Breakfast at the Hampton was the usual thing, but today there
were ready-made thick Belgian waffles with sugar, or you could
use the Hampton waffle irons and make American-style ones.

I'd heard of Zurenborg and Berchem, well-to-do suburbs where
excess money in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was
transformed into art deco and other fancifully-architected
residences. Nothing in particular, you just wander the streets
and stare at the rooftops and see some amazing stuff if in fact
you can see that far. I relied on Bonnie's descriptions.

Dageraadplaats is the northernmost part of this neighborhood,
so we had lunch there after our meander. The square is pretty
unprepossessing, just like any other neighborhood park with a
children's play area in the middle, but it's ringed by cafes
and bars, so we walked around it once looking at menus. We chose
May's, which was founded by a trio of Thai and Flemish people
and so serves Thai and Flemish food.

Bonnie could be Belgian by appearance, and this is not much of
a tourist quarter, so the bartender/waiter addressed her in
Dutch, which was met by a blank look not unlike what she puts
on when I speak English to her (she will have new hearing aids
by the time I see her next). After a while, she noticed and
said, English, whereupon he said why didn't you say so before
and started playing menu and tour guide in voluble English.

She got pad thai, because she likes pasta, which was properly
cooked rice noodles topped with an assortment of Asian and
non-Asian vegetables and tofu of some antiquity, in a plausible
but spicier than normal sauce that had a bunch of sriracha
added to it.

I got vol-au-vent, a puff pastry cup filled with a blander than
normal (though not bad) cream sauce with the meat of a very large
chicken thigh and some nutmeg-scented beef meatballs (I'd never
seen this) and lots of mushrooms. It wasn't bad at all and came
with a side salad, dressed with a mayo-heavy dressing, that the waiter/bartender said I'd love. Not quite.

I had a Singha beer, followed by a local Cristal lager that was
just as good and cheaper. Bonnie had two glasses of Sauvignon
Blanc that could just as well have been Kim Crawford.

With the bill the fellow presented us with a pair of Antwerp hands,
vanilla shortbread with almonds in the shape of little hands, with a
gory story to go with - tinyurl.com/antwerphands .
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5
* Origin: Fido Since 1991 | QWK by Web | BBS.FIDOSYSOP.ORG (1:123/140)