IN THE MELTING POT

I’m normally a shocking slattern on a weekend, but last Sunday I dragged a comb through my luscious auburn tresses, threw on an old Armani peignoir, and schlepped out to St Gilles for brunch at Britxos, the recently opened outlet of catering supremos La Britannique, with the editor, who presumably wanted to offer me a pay rise.

I wouldn’t say it’s in a prime location - a bit off the beaten track to tell the truth.  However, it did afford me the opportunity to see that bit of St Gilles just past Ixelles, which is an up and coming area with a lot to offer - Art Deco houses, including the Horta museum, walking distance from the trendy Rue du Bailli, and a mere 15 minutes by tram from Mérode.  So you could kick off an afternoon’s cultural learnings with a visit to the market followed by a copious brunch at Britxos, which styles itself as a café-deli, serving breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, cocktails and snacks to eat in or take out.  The menu changes weekly, so it’s worth checking out their website to see if the weekend brunch is going to be Asian, English, Irish, Mexican, or something else.  The nice people at Britxos are open to suggestions, if you’d like to surprise a visiting Albanian delegation (for example) with a taste of the old country.

The cocktail list is on the blackboard above the bar and I sipped a Bloody Mary whilst perusing the top shelf of drinks which boasted some impressive beverages - top hole gins The Botanist and Hendrick’s (voted best gin in the world), and no less a rum than Nicaragua’s finest Flor de Cana.   I made a mental note to come back at cocktail hour, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. and try a Glasgow Slag (Irn-Bru and peach liqueur if you must know).

Photo:  Alison Cornford-Matheson

The brunch concept is based on Spanish style tapas, or pintxos as they are called in the Basque country.  British pintxos = Britxos.  Geddit?  Oh suit yourself.  We had the Mexican brunch, which comprises four courses and a bottle of wine for 27 euros.  The entree was a Guadalajara chicken quesadilla, rather like a flattened chorizo, guacamole, potato, onion and cheese pie, drizzled with the chef’s own recipe sweet chutney;  this was followed by Huevos rancheros - two fried eggs with a cold Mexican spicy ratatouille, and tasty jalapeno cornbread.  Then came beer-battered white fish with Mexican sweetcorn salad,  and to finish, vanilla ice cream with Mexican  ganache and a raspberry macaroon.  All washed down with a very pleasant Spanish cabernet sauvignon.  

Photo: Alison Cornford-Matheson

The place only seats 14, plus four seats at the bar - brunch is served in two sittings at 11.30 and 1.30 on weekends, so it’s advisable to phone ahead and book.  If you like improbable multicultural combinations, this is the place for you - a Mexican brunch cooked by a Latvian in a Basque inspired British tapas bar with Spanish wine - Brussels in a nutshell.  The craic was uniquely Brusseleir however - relaxed and friendly, and if you’re on your own, it’s quite likely you’ll end up chatting to your neighbours, as I did to a shy young gentleman from South London who was lunching at the bar.  I was born in Knightbridge moiself, but I will share with you now a little known fact, I was brung up in Sarf London, and it only takes the dulcet tones of the Old Kent Road and a couple of Bloody Marys and my carefully contrived veneer flakes away quicker than Kat Moon’s nail varnish.   By the time we’d finished the four course brunch and were on our second bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, I was singing “Maybe it’s becorze I’m a Londoner” and the place was starting to resemble the Queen Vic on a Sunday lunchtime.  

Your writer doing a Christine Keeler with a couple of British pouffes I found in Britxos
Photo:  Tony Mallett

Needless to say, no pay rise was mentioned.

On second thoughts, perhaps you ought to get your cultural learnings out of the way first before brunching at Britxos.  If you're more interested in the Glasgow Slag than the huevos rancheros, you might prefer to go on a Monday evening when they have live jazz.

Britxos
13 rue de Savoie
1060 St Gilles
Tel:  02 613 48 90
www.facebook.com/britxos
http://www.labritannique.com/contact-britxos

BREAKFAST IN AMERICA

Consistently good: Margaritas

A friend of mine once gave me his analysis on why Americans were all neurotic.

