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Liam Hetherington
Liam Hetherington
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4 out of 5
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56) Taps - The Mussels From Brussels

56) Taps - The Mussels From Brussels

Belgium – 21/10/09

For a nation so small (and supposedly so dull – just think of the Name 10 Famous Belgians game) Belgium certainly punches above its weight gastronomically. This is the country that has produced mayonnaise and moules marinieres, Brussels pate and Brussels sprouts, Belgian chocolate, Belgian waffles and of course Belgian beer…

Ah, Belgian beer. It is said that there are more different beers per head in Belgium than in any country of the world. Sadly they are mostly lagers which I never really have liked previously. Still, when in Brussels…

Taps has plenty of beer. Not just lots and lots of different bottles – all seemingly with different glasses – but also different beers on draught. The USP of this place though is that the beer taps are not on the bar – they are on your table. The diners can pour their own beer, and you are charged for each tenth of a pint you pull. Paul and I queried with the Belgian hostess which beers she would recommend. She directed us to a table with two pumps. One was Amstel (Dutch), and the other was Duvel Green. As this was a Belgian beer this was the one I went for, eagerly pulling a pint into the small tulip-shaped glass. Although it was 6.8% it did not taste as strong as it must be, and was easily quaffable. Prices are on the expensive side. Per tenth of a pint the Duvel was 52p (adding up to £5.20 for a pint); the Amstel was 32p I think.

But it is not all about the beer. Taps has a menu with a vague Belgian theme. Though on one of the starters they do serve fois grois alongside the escargots & grenouilles – so minus points for that. But they have a large frites section – you can have chips with steak, chips with stew, chips with poussin… or chips with mussels. Moules-frites is reckoned by some to be the Belgian national dish. So I ordered a half-kilo of mussels (£6.99). These came in a metal bucket, full of shellfish, shells open to reveal the orange flesh inside. They had been cooked in a mariniere sauce (white wine, cream, garlic and parsley). Though of course I had to dig through a lot of mussels to get down to the dipping sauce. And it was quite a job to sort through all the shells to make sure I hadn’t missed any – a separate bowl to put the discarded shells in would have been useful. These were also available as a 1kg option. Heaven only knows what these would have been served in – a garden pail? A separate bowl of French fries was served, thin and crisp, to which I had to add salt. Paul had a pumpkin and chickpea stew, with a vaguely mediterranean flavour, also with frites.

And then we paused.

We quite fancied dessert, but were fairly full. So we let the waitress clear our table, and we carried on drinking – Duvel Green for me, Amstel for Paul by this stage. But to get me in the mood for sweet I decided to switch on to a fruitier brew. They have a list of bottled fruit beers. As well as the expected cherry (kriek) there were beers flavoured with peach, mango, banana, even gooseberry. I quite fancied the last, but it turned out to be Scottish, so I merely filed it away in the memory banks for future reference. Instead I went for another Belgian beer – Timmerman’s Strawberry. And it did have a very floral strawberry scent. But it wasn’t as tooth-curlingly sweet as an alcopop thank goodness. Interestingly – as I noted from the write-up in th beer menu – it is a lambic beer. This wasn’t a phrase I had come across before. It turns out that lambic beers come solely from a region in Belgium and do not have any yeast. Instead they are a product of spontaneous fermentation after being left open and exposed to naturally occurring bacteria common to the Senne valley area. So I felt educated as well as refreshed.

Moving on to the desserts, all of them (except a more expensive Belgian cheeseboard) were pegged at £4.50. Paul ordered a cake made with light and dark Belgian chocolate. I have to say, it was only a small slice, though it was accompanied with chocolate ice cream. My dessert was much better value – I opted for Belgian waffles, though I paid an extra 50p for them to be dipped in chocolate. I got two large waffles, drizzled (rather than dipped) in rich choccy sauce. Seasonal berries were scattered atop, and there were three scoops of ice-cream (one chocolate, one tasting of Baileys liqueur, and one that I think was passion-fruit that didn’t really go as well with the waffles as the other two).

The bill when it came was exactly £40, or £20 each. We had a discount on our mains due to Taps’ ‘Beat The Clock’ offer – if ordering between 5 o’clock and 6:30 you instead pay the time you ordered your food. Hence, having ordered at 5:10 we paid £5.10 for each dish, rather than £6.99 for the moules marinieres and around £9.50 for the pumpkin stew. Over half of the cost was for beer. But frankly, here you are paying for convenience. Arriving at 5 o’clock, we didn’t have to get up from our tables until we left at gone 8. We could just relax in the high leather-cushioned booth and either serve ourselves our drinks or order from the waitress. We were not put under any pressure to hury up or move on and the whole ambience was extremely convivial. And the whole twist of being able to pull your own pints is a nice little affectation that really makes Taps stand out from the competition. I liked it, and have been recommending it since.

(I don’t think there are any other places serving Belgian food in Manchester, but there are certainly a couple dedicated to Belgian beers. Bar Fringe on Swan Street in Ancoats is otherwise the most central, and I have heard good reports of Le Trappiste in Altrincham too (www.letrappiste.com).)

From journal Around The World In 80 Meals! (part 6)

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