Our room was tiny but welcome. No air conditioning, but the
window opened fully, which was okay except that there was
some crash construction project going on right across the
street, with workers making their working noises steadily
from 12 to 6. Nothing during the day, as it turns out.

Breakfast was E8, which I balked at, but Bonnie bought
or rather required me to buy, as it was on my bill. It
was a croissants and coffee arrangement, not worth it.

The first day we just wandered around this quite
spectacular city, one of the tourist capitals of Europe,
seeing all the sights as expeditiously as possible.

I'd wanted to go to Kok au Vin, but despite Mr. Google
saying it was open, it turned out the management was in the
middle of a two-week vacation. So we went off to Curiosa,
one of my other choices, which had the unfortunate
characteristic of being down a long flight of steep narrow
stairs, badly lit, but eventually we found the restaurant,
where a pleasant woman of I think Burmese origin greeted
us in good French and then almost good English.

Bonnie had moules frites, which were excellent. I got the
menu of the day, appetizer, main, and dessert for not too
much money. I started with croquette de crevettes, mostly
white sauce but with some bits of shrimp, nicely fried; this
came with a small salad; then the Flemish stew carbonnades a
la flamande, quite nice, good beef and good beer and good
onion flavors, which came with another large salad.

We split a half liter of standard-issue red Bordeaux-like.

A scoop of vanilla with caramel sauce and praline crunch
was enough to share.

One unfortunate thing. A pair of pretty obviously North
African men came in, and even though they were clearly
Francophones (and spoke French between them) the hostess
racistly persisted in speaking to them only in English.

More walking around - there are few real destinations here,
but lots of atmosphere, the area where we were staying full
of buildings from the Renaissance on, an interesting mix of
architectures and styles.

De Bottelier comes highly recommended, but it was fully
booked, so I put in a request for an opening-time ressie
for the next day. Vino Vino, which we'd noticed, was a
nearby choice, and the doors were wide, but a waitress said
it wouldn't be open for an hour, and the carte offered
only a few interesting things and at exorbitant prices.
We said we would be back at opening time; we weren't.

Pieter Pourbus was one of the most famous Baroque-era
artists in the city, and his house has been turned into a
restaurant with his name. Everything pointed to its being
open, but I'd tried to reserve online without success
(a red flag), so we went there to find it apparently open
but with a small sign on a side window saying that it was
in fact closed for vacation.

I'm not saying that we were mad with hunger and despair,
but suffice it to say that on our walking tour we'd noticed
two places near each other on a little place called the
Wednesday Market, King of Mussels and Bistro de Schilder.
I was inclined to the former, but for some reason we chose
the latter, deciding to eat inside (it was hot and smoky
out), which led one of the outside diners to growl a
warning to beware of the music. Which turned out to be just
a little too loud but a mix of South American and North
African (as were the staff).

Bonnie's pork schnitzel (pretty good, a little fatty, which
was no problem with us) came with fries (good). With this
she had a glass of Kir and then another one.

I got the stoofpot of pork, which was very tasty but
inauthentically seasoned with cumin, making it more like a
curry or chili than a Belgian stew. It was nonetheless
quite decent and came, thankfully, with croquette potatoes
that probably had come from Sysco but were more welcome
than friets - in fact pretty good for potatoes. I had the
local brew, a Brugse Zot brune, made here in town, Belgian
but not too Belgian, and went well.
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