At the
Continental there is a 10-franc _table-d'hote_ dinner, much patronised,
because people know exactly what it will cost them; and at the Palace
Hotel there is a _table-d'hote_ room where the food served is well
cooked; but it lacks the life and bustle of the restaurant, and most
people who go there for a meal or two revert to the restaurant with its
_a la carte_ breakfasts and dinner. There is a Chateau Laroque in the
cellars of the Palace at 7 francs a bottle which is quite excellent.
There is a little restaurant, called the Taverne St-Jean, in a side
street, the Rampe de Flandre, kept by an ex-head waiter from the
Restaurant Re at Monte Carlo, at which the cookery is thoroughly
bourgeois, but good of its kind and the prices low; and there is on the
quay a house, kept by a fisherman who is the owner of several smacks,
where the explorer who does not mind surroundings redolent of the sea
can get a good fried sole, and a more than fair bottle of white wine.
Any one who wishes to see what a Belgian meal can be in the number of
courses should go by train past Blankenberghe, which is a pale
reflection of Ostend, to Heyste, and partake of a mid-day dinner there
at one of the hotels patronised by the Brussels tradesmen and their
families, who come to the little sea-town for change of air.
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