Les Larmes du Tigre Bruxelles - Thai buffet brunch

Les Larmes du Tigre is a Thai restaurant located in a quiet area behind the Brussels Palais de Justice, about five minutes walk from Louise metro station. Along with the Blue Elephant, it is considered to be one of the best places for Thai cuisine in Brussels. We decided to try their Sunday Thai buffet brunch today.

View from the street

The entrance

One of the two dining areas

The ceiling, covered with Asian umbrellas that add a touch of exoticism

There's a garden terrace for the sunny days

Some crackers were offered on the table, to nibble on while ordering drinks.

Now onto the food: Thai Buffet by Les Larmes du Tigre

The buffet is served in a small area, with starters on the left, main dishes in the center and desserts on the right. On the other side there were two cooks preparing noodles and pancakes.

Starters - the chicken satay skewers and their peanut sauce were delicious. They also has vegetable salads, fried calamari, samosas, several friend meat snacks, steamed dumplings, spicy beef salad, noodle salad.

 

 

 The charrette (cart) of Thai noodles soup. It's more for the show than for the taste...

Main dishes - noodles, white rice, fried rice, beef stew, sweet & sour chicken, Thai red curry and shrimps sauté. The red curry was delicious. Not sure what the Chinese sweet & sour chicken was doing in this Thai buffet...

The cook preparing the sweet dessert pancakes

We recalled from our visit to Thailand that desserts are not a highlight of Thai cuisine and our attempts at ordering dessert ended up with starchy/greasy dishes being served (sweet rice, fried ice cream...). Thai people seemed to prefer fresh fruits for their sweet tooth. So our expectations were not so high for dessert.

These were the dessert choices. There were also two types of ice cream (pineapple and melon) not visible in the picture. Too bad the mangos were not ripe.

By 13:00, the place started to get crowded...

and there were small queues for the buffet. So it is advisable to reach the restaurant before 12:30.

Overall, we had an enjoyable lunch with some quality Thai food. It should be noted that vegetarian options were quite limited. From the welcome to the moment we left, the service was nice and with a smile. We look forward to our next visit at Les Larmes du Tigre, most probably for an à la carte meal and skipping dessert.

UPDATE: we reviewed Blue Elephant's brunch a few months later.

Les Larmes du Tigre

Brussels, Avenue Louise

http://www.leslarmesdutigre.be/

Le Pavillon Louis XV: Brunch in Parc de Wolvendael

Today was the first sunny Sunday in Brussels in a month and a half. An outdoor brunch was in order! So we headed to Parc de Wolvendael in Uccle for brunch at Le Pavillon Louis XV.

Here's the Pavillon  as seen from the park

 

 The view from the terrace

 

The Pavillon was quite empty when we entered at 12:45, perfect for admiring the elegant interior...

...and taking some photos of the buffet.

Breads, spreads, soup

Hot items: several deep-fried foods, spinach pie, French toast, scrambled eggs. It is unfortunate that there were no labels to explain what each item was/contained.

Salads and dips I

Salads and dips II,  cheeses

Fruits and desserts

By 13:15 the place was full. They had run out of several food items and the solo cook could barely keep up. Here's the queue for the buffet:

Service was obviously not sufficient for a Sunday brunch. The Pavillon is a three-people show: a lady manager/cashier, a waiter and a cook. The waiter was running around in all directions trying to deal with the fifty or so customers, both inside the Pavillon and on the terrace (he nonetheless managed to remain calm and polite towards all customers). As an example, we received our drinks almost twenty minutes after we had begun to eat.

Now some photos of the lovely park:

 

A couple enjoying some farniente in this relaxing setting...

...and a young man enjoying his book peacefully

Parc de Wolvendael certainly deserves a visit, ideally on a sunny day, but do skip the brunch in the Pavillon Louis XV, however tempting the €17 week-end all-you-can-eat buffet might seem. Instead, pack some food and make yourself a picnic on the lawn and enjoy the sun.