"You go to a restaurant, and they give you a great big laminated menu with colour photographs. Every item on it has a whole paragraph of descriptive along the lines of: try our succulent quarter-pounder, freshly made with a generous four ounces of prime ground beef from Angus cattle fed on the lush grasslands of North Dakota, seasoned with Tahitian rock salt and cracked black pepper from the slopes of Mount Popocatapetl, lovingly barbecued over a hickory-wood charcoal fire and laid on a bed of shredded iceberg lettuce and shavings of white salad onion fresh from our organic kitchen garden, layered with thin slices of juicy plum tomato flown in this morning from Italy, and lightly drizzled with homemade low-cholesterol mayonnaise made personally by our Chef , all of this encased in a warm sesame bun and served to you courteously by our staff."


"It takes you 20 minutes to read the menu, and another 20 minutes to decide what you want.


"And when you get your food, it's just a burger.


"That's why Americans are all in therapy - they're all suffering from chronic disappointment."

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I have spent most of last month travelling in America, and did my best to eat American wherever possible. This only involved a burger once, not counting the MuckDonalds I had one night because everything else was closed (in Vegas! 24/7 my eye).

Farmers Market in LA, early morning

I have always wanted to say the immortal words: "Pastrami on rye and hold the mayo!" I finally got my chance in Los Angeles, not at one of the famous Jewish delis down on West Pico but at Phil's Deli in the Farmers Market. The "small" size had "only" 400 grammes of beef - that's about a pound. I'd always thought pastrami was an Italian speciality but it is in fact Jewish, a prime side of beef seasoned in brine and then steamed until the meat is so tender it melts in your mouth. Also known as a salt beef sandwich, in Jewish delis it is often served with a large dill pickle. Mine was relatively unadorned, served in plain white rye bread and washed down with a Martinelli's apple juice in an apple-shaped bottle.

San Francisco was the only place where I chose to eat "foreign" - but Chinatown is a must, and the Chinese community have been there so long that San Francisco Chinese is probably a cuisine in its own right by now, rather like Scottish-Indian. I happened upon the Far East Cafe on Grant, which is a cavernous high-ceilinged room with the full-on look of old Shanghai - red paint, gilt, ornate heavy wooden furniture, and dragons. It has been in operation since 1920. Down one side of the room are cosy little booths with carved wooden swing doors, for a tete-a-tete or a discreet opium deal. The service is brisk and unsmiling, but at least they don't interrupt you three times while you're eating with "Everything OK with you guys?". I had won ton soup, followed by Peking baby ribs with fried rice, and a pot of green tea. I could eat in there every day.

Cioppino: Italian dish invented in San Francisco

Dungeness crab down on Fisherman's Wharf is another San Francisco classic. A local speciality is cioppino, a sort of fish stew but which involves molluscs so was off limits for my delicate stomach. I had a bad cold, so maybe that's why the crab cakes didn't taste of anything. I was in one of the Italian restaurants on Jefferson Street - it could have been Alioto's, or Tarantino's, or Scoma's, I don't know, they're all Italian and all serve crab. I ordered a glass of white Zinfandel to go with my meal. The waitress served me a glass of rosé. I pointed out that I had ordered a WHITE Zinfandel. That is a White Zinfandel, she said. But it's pink, I said. She went away and the manager came back to explain to me that a White Zinfandel is in fact a rosé wine. Whatever. In Starbuck's if you want a small latte, you have to ask for a TALL latte. Honestly, sometimes it's like being in a foreign country.


The third in my trio of San Francisco culinary classics is John's Grill. This is one of the settings in Dashiell Hammett's "The Maltese Falcon" and is, fittingly, the HQ of the San Francisco Dashiell Hammett Society. The interior is classic American grill room with photos of all the famous patrons on the walls. The food is fairly ordinary - not bad, but not exciting. I had seafood cannelloni which was slightly underwhelming and not cheap.

