularly rank. My chicken had been baked for so long that it had become fully desiccated, such that one small morsel was capable of sapping all the saliva from your mouth. The best bit, I have to say, was the garnish – a slice of orange.

Being British, we of course ate without complaint, paid and left. That showed them.

Flights of the Surreal

Brussels, it has to be said, does a fantastic line in one-off weekend festivals and street parties. This weekend, which saw a visit from our friend la maîtresse, was the occasion for two such events: the Brussels Jazz Marathon, and a party to celebrate the opening of the Musee Magritte Museum.

Firstly, a bit of music at Sablon:

We listened to the Jazz for as long as can be expected of any normal person – for around three minutes – before heading off to the Magritte party, which included an impressive number of surreal street performance acts as well as free novelty bowler hats for all involved. Here’s a taster:
Ceci n’est pas une photo de la maîtresse et Yann:

The museum itself was worth the wait – pretty good collection, and well arranged. And, most importantly, with free entry for the day!

We Whent To Ghent

There comes a point in the life of every expat when the supply of local tourist activities is exhausted. Thus, last weekend we were forced to broaden our horizons with a trip to Ghent, accompanied by our visitors from Londres. The walk from the station excepted, the town is rather pretty, without the hordes of tourists that are the scourge of Bruges’ streets.

That said, Ghent didn’t offer that much new, given that Belgian city breaks can be reduced to the following formula:

FlemishCity = GroteMarkt + Churches + River

At least we can say that we’ve now been to Belgium’s four largest cities. In fact, we’ve been to Antwerp twice now, having popped back yesterday for a shopping trip (we'd foolishly visited on a Sunday the last time we went, only to find everything closed). We found that Antwerp’s clothes shops resemble nightclubs more than they do your average Gap – pounding bass and strobe lighting to match. The only downside is that the shop assistants will come and chat to you in Dutch. The solution we found, was to ignore them and rummage busily in the nearest pile of clothes

Pride

Last Saturday was Brussels Gay Pride, with a parade organised to pass through the streets of central Brussels, and several street entertainment events, stalls, and music to celebrate all things homo. Coupled with the arrival of a couple of our gay friends from London, and the advent of the Eurovision Song Contest, this was promising to be a very homosexual weekend indeed.

We watched the parade from several points in Brussels, and although it was reasonably small by London standards, there were gaggles and gaggles* of queers on the streets cheering it on, screaming, dancing and shouting. Amongst these was this chap, of whom we managed to take this cheeky photo while he wasn't looking. It appears we weren't the only ones to be taken aback!
Blogwatchers should consider themselves lucky that we weren't quick enough to get a photo of the man wearing a custom-made leather ensemble, proudly displaying his man-boobs to the people of Brussels. Some people have no shame! Slightly more demurely dressed were the usual selection of drag queens, dishing out lollipops and firing pink confetti out of huge cannons:

For the first time, the parade passed through the streets of Sablon, our neighbourhood, and participants led the charge with a giant rainbow flag, the symbol of gay equality (or just gayness, I'm not quite sure).

For such a small city, Brussels certainly has a thriving gay population. Personally, I blame the European Commission.

*This prompted a discussion as to what the collective noun for a group of gays would be. We opted for either a pride, or a hysteria, depending on their mood.

Gig review: Lily Allen

On the Friday night of my parents' visit, we all went down to the Ancienne Belgique to see Ms Lily Allen, live in concert, for one night only in Brussels.

The Ancienne Belgique is a fairly small venue, and based on their mailing list, Lily Allen is the only act to have played there that I have actually heard of. Anyway, I'm a pretty big fan of Lily's music, somewhat surprisingly my mother is too, so we thought it would be a great way to start their visit.

On arrival, me and Tintin made a beeline for the comfy cinema seats at the back, on the pretext that my parents probably wouldn't want to stand for the whole concert. Despite this, we had a great view of the stage and, in contrast to that horrible M*****a concert we went to last year, could actually see Lily.

The gig was great. Lily was actually a very good singer live, and had a great stage presence - she looked really comfortable and entertained the crowd. Highlights were F*** You, The Fear, Smile and the closing number, a cover of Britney Spears' Womanizer, which had everyone on their feet. She also had fabulous shoes!

Thanks to Papa Dean for the picture.

I almost forgot...

...to post this fabulous picture, of a statue wrapped in a giant scarf, from Iris Day. And why not!

