• 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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