The patio of the La Fonda

Moving on to New Mexico, this was a risky place for a dame with a delicate palate. In Santa Fe I primed my lips with a margarita at the elegant La Fonda Inn. The origins of this hotel are fascinating, it was one of the original Harvey Inns which inspired the movie "The Harvey Girls" starring Judy Garland. I was invited to taste tamales with mole sauce at Café Pasqual's in Santa Fe. I didn't like either much. Tamales are made with maize flour, and maize, as anyone who has lived in Africa will tell you, is a very tasteless cereal. Mexican food seems to be either fiery hot or completely bland, with no subtlety of flavours in between. Although it is not true, as Billy Connolly contends, that all Mexican dishes are the same, only folded differently (see photos - although if you can tell a burrito from an enchilada you must be a local). At The Alley Inn in Taos I liked the fish and chicken tacos, but the chicken tostada at the Guadalajara Grill, also in Taos, was quite blah. Back in Santa Fe, Cowgirl is a fun place to eat, and I demolished a whole side of BBQ ribs to even my surprise.

Tacos (2)

Enchilada

Burrito

American breakfasts require a whole menu to themselves, and I tried to sample every type of breakfast from bagels to eggs Benedict, leaving out waffles as I live in Belgium and knew they wouldn't be up to scratch. Starbucks was just confusing - there's a whole system there and if you don't know it you look like a twit. The girl took my order and then asked me my name. "My name??" I repeated, baffled. "Yes, you pick up your order at the other counter down there, so we call out your name when it's ready," she explained patiently, as if talking to a child.

I tried pancakes, thinking they would be something like the pancakes here, which are shop bought but then cooked gently in butter. When they arrived, there was a stack of three bogstandard Scotch pancakes, barely warmed out of the packet, stuck together with confectioner's cream and covered in icing sugar, with blueberries and strawberries and a jug of maple syrup. The maple syrup proved necessary as they were so dry. It looked pretty but was a heart attack on a plate.

Comes with a complimentary defibbrilator

In San Francisco there is a chain of diners called Lori's which are replicas of the traditional 1950's diner, with red leather bar stools, booths, lots of chrome, and staff in perky little white hats. Well at least it's not called "Happy Days". I went to one to try the "famous Lori's French toast" which sounded delicious, but when it arrived was just a thick slice of industrial brioche soaked in egg and milk and shoved under the grill, served covered in icing sugar. The Americans seem to think food is something shameful to be hidden by sauces, syrups, sugar, anything to disguise the flavour, or lack of one.

In several places I ordered just a toasted bagel or simple eggs over easy and bacon, which they do very well. They also top your coffee up as many times as you like. I had to try Eggs Benedict once, and did so in a posh hotel in Las Vegas. The eggs were fine, but once I'd scraped off the heavy layer of chilli-spiced Hollandaise sauce I found they were sitting on a thick gammon steak which itself was sitting on a couple of English muffins. With freshly squeezed orange juice and coffee it turned out to be a $30 breakfast, but as I'd been too busy to treat myself to a decent dinner in Vegas, and had a long afternoon at LAX airport in view followed by an overnight flight, it kept me going till England, where I had the first decent cup of tea I'd had in three weeks.

Eggs Benedict

Vegas is full of swanky empty restaurants. Mon Ami Gabi at the Paris always seemed to be full, and I would guess requires advance booking. But you don't need to be a high roller to get a good meal in Vegas. The Hawaiian Market has a number of places to eat, including a very pleasant open-air Mexican cantina where you can eat breakfast, lunch or dinner, or just sit and sip a frozen margarita or a Corona. The Fashion Show shopping mall has a food court on the 1st floor (sorry, 2nd floor over there) which is not top quality but you can eat quick and cheap and choose from about 10 different dining options. The Chinese wasn't bad. House of Blues in the Mandalay Bay resort has a good Southern menu, and I can recomment the chicken gumbo as well as the music.

I can also recommend the margaritas.