Le Pavillon Louis XV
Parc de Wolvendael, Brussels
http://www.pavillonlouisxv.be/

Restaurant French Kiss in Jette

After l'Amour Fou, we went for Le French Kiss. This restaurant is located in Jette, close to Place Reine Astrid. The Michelin guide awarded restaurant French Kiss a "Bib Gourmand" (along with a dozen other restaurant in Brussels), which means that they offer "good food at moderate prices." This translates into a 3-course meal for €35 or less.

View from the street

 Here are some pictures of the interior

The place was almost full, with mostly elderly regulars (we were probably the only ones under fifty:)) who knew the waiters by name. Decoration was somewhat basic, with lively colored paintings against brown brick walls.

We ordered the two different set menus on offer.

Some olives, bread and butter to nibble while waiting for the appetizer

Menu "Suggestions" at €35

Tartare aux deux saumons & foie gras, crème aigrelette à l'aneth

Pavé de thon rouge au pesto, tomate mozzarella gratinée, pomme au four

Fraises au sabayon, glace vanille

Menu de la Semaine at €25

This menu had two options for the appetizer and main dish. No choice for dessert.

Velouté d'asperges aux St Jacques rôties

Brochette d'agneau, salade grecque, pommes frites. In the picture, the lamb looks like some charcoal - it was actually good and grilled à point as I had asked.

Glace vanille aux cerises Amarena

Le French Kiss offered us a pleasant lunch. The menu was quite traditional with Belgo-French classics. The food served was good and plentiful, and the service was polite and efficient.

The €25 set lunch menu offers a good deal. Bravo to Le French Kiss for offering their weekly lunch menu also on Sundays, which is quite rare in Brussels. The €35 menu was good, although given the big portions, a main and dessert would have been more than enough.

Here's my advice: if you've never been to Jette, go for a stroll during the Sunday market around Place Reine Astrid then stop by restaurant French Kiss for a good, hearty and affordable Belgian lunch.

Restaurant French Kiss
Jette, Brussels
http://www.restaurantfrenchkiss.com

Burger brunch at l'Amour Fou in Ixelles

We had brunch earlier at L'Amour Fou on this 1st May public holiday.

L'Amour Fou is a Café/Bar located on Place Fernand Cocq in Ixelles. On its web site, the owners claim that it is "the Brussels version of an American diner". We were glad that we had booked a table one week before, because by 1p.m the place was full.

Here are some pictures of the interior:

Regardless of one's definition of "hip atmosphere" and the owner's desire for the café/bar to be a "cultural spot", I found these photographs to be out of place. (Actually they were not the only ones - all walls had the same type of photographs). What exactly is the point of displaying photos of naked women being tortured ? I'm not getting into the aesthetics here - a few of these photographs looked great - but they did not bring any value added to my brunch experience, and I wonder how the kids who participate in the monthly music workshops at L'Amour Fou react to these..

Now onto the food. Here's one €20 set brunch, which also includes a juice and hot beverage. The waitress did bring a hot beverage (a cup of hot water) but the tea bag was nowhere to be seen. Only after a reminder and 5 minutes later was the tea bag brought to our table.

Portions were rather smallish, like the 3 teaspoons of muesli and bite-sized pancakes.

Here's the €14 'Ultimate breakfast burger' plate. I requested to have a fried egg instead of the bacon slices, but the waitress indicated that it's "not possible because of the system" and all she could do was put an extra slice of cheese instead. Quite surprising - even a Toyota dealer would have been accommodating had I requested an option that he'd have to back-order from Japan! At least, the waitress agreed to serve me some Jalapeno poppers as a side dish, even though in the menu these are served as part of the Gringo burger plate.

I had the €5,50 chocolate milkshake, which according to their menu was ice-cream based. Needless to say, I was expecting a big glass of thick diner style milkshake. What I got was a small glass half full with flavored milk, the other half being foam.

In the USA I always left a diner happily stuffed with way too much fat and sugar. When I went through L'Amour Fou's menu, I looked forward to indulging myself  on this lazy afternoon. Yes, the food did taste pretty good and my burger was delicious. Sadly, the portions were rather small and my milkshake was swallowed in 3 sips.

Unlikely to visit again.

L'Amour Fou
Place Fernand Cocq, Ixelles, Bruxelles
http://www.lamourfou.be