Le Clan des Belges: One of Our Favorite Meals Ever

For our latest edition of First Friday Feast, we checked out Le Clan des Belges in Brussels, Belgium. If you happen to find yourself in town, eat here.

First Friday Feast is a monthly series debuting on the first Friday of each month and elaborates on a recent dining experience. For avoidance of doubt, this post was in no way sponsored by the restaurant.

We’ve been trying to have a date night each month this year (and post about it on the first Friday of every month). Sometimes we bring the kids along for date night and sometimes they stay at home. But that’s fine by us–the kids are more than welcome to tag along if they want. This time we took a moment to celebrate Jenn’s birthday dinner on our trip to Brussels.

View other posts in this series:

Arrival to Le Clan des Belges

Given it was Jenn’s birthday, I wanted to go somewhere that gave a great introduction to Belgian cuisine. Fortunately, I stumbled across Le Clan des Belges when I was scouring the internet.

The nearest metro stop is the Porte de Namur, but fortunately, this one was also walkable from our hotel, the Hilton Brussels Grand Place. Either way you come here, you’ll pass down cute streets lined with shops. Since it was the start of the holiday season, the streets also had some beautiful decorations hanging from above.

Once we reached Rue de la Paix, we easily found Le Clan des Belges on the corner. While the restaurant has both and indoor and outdoor section, given the cooler weather in late November, we were happy to sit inside.

The great thing about showing up around the start of dinner service (5:30PM) is getting a table inside. We were one of the first here, and it got packed by 6:30PM. Reservations are only accepted for parties of 8 or more.

The menu

First up is the drink menu, which is printed on a double-sided sheet of paper. This is printed in French, but it should be pretty easy to figure out what it is you want to drink. There are mocktails and non-alcoholic drinks listed as well in case you have kids or non-drinkers in your party.

The main menu is in your preferred language. Naturally, we addressed the restaurant in English when we arrived, so they gave us an English menu. It’s very patriotic as the UK and US flags are infused into the restaurant name.

English version of the menu — *English menu*

If you’d rather practice your French, the same menu is also used as a place mat. That sure makes it convenient if you need to order more food (and can read French).

French version of the menu — *French menu*

Drinks

Jenn and I each chose our drinks for the evening. Jenn had the petit clocher, a fruity and floral white wine, and I went with the Chouffe, a Belgian blonde ale. How could I not with a fun gnome on the glass?

The kids stuck with orange juice, which came in a bottle. Sure, it’s just Minute Maid, but it tastes better in Europe than it does in the US.

The food at Le Clan des Belges

Bread

Our dining experience started with some bread for the table. Along with it were some individual containers of ketchup and mayonnaise. Yes, the Belgian way of dipping your fries is the combination of mayo and ketchu.

Kids meals

The kids each ordered a kids meal, so let’s start with their food. Alex ordered the sausage with fries. At first glance, it might not look like all that filling of a meal, but it’s tasty. It came with a little gravy on top that brought out the flavors a bit more. While Char has never been that much of a fan of sausage, she loved this one.

Char ordered the meatballs, which were two massive hunks of meat in that same gravy. The texture is a bit firmer with the sausage, which might be why both kids preferred the sausage over these meatballs. If the gravy were thicker and the meatballs smaller, this might be a great soup. But of course Char couldn’t wait for me to take a photo before going in to grab some fries.

Burgundy Snails (Escargots de Bourgogne)

And now for the adult food. Jenn and I started with an appetizer of escargots, which came in a pesto-like sauce. Some people don’t care much for eating snails, and I get it. You might think of them as more of a garden pest and nothing more. But once you get past that, you’ll find these snails are pretty delicious. We most definitely wouldn’t mind ordering this again.

Mussels in white wine and fries (Moules au vin blanc et frites)

We ordered some mussels in white sauce to share and OMG these are delicious. These mussels are perhaps the freshest we’ve had in ages. There are enough mussels in here to share with someone else, unless you want to be sneaky and try to eat them all yourself. We’d argue of everything we ate that night, this was the star of the show. They’re delicious and an absolute must-try.

Shrimp croquette

Knowing that the kids meals were on the smaller side, we also got them a shrimp croquette. It’s everything you want a croquette to be: crispy on the outside and warm and gooey on the inside. The creamy inside has a strong shrimp taste infused in it. It’s a little pricey as you only get one per order, but it’s tasty. Of everything we ordered, this is probably the thing we didn’t need to get.

Vol-au-vent & frites

You might be asking “what is vol-au-vent?” because it’s also described that way on the English menu. The best way I can describe it is it’s like a pot pie: a puff pastry filled with savory chicken and gravy. As you can imagine, it’s a very filling dish. If I had just one criticism, it could have used more puff pastry for the amount of gravy you get. That said, it does make for a great sauce to dip your fries in.

Yes, pretty much all main dishes come with their own side of fries. When our server brought all the food to the table, he placed all the fries baskets on the dishes and warmly said “welcome to Belgium”. If you love fries, you must come to this country.

Desserts

Since the kids both ordered a child’s meal, they both got a scoop of ice cream. Char chose chocolate, which came with a pirouette on top.

Meanwhile, Alex went with the classic vanilla flavor.

Since it was Jenn’s birthday, I let her get carried away and order two desserts. The first was the Brussels waffle (Gaufre Bruxelles), which was crispy and warm. It came with the perfect amount of powdered sugar on top to add some sweetness but not make it overly so.

The other dessert is French toast (Pain Perdu), which came topped with a caramel sauce. It was cooked perfectly, with a firm exterior and warm interior. I have to say this kitchen is on point with its cooking prowess. And not to be outdone by the kids, the toast came with its own side of ice cream (banana pecan caramel). If you had to just order one dessert, it’d probably be this one.

Recommendation: Yes

Of all the restaurants we’ve been to in Europe, this had to have ranked in our personal Top 5. Granted, we haven’t been to anywhere near all the restaurants out there, so Top # lists are kind of silly when it comes to restaurants. But I can at least speak to our own experiences, and this one was simply divine. All interactions with the staff were great, every single thing we ate was delicious, and everyone had a good time. It’s not a surprise that the restaurant seems packed nightly at dinner.

food.wada.travel

experiencing the world via gastronomy with our children