901 best meal of Bruges
From
MICHAEL LOO@1:123/140 to
ALL on Tuesday, September 03, 2019 16:47:44
So we'd been unable to eat at De Bottelier because
it had been fully booked, but we'd put in a request
for Friday night, which was granted.
The proprietor, who had been pretty severe before,
greeted us like old friends and led us to what he
characterized as the royal table - for us, views out
over the canal, and for others, views of us.
The restaurant is a little eccentric - you're
essentially in this couple's tchotchkes room lined
with antique clocks and assorted junk, with this
front table both sort of isolated but also very
exposed, with two big windows, plus everyone has to
traipse by to get to the rest of the restaurant.
A house cocktail of cassis, vodka, and orange pleased
Bonnie, but I found it a little too sweet and a little
silly: it presented as a muddy brown but tasted okay.
I ordered a Pineau that came somewhere between the fresh
Pineau that I'd had at Rozet and the vieux Pineau that
I'm accustomed to.
My starter, a croquette, supposedly made of the tiny gray
shrimp that are so prized in these parts, tasted like
lobster; very good, rather luxurious, but not worth the
considerable price - I don't know why the handmade ones
cost 8 or 10 bucks each for maybe 5 oz of food, whereas
the industrial ones cost a buck or two and are maybe 90%
as good.
Then I had a fresh-tasting and delicate pan-fried skate
with spinach and tomatoes and rice with onion chips - a
fine dish that went well with one of the house wines, a
white Bordeaux. The rice was done just to a turn, and
the slightly greasy onion chips added welcome oomph and
a touch of fat - a really good and surprising balance.
An Argentine Malbec accompanied Bonnie's duck breast in
Port sauce, another deliciosity, though the bird was done
medium rather than the requested medium-rare, but the
skin was still not very crisp.
Her dessert, puff pastry with apples and vanilla ice cream,
was a distinguished cousin of American apple pie. I got
an expertly prepared creme brulee along with a glass of
Darroze 12 Armagnac, smooth, round, and oaky with notes
of prunes and cedar.
It was only about a 5 minute walk in the fading light
back to the hotel.
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