And, while we're at it, here's a nice picture of me and my Mum:

La Fête de l'Iris

A visit from my parents last weekend, and Tintin insisted that this time I would have to plan the itinerary. Applying my trusty university essay-writing tactic of waiting until the night before their arrival and panicking, it appeared that this visit wasn't going to run as smoothly as the last. I needn't have worried, however, for the Gods of Brussels had come to my rescue, by organising the Fête de l'Iris to coincide with Maman et Papa's weekend in Brussels. The Fête spans two days and comprises various events, street parties, open days, music, dancing and other frivolity, and is a popular yearly occurrence celebrating all things Bruxellois.

We kicked off the festivities on Saturday by participating in an organised bike ride, from le parc de Woluwé through la Forêt de Soignes and back again. Bike hire was free, thus ensuring we spent a very enjoyable day out entirely at the expense of the Belgian taxpayer. We rounded off the evening at Finnish concept restaurant Soul, and a rather lovely firework display in the centre of Brussels.

Sunday saw the festivites begin in earnest. Highlights included a picnic at a 1.2km table erected from Gare du Midi to the Grand Place.

We continued our enjoyable day with a tour of the Musical Instuments Museum (magic headphones allow the visitor to hear the sound of the instruments simply by standing close to them) and passed this lovely lady on the way past:

Overall, the weekend was very enjoyable. It's difficult to imagine Boris (or, indeed, anything else) organising something quite the same in London.

Antwerp

Another weekend, another bank holiday, and again unencumbered by guests (we love you all really) we decided to take a trip to Antwerp, Belgium's fashion capital, for a spot of shopping.

Sadly, this being Belgium and it being a bank holiday, none of the shops were actually open to take advantage of the tourist trade. Despite this, we instantly got the impression that Antwerp on a good day is vibrant, bustling, and, indeed, "happening" (a cynic might say "unlike Brussels"), with plenty of bars and restaurants, fashion shops and cafes.

We took in the main sights of the Grote Markt, which was suitably impressive, and the canal, and were excited to watch the labour day parade marching through the streets - lots of oom-pah bands and slogans demanding more taxation for the rich.

True to form, we decided to round off the day with a trip to the zoo. A particular highlight was the lesser mouse deer, the (surprisingly busy) armadillo, and the strange creature pictured below, having a scratch. First blogwatcher to guess its identity correctly will win a small prize (kudos). Answers on a postcard please!

Bruges

The advent of a rare bank holiday weekend with no guests offered us an opportunity to see the sights of Belgium that we haven't managed to catch so far. And so, we decided, what better way to take advantage of this opportunity than to spend a day

Despite not having seen the film, we are now reasonably well-versed in the intricacies of its plotlines due to the ongoing commentary from various other British/American/Australian tourists that we encountered during the day.

Indeed, Bruges can lay claim to being one of the most "touristy" places we have ever visited. That aside, it's a very pretty medieval town, and a quick detour off the beaten track reveals some beautifuly untouched rouelles, and the meandering paths of the canals. This small selection of photos should give you an idea.

Highlight of the day was a trip up the narrow, winding and very very long staircases of the Belfort, the top of which offered some lovely views of the city.

Please form an orderly queue

The Brits, as everyone knows, are the unrivalled masters of queuing. This skill is, however, of no real use in other European countries, where queuing is still largely taboo: here jostling and bustling are seen as the only fair way to deal with situations where several people have set themselves the same goal.

Determined not to be victims of our politeness, we joined the scrum that was the queue for the Royal Greenhouses at Laeken last Sunday, and made some outstanding tactical manoeuvres to shave off crucial queuing minutes.

The Greenhouses – another flight of fancy for Leopold II – are impressive both from the point of view of their architecture and their flora. They’re only open for three weeks a year though, so we were pleased that a visit from maman et papa happened to coincide with the rather exclusive opening period.


We also paid a visit to the Van Buuren Museum – a private house bought in 1928 by banker David van Buuren which would become his personal shrine to Art Deco. His wife was so fond of their house that she stipulated that it become a museum after her death.

Would the English people please stop dancing

While I have no time for money spiders or being pooed on by passing birds, I now ascribe to my own good-luck superstition that Friends From England Bring Good Weather: this weekend the sun came out again as we were joined by ma collègue for an action-packed weekend in Brussels. We began the weekend at Club Havana, a heaving local dancerie, where, after warming up with some bizarre cocktails, we proceeded to dance like madmen to obscure 90s pop songs, not letting ourselves be put off by the fact that the Belgian clubbers didn’t seem to share in our delight. The club also happens to be perfectly placed for stumbling home, which was very welcome at 2am.

