This post follows on from my last on Bruges, and De Hefter Bistro here.
Here’s the 14 course meal we had for my birthday at Hertog Jan’s restaurant.
The bouquet of roses were waiting for me at our table with a bottle of champagne, they really were the most beautiful roses I’ve received. This set the evening off to a perfect start thanks to Bikerboy.
We opted for the 6 course dinner without the wines, we had to get through a bottle of bubbly first.
We thought the staff were superb they were efficient, friendly, enthusiastic, smiley and informative, they couldn’t have made the evening flow any better for us.
The bread and h’orderves arrived. The bread was good, yeast tasting crumb with seeds, the best on this trip. Maybe you’ve notice my silence on the subject of bread, here in Belgium it tastes just as the badly made bread we encounter through France and have back home.
There was an option of butter or Spanish olive oil to have with the bread, both good. The butter tasted freshly made but the olive oil was especially delicious, the sort I’m jealous of because I can’t buy it this fresh, young still with plenty of vibrancy.
Below are curry flavoured crisp things, can’t call them papadum as I know them, these had a slight texture of prawn cracker about them, puffy rather than the very thin version of papadum I’m use to.
With them in the black bowl was a cross between mayonnaise and butter mildly curried flavoured, it was on the side of too rich-buttery for me to use as a dip.
These little puff balls were curious, like a savoury meringue texture, with a goose-type pate inside and aniseed on top. I didn’t dislike them nor love them, somewhere in the middle.
That was followed by small pieces of avocado covered in dusting of tomato powder, served with the Spanish olive oil.
I thought the tomato powder lacked flavour, it’s difficult to pair against the mild flavour of avocado but here the tomato dust could do with some ‘umph’. This ended up tasting of ripe avocado that was all.
The next dish served at room temperature, a combination of vegetables, on the bottom there was a puree, topped by fish roe, a quail size egg yolk and the foam. The dish pleasant as a whole but little on the bland side, with the saltiness of the fish roe coming through the most.
I believe the foam was meant to be asparagus flavour, but frothy foams do lack flavour being that they’re air-filled bubbles, and when creating from delicate flavours such as asparagus I wasn’t surprised it didn’t add impact.
The very pretty dish below was quite deceptive, white slices of radishes decorated in this manner gave me the impression of beach/fishy type dish but it wasn’t.
There was a very thin slice of what appeared to be pressed pork terrine with tiny shallots on top with herbs and vinaigrette style dressing, served on the cool side (too cool perhaps). Here the flavour came from the shallots, vinaigrette and herbs, the pork terrine could’ve been anything. Good news for Bikerboy as he hates pork terrines.
Next was a potato puree dish with a coffee/vanilla flavour and cheese on top, served between room temperature and just warm.
I could detect a whisper of vanilla but it was the coffee coming through most. Any savoury dish with coffee flavour reminds me of seeing Heston’s visit to Carlo Cracco’s restaurant in Milan and trying out his coffee and sea urchin risotto.
This dish was the low point of the meal for me, I love coffee and will happily have it alongside a savoury sandwich, the problem I had with it here was being paired against a bland starch potato and a very mild tasting cheese, it didn’t add anything other than dominance.
Now the proper courses start
At this point in the meal Bikerboy thought we had gone through 4 courses out of the six, and with these tiny portions he was preparing himself for something substantial back at the hotel. By dessert he was struggling, we both were, feared our buttons popping before leaving the restaurant.
The first of two starters, was little cubes of salmon with fish roe on top, radishes and a creamy puree, light well balanced.
The white asparagus had a crisp crunchy texture but not raw, it was sitting on top of a tamarind base, the flavour that took over by the last mouthful.
Below a langoustine with carrots, apricot and citrus.
Occasionally in a meal there will be a single element which was so delicious it will permeated and remain lodged in my brain cells forever, and here it was the citrus droplets on the plate. The citrus puree transported me to the aroma in the leaves of clementine trees in Portugal. I want that citrus puree, beautiful fragrance.
