Belga Cafe, Washington, D.C.

Drew is a big fan of beers, so we thought that the perfect place for him to endulgence his passion during Restaurant Week was Belga Cafe, the Belgian restaurant on Barracks Row that has a list of about 72 beers—the Belgians take their beer as seriously as do the French their wine.

So, Drew, Edward, and I got up bright and early this morning and made our appearances in public before noon, planning to do brunch at Belga. We ended up, however, doing their R.W. lunch menu instead of brunch food. Unlike many of the R.W. participants, Belga always crafts a limited special menu with a fixed appetizer and dessert and then the patrons get their choice of two entrees.

The appetizer was quite an interesting thing. Perhaps I should quote the menu description: "Cold shrimp ragout with lemon grass surrounded by a lobster consommé gelée bleeding with red beet juice and topped with a baby frisée salad and a spice tuile." The dish basically was a scoop of shrimp salad in a soup plate full of cold, thick lobster broth and spotted with beet juice. The "spice tuile" was a long, thin cracker. I liked the shrimp ragout. It was very tasty and I should have liked a serving of it by itself. I'm not quite so sure what to think of the cold, jellied lobster consommé. It had a definite seafood taste to it that I didn't really like cold, but I eventually got used to it and forced myself to eat it. The beet juice didn't really add any different flavor to the soup, but it did help to make a striking presentation and a dramatic food description. With the appetizer, Drew drank a Hoegaarden Belgian white beer. I tasted a tiny sip and it was a very light beverage without a lot of "beer" taste and it had, I thought, a slight citrus taste to it.

For the main course, we had a choice between steak or mussels. Drew and I both opted for the steak, whilst Edward picked the mussels. After tasting the mussels, Edward didn't like them; it turns out he's never had mussels before. So, I offered to trade entrees with him and he jumped at the chance. I'd already had an opportunity to taste the grilled steak, which was tender and juicy and seemed quite nice. Slices of steak alternated on the plate with some beer-battered onion rings, and a little ramekin of beer-infused bearnaise sauce accompanied the meat. I also sampled a bit of the garlic potato napoleon; I didn't get enough to really analyze, but it seems like mashed potatoes layed with sort of a potato chip-like divider between the layers. A row of tiny green summer vegetables lined one side of the long, thin, rectangular plate. To go with our steaks, Drew and I ordered a Leffe blonde, which is one of the Belgian beers Belga keeps on tap. He loved it; I hated it; I have him mine to drink. One of the fun things about this place is that they seem to have a different glass for every beer.



The mussels for which I traded actually turned out to be quite good (having had mussels last night I hadn't ordered them myself originally). They had been steamed in Corsendonk blonde beer, which I saw on the Trappist and Abbey beers section of the beer list, along with chopped celery and quite a lot of shitake mushrooms. A lot of chopped parsley garnished the top. A little order of Belgiesche frieten, or what we rather inaccurately think of as "French fries," since this form of deep-fried potatoes actually orginated in Belgium. And, also in keeping with the Belgian tradition, a little ramekin of delicious house-made mayonaisse accompanied the fries for dipping.



The dessert was an interesting melange, though I'm not sure I found a thematic connection. We each got a long, rectangular plate with some slices of bread pudding garnished with a big strawberry, a little dish of rice pudding topped with fried soba noodles and drizzled with raspberry coulis, and a scoop of sorbet they said was orange, but that tasted more like a tropical mix to me. The rice pudding was interesting since it seemed to be made with a thick, chewy rice (perhaps arborio??) in more of a pudding.

With our dessert, Drew and I split a bottle of Premium St. Louis Framboise, a Lambic raspberry beer I though tasted very fruity, very effervescent, and not at all beery, It came in a bottle with a cork that the waitress had to open tableside.

Belga is always a fun place to go. I think perhaps they fell victim this Restaurant Week to an attempt to be overly creative with their appetizers and desserts, and I'm not so sure that creativity worked. The regular menu items (as well as the R.W. entrees) are great though, and it's always a pleasure to come here.