We managed to resist the lure of a Saturday lie-in, and steeled ourselves for a mini-tour of all the obligatory sights (Grand Place, Mannekin Pis and female counterpart, Parc, Sablon etc.). We also took a closer look at the Palais de Justice, which has an impressive entranceway behind the current cocoon of scaffolding.
In the afternoon we headed to Heyzel (home of the Atomium) to explore the Parc de Laeken, the greenery surrounding the Belgian Royal Family’s private residence. It is a cruel trick of perspective indeed, when, thinking you have reached the widest point of the perimeter wall that you’re walking round, you find that the boundary that separates you from your goal bows out with renewed vigour. Hence it took a good couple of hours of walking in baking sunshine to find the Chinese Pavilion and Japanese Tour – follies built to amuse the Royals when it was still ok for them to go in for such extravagances.

After a bit of lazing around in the sun, we came back via Stuyvenbergh metro station, which gave us the opportunity to take a closer look at the wonderfully creepy statues of the afore-mentioned Royals. Our own Elizabeth II should count herself lucky that the worst she had to suffer was Rolf Harris’s Very Dodgy Portrait. Here’s the full line up for tonight’s match:

No less strange is the new statue that appeared in Parc d’Egmont over night:

I won't even attempt to offer an explanation.

So, after our busy day out, we opted for a more sedate Saturday night with dinner in and Drinks in Silly Glasses at Delirium Café:

Drinking from a conical flask is enough to make anyone feel faintly silly but rather special. It also helps that the contents (Kwak) is pushing 10%.

So that's the round up from our weekend! Here's hoping that maman et papa bring some more sunshine next weekend...

Le Bois de la Cambre

Given the beautiful weather this weekend, we decided to pay a visit to Brussels' premier open space, the Bois de la Cambre - part of the much larger Forêt de Soignes, conveniently carved off to provide a great place for family picnics, days out, walking of dogs, etc. The visit strengthened our resolve to one day hire some bikes and fully explore the wider forest, which promises to be a veritable sanctuary from the stresses and strains of la vie quotidienne. The Bois is also less than 10 minutes away from our flat by tram!

La bière bruxelloise

Yesterday saw a visit from one of our best English friends, and a visit to Brussels premier (in fact only) brewery of traditional lambic beer - fermented using yeasts naturally occurring in the very air. It was an interesting tour, not least for the free samples of gueze (a popular Brussels beer made from three different lambics) and kriek, a cherry beer very popular with Tintin. However, the traditional nature of the brewing process gives these particular beers a slightly sour flavour, which proved unpopular with some members of our party. I personally found that after the first two or so gulps, the gueze in particular became very agreeable indeed!

Joyeuses Pâques!

From our friends les lapins rouges, who can inexplicably be found dotted around Brussels in unlikely urban settings such as the above, on Avenue Louise.

La sécurité routière

I think the picture above, of a fairly typical Belgian voiture (typical in the sense that it is smashed-up) illustrates perfectly the subject of today's blog entry: that's right, kids, today we're going to be talking about Road Safety.

Hands up who remembers the Green Cross Code? Yes, that's right - stop, look, and listen. Except this does not technically apply on the roads in Brussels. Should you wish to cross the street here, you must first find a suitable crossing point, always indicated by zebra stripes across the road. To cross at any other point could attract a hefty 50 Euro fine. The second rule is that whilst you must certainly look before crossing, it is helpful to not look as if you are looking, as if you look as if you are looking the driver of the oncoming car will notice that you are looking and will thus not bother to stop. So you need to strike a balance between brazenly striding out into the traffic, and standing meekly by the side of the road as the cars race by.

It is not only the pedestrians who are in danger on Belgian roads. Tintin and I have witnessed on several occasions the peculiarly Bruxellois method of parallel parking, which involves reversing until you can hear your car crunch against the car behind, then driving forward until you hear your car crunching against the car in front. It is only when this process has been repeated several times that you can assume you have safely wedged yourself in.

Bus drivers are also reasonably liberal with the laws of the road, and will think nothing of driving on the pavement, squeezing through inappropriate "gaps" in the traffic, and stopping in the middle of a roundabout to let passengers disembark. The upside of this is that it makes my commute to work slightly quicker, and adds an exciting element of danger to my otherwise humdrum daily routine.