Brusselicious Bon Appétit! exhibition - Cinquantenaire Museum, Brussels

This 15 August public holiday was the chance to visit one of the museum exhibitions organized as part of Brusselicious. The "Bon appétit! - Gastronomic discoveries through the centuries" exhibition in the Cinquantenaire Museum runs until 16 September.

With the €8 entrance ticket, visitors receive a  booklet which explains some of the key items of the exhibit.

Here's the entrance to the exhibition, which gives an overview of how, over the centuries, different civilizations and their discoveries have changed the way in which food and meals are conceived.

There are 340 artifacts arranged around 7 themes: Cereals; Dairy; Salt and spices; Sugar; Fruits and vegetables of the New World; Tea, coffee and chocolate; and Alcoholic drinks.

There was a "Bij Joseph" ice cream wagon, from around 1895, decorated with mirrors, paintings and sculptures. At the back there's a Mazzoletti mechanical piano and there's even an acetylene lighting system. Wouldn't it be cool to see one of these in Brussels today ?

Or what about the 1950s milkman traveling the streets of Brussels with his pony-drawn carriage ?

The exhibit ended with a thoughtful question: "We who live in the era of plastic, frozen foods, fast-food, caloric restriction diets, globalization and large-scale food retailing, what image of ourselves will we be able to leave for posterity? "

After visiting "Bon Appétit!" we enjoyed a stroll in the park. In the parking in front of Autoworld Brussels,  there was a gathering of vintage automobiles.

This Cadillac provided a preview of our next travel destination (Hint: a big island in the Caribbean).

Musée du Cinquantenaire (The Cinquantenaire Museum)
Parc de Cinquantenaire
http://www.kmkg-mrah.be/expositions/enjoy-your-meal

Note: the item descriptions are only in French and Dutch.

Brusselicious Tram Experience

The Brusselicious Tram Experience is a three-course meal by a Michelin-starred chef on board a tram. The experience lasts for two hours while the tram travels around Brussels. The menu/chef changes every two weeks.

We tried the Tram Experience dinner on Saturday 14 July and the menu was designed by Bart de Pooter. The chef of De Pastorale Restaurant was named "Belgian Chef of 2012" by the Gault Millau guide, so our expectations were quite high.

As instructed on the tickets, we arrived at the tram stop before 21:15 for a scheduled departure at 21:30. We waited with all other guests until 21:35 when a waiter came to check if our names were on his list and advised us to take our "precautions" since the on-board toilet had some problems. We finally boarded the tram at 21:45.

The setting of the tram was cool, with an all-white interior and rows of two and four seat tables. Needless to say, all the other diners were quite excited about the Tram Experience. Across the aisle from us there were four friendly Japanese expats with whom we shared some good laughs. They were very pleased to learn that we were in Japan two months earlier.

Here's our table with the amuses-bouche

Shrimp doughnuts & lemon cake

Entrée: Carpaccio of mature and lightly smoked sirloin steak with vegetable piccalilli - nice

Those who do not like beef were offered a quinoa & shrimps appetizer.

After the first course was served, the tram stopped at Montgomery Square for about 10 minutes while the cooks prepared the second course. They have two ovens in the 'kitchen' to heat up the food.

Main course: skate, red-green Swiss chard simmered in lightly browned butter, chopped spinach, preserved lemon, grilled almonds and cream of almonds - the greens and the cream of almonds were delicious, but the fish was not enjoyable since half of it was just bones.

 

By now (still hungry) I wanted to have some more bread, but unfortunately they had already run out of the tiny buns.

Dessert: tarte au chocolat with a scoop of  chocolate ice-cream - a rather disappointing dessert, a similar slice of chocolate tart can be bought from Pain Quotidien for around €3.

Overall, the food was a let-down. I was expecting so much more from Bart De Pooter, the  double Michelin-starred "Belgian Chef of 2012". True, the actual cooking was done by a caterer (we saw the food being unloaded from the van of "Traiteur Les Garrigues"). But then, Chef De Pooter could have been more inspired when designing the menu. After this meal, it is unlikely that I be tempted by his De Pastorale Restaurant.

The Tram Experience, however, was totally worth it. It is a once-in-a-lifetime event with some significant 'wow' factor. We enjoyed chatting with our dining neighbors and had some good fun waving at the pedestrians staring at us as we passed by. The shortcomings of the food aside, the young waiters were enthusiastic and efficient, keeping in mind that they were working in a narrow aisle in a moving tram.

Brusselicious Tram Experience
http://visitbrussels.be/bitc/BE_en/brusselicious.do