Natural, fresh and ready

I've been eating out quite a lot since I arrived in Brussels, but I don't really have the time or inclination to post about all the restaurants and cafés I've tried out so far. The one I do want to mention, though, is one that I've actually only got take-away from so far, but which has already become one of my favourite Brussels places.

Exki is a Belgian chain of cafés/snack bars that sells good quality, healthy 'fast food' - not burgers and chips, but salads, soups, sandwiches... and delicious cakes and cheescakes, all sold by the slice to eat in or take away. One of their specialities is speculoos cheescake - a bargain at €3.45 for a big slice.

Its by-line is 'natural, fresh and ready' (in English, of course, because English is cool. Or something.), and it's only been around since 2001, but already has 16 branches in Brussels alone. I saw a report on TV that their turnover is down due to the economic situation, but it's always been fairly busy when I've gone or looked in so far, so I'm sure they're not in trouble.

They also do breakfast - fresh pastries, yoghurt, fruit salad, freshly squeezed orange juice... As there are two on my route to work, I can see myself succumbing to temptation rather more often than is good for the bank balance.

City living

Went out for drinks with a friend in the City the other night. He's worked in the area for a while now, and knows his way around, which was great, because we ended up in a couple of out of the way places that I would never have found by myself.

We started off in The Samuel Pepys, which was, inevitably, quite busy with people in suits, but we had no trouble finding seats, and it was quiet enough to talk comfortably. It's in a great location, but unfortunately the restaurant section, with views of the river, was all booked up.

Instead, we went to eat at a nearby Turkish restaurant. It's ever so cosy inside, with fancy wooden carvings on the ceiling, and the kitchen is open, so we could see them cooking - which seemed to involve an awful lot of flames, I suspect more for effect than culinary necessity. The food was very tasty: their main speciality is pide, a sort of Turkish pizza, but the dough seems to be a bit lighter. I had the kayisili, which was filled with apricots, peppers, cheese and mint - a pretty unusual combination, but it worked really well.

Brighton up your day

Brighton really is a marvellous place for a day trip, isn't it? Especially when the sun is shining, as it was on Sunday. I was there to visit a friend, and we made the most of the glorious weather by going for a boat trip down the coast, from the marina to the remains of the West Pier and back again.

Once the sun had gone down, we had dinner in a vegetarian resaturant in The Lanes called Food For Friends, and I would highly recommend it! The food was really interesting and original, and very, very tasty, despite being terrifyingly healthy. I had tofu pockets to start, which were, according to the menu:

Sweet tofu cases, one filled with asian mushrooms, spring onions and avocado, miso roasted butternut squash, and an oriental mirin and tamari dressing served with a trio of pickled vegetables

followed by sweet potato and coconut curry:

Roasted sweet potato, butternut squash, cashew and coconut curry with herbed spinach brown basmati pilaf, cucumber riata and spicy vegetable crisps

You can almost see the vitamins!

(title shamelessly stolen from the friend I was visiting)

In praise of the tea room

I spent this afternoon in a particularly fine example of a dying breed: the traditional tea room. I had proper tea (Lapsang Souchong), served in a proper teapot, and a proper freshly baked scone with jam and cream. The company wasn't bad either :-)

I love places like that. When I was a student in a certain northern cathedral city, I spent a good proportion of my time in Vennels, which doesn't appear to have a website but sells excellent tea, even better hot chocolate and the biggest slices of homemade cake you have ever seen. And then there was the place, the name of which I've forgotten, that did Maltesers cake. Mmmm...

So, given that the English are supposedly still a nation of tea drinkers, how come all you can find in most towns these days are the various chains of coffee shops? Coffee shops can't make tea (some of them can't make coffee either, but that's by the by). They insist on using hot water from the coffee machine, when, as everyone knows, tea has to be made with boiling water - and this isn't just pickiness; it doesn't brew properly if the water isn't hot enough. And then they usually serve it to you with both the milk and the tea bag in the mug, which is just wronger than a wrong thing that's mistaken.

Mind you, it'll be even worse when I move to Brussels. There, you get served with a glass of not particularly hot water, with a bag of Lipton Yellow Label (a substance almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea) on the side. Hmm, it looks like I have two choices: coffee, or beer. I know which one I'll be going for...

ETA: On the plus side, I've recently discovered that there are no Starbucks in Belgium (well, technically there's one, but it's in Brussels airport so can safely be ignored).