The langoustine was on the side of too raw for me in this dish. I’m guessing it was cooked sous vide, the texture was ok, the problem was the lack of sweet taste. If you taste a raw langoustine next to a just cooked one, the cooked langoustine’s tastes sweeter, the heat of changing it from its opaque texture into a creamy white seems to bring out its natural sweetness more.
Next came sole with lettuce, the fish was coated in an incredibly thin crispy coating and fried. Good dish perfectly balanced, the baby lettuces had been dressed in a delicious sauce, couldn’t say what it was. As a whole this was one of my favourite dish with everything marrying together nicely.
The main course arrived.
We had finished the champagne and were recommended this glass of full bodied Italian red accompanying the black Angus beef and morels.
The beef was tender but shredded tender as appose to when a steak is rare tender, though it wasn’t cooked all the way through as in a casserole. This made me think about the ups and downs of sous vide.
The whole dish tasted delicious, big flavour from the morels, the sauce was light, not too strong but delicious, all came together perfectly.
The first of three desserts this was our favourite, pineapple and I think the other main flavour was passionfruit. On the menu given to us at the end of the meal, for some reason this dessert is not listed, I’m writing this from memory.
It was the perfect ending to the meal, refreshing, light not too sweet. The white long bar was a smooth type of pineapple sorbet, the very thin cylinder next to it was filled with a mousse, little dots of sharp puree with miniature flavoured meringues.
The second dessert was cranberry, yoghurt and mascarpone. It was ok, tad too sickly sweet, rather than leaving the mouth refreshed it left it cloying with the overall sugar.
What occurred about this dessert was the similarity to the first one, mousse, puree, a frozen fruit part and more miniature meringues, only difference with this dessert was the different shapes.
The last dessert, chocolate, hazelnut and caramel. All the flavours here were good but…
…can you see those little miniature meringues appearing again? And can you see how similar in texture it is to the other desserts?
All three desserts were cold and room temperature, all based around mousses and meringues but just with different flavours.
By this time neither of us could eat anymore, the chocolate below were filled with different flavours, I only managed to bite into the dark one for curiosity sake, Bikerboy couldn’t bring himself to touch them. I would’ve enjoyed them the next day with coffee.
Along with the chocolate came these little cigars pastries filled with caramel.
I wanted to show how beautifully thin they were, these were the size of a thin cigarette. Being my duty as a taster I bit one and yes, filled with delicious caramel. What let it down badly was the sugary pastry that started to stick to my teeth as I chewed it.
This reminded me of last year’s birthday meal at Le Champignon Sauvage where the shards of sugar served with scallops (I kid you not!) also stuck to my back teeth. At least here I was expecting sugar.
I don’t have a photo of the last dish, it was a tiny helping of sweetened potato puree based on that savoury potato dish above, it didn’t add anything to the palate or the completion of the meal, it just felt an odd ending.
How Was The Meal?
The whole evening and the meal was perfect.
OK, I know I picked out things that for me didn’t work or lacked contrast but…I’m analysing and being critical that’s what I do but..here comes the but…if I compare this meal to others I’ve had of similar ilk, overall it was as good; The Fat Duck, Le Manoir, Waterside Inn, Le Gavroche (with Albert Roux), Ramsay, Le Barnardin (NYC). In all of those places there were dishes that didn’t dazzle, in the same meal there were dishes which went from ‘wow amazing’ to a ’urmm nope’ or ’it’s ok’.
This evening was about the whole experience for me and about trying out something different. There was excellent cooking and that goes without saying, attention to detail and the hard work showed itself on the plate…
…and from that point the evening was perfect.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
The dishes all look really fascinating but the picture of you at the end with your beautiful flowers makes it for me. You look very lovely, though should be looking like ten ton Tess after eating that little lot. A birthday to remember for always.
thanks Gloria, lovely of you to say so.