Grand Café De Rooden Hoed — Restaurant in Antwerp

We ate here tonight after getting a recommendation. Service was initially good. My wife and I placed our orders. I asked for the fish soup, and I am fairly certain I was given the seafood stew. It contained two kinds of fish, salmon and another with bones, shrimp, delicious muscles, and crawfish, as well as potatoes and a cheese crust. It wasn’t bad and I was willing to eat it, even though it was really more protein than I can eat late in the day. I lacked a spoon and I wanted to confirm what I had so that I could potentially try the other if I returned. We had also asked for a .5L of soda water. I spent maybe ten minutes trying to get my black shirted waiter’s attention without success. I finally caught the attention of a white shirted staff member that may have been a manager. I asked for the spoon, soda water, and whether what I had in front of me was the fish soup or the seafood stew. He told me he would send my waiter over, and he got me a spoon and water. I waited and waited, and ate my dish, and waited, and finished my beer and wanted to order another, and waited, and tried to get someone’s attention, and waited. Food and all beverages gone, maybe 45 minutes from when our food was served, our waiter finally came over. We asked for the check, paid and left. We won’t return and suggest you stay...

The mussels are not fresh, they smelled and tasted old. On top of that they were not even cooked well...we simply couldn't continue eating them, we both dropped it after few tries..while still being very hungry.... (we're both born at the coast, we love seafood and mussels, so there is no way that we don't know how fresh mussels are supposed to taste like)

We communicated to the waitress when she asked if we had a good meal. We responded honestly and said it wasn't fresh. She was friendly but didn't know how to react, so she went in with the whole pot of mussels and asked the chef. She came back and said the chef said they were fresh 😅...that wasn't an unexpected response if you're defensive tbh...it was just a disappointing experience.

After all, we payed the full amount and left unhappy. It wasn't handled well and our voice was not taken serious. We basically couldn't convince the restaurant what we tasted was not fresh and nice 🤣 maybe they shouldn't even ask for our feedback and just "say" it's...

It's a nice restaurant in the city center. The food was really good, we had a nice beef stew and and a large sauerkraut plate with a selection of sausages. However, we were not satisfied with the service. A different starter was served than the one we asked for. We sent it back, so we received the right starter after 1 hour of waiting. Similarly, after asking for mashed potetoes, we got french fries and had to wait again for them to change it. In the end, we asked for a cup of coffee which wasn't served for more than 30 minutes. After 20 minutes of waiting, we notified the waiters again and asked for the bill as well. Still, they didn't bring either the coffee or the bill after 10 more minutes. Then we decided to go and pay at the bar because our train was leaving soon. They even wanted us to pay for the coffee which was never served in the first place. This all happened in the afternoon and not during lunch/dinner time. I can honestly recommend the food but the service was...