Le Chambord @ Brussels

Bonjour! Hoi! I'm in Brussels, the land where they speak 2 languages or sometimes three including German... Ooh wait... it's also the land of awesome Belgian Beers and Belgian chocolates to boot. The 13 hr flight from KL to CDG Paris has been really pleasant as I had a very good sleep after a couple of champagnes starting from the lounge right up to the plane.

The transit at CDG took me about 4 hours as I had to take the 11.45am flight on Brussels Airline to Brussels. Guess what, there were only 10 passengers and we practically can say that we chartered the flight!

It's true what my designer told me that there are almost no terrible restaurants in Brussels. According to him, everything is good. Oh well, we've yet to find out! For dinner, we chose to eat somewhere near the hotel and this place called Le Chambord is actually situated just diagonally across Hotel Bloom and opposite the Botanique gardens.

This restaurant is really cute. As a start, they do not have the usual "book menu" and all they did was to push this menu board to your table and you order from there! The menu is in French and lucky I've actually picked up some French during all the french cuisine dinners that I had and I knew what I wanted that night! It's actually not that difficult as you'll only need to learn a few words like "duck, beef, pork, chicken" in French and then you'll roughly know what you'll be getting.

For starters, it has to be the beers! What a waste if I come to Brussels and not try the local beers here as I've heard so much about their special brew. One of my bosses asked me, "Are you a strong girl, Eiling?" and I said yeah! So, I was served this glass of Chimay Bleue. The Chimay brewery produces three widely distributed ales and a patersbier exclusively for the monks. They are known as Trappist beers (under control of Trappist monks) because they are made in a Trappist monastery. It was the first brewery to use the Trappist Ale designation on its labels. As with all other Trappist breweries, the beer is sold only for financial support of the monastery and good causes.

The beer has a FREAKING 9% alcohol content and it's a very rich beer. It's dark in colour and this is a "classic" for Chimay. It has a creamy head and slightly bitter after taste coupled with some peppery and fruity notes. Very interesting indeed. The glass makes it look like I'm drinking brandy!

One of my colleagues had the Toast Champignons ala Creme (€10) which is actually toast with mushrooms and cream. It's very nice as the mushrooms are really tender and juicy but the secret lies in the sauce.

My designer has the Asperges a'la Flamande (€11) which is white asparagus in a Flemish way. It's my first time eating such a dish and interestingly the asparagus is not soggy. It still has the crispness and the sauce is not too rich either.

I had the Jambon du Parme Serano au Melon (€12) which is Serano Parma Ham with melon. This is so addictive as I'm already a big fan of Jamon Serano and Iberico Bellota, but this one here is served with slices of melon that is so sweet and juicy! I wished I could have multiple plates of that but then again, I don't want to miss out on my mains.

Almost everyone on the table has the Chateau Briand (€19) which I strongly recommend when I saw that on the menu. There are not many places in KL that does a Chateau Briand (which I did the explanation here). I had mine medium rare but I think it's cooked medium. I'm fine with that as long as the meat is juciy and tender. It is! I didn't have it with the Hollandaise sauce as I felt that the steak should be eaten plain as you can taste the flavours of the meat better.

The prices are quite reasonable provided you try not to convert because if you do, you won't want to eat anything! Haha... I love the food here but the drawback is that the service is really SLOOOWWW... I think I've waited more than 30 minutes for my plate of parma ham and then another 30 minutes for our mains! If you have the time, why not?

Cheers to more Belgian beers for the next few days!



Le Chambord
10, Chaussee de Haecht
1210 Saint-Josse-ten-Noode - Brussels
Tel: +32 (0)2 223 62 31
email: Lechambord@hotmail.com
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