Chez Bouboule — Restaurant in Dinant

Look, this place has great mussels, we like coming here when we’re in Dinant. This time around the waitstaff just wasn’t friendly.

We made a reservation, and yes, we understand that reservations can only be made inside. However, it was 30 degrees Celsius and we asked whether we could be seated outside. Initially, this wasn’t a problem and we just waited until sears freed up. The waiter wasn’t thrilled that we did this “because they were waiting for us upstairs”, even while we asked whether it was okay to wait. Fast forward, 30 minutes later it started raining. Our seats were the only ones that were not covered by umbrellas, and it started raining on our food. We asked a waiter whether we could be reseated, and he shrugged, saying that there were no spots left. We took the initiative to displace ourselves slightly to be covered, since we were getting wet and it was raining on our food. One of the waiters rudely came up to us, scolding us, saying we were not allowed to move the table because they “still had to be able to work” (we still left some corridor space and did not block anyone). A bit later, the same waiter rudely told her colleagues to quickly take the cushions away that we were initially sitting on because they were getting wet (we had to take new chairs ourselves).

We understand that the situation wasn’t ideal, and that space is limited.. but we expect to at least be treated with a degree of respect by not getting yelled at and by preventing our food from being in the rain.

We won’t be coming back, this was truly...

Regretfully we had one of our worse restaurant experiences ever here, in many years of multiple European travels...no idea why it gets so many good reviews?

SERVICE We were not told that half of the menu items were unavailable until we had been pushed several times over a few minutes to order a drink. This was incredibly disappointing considering we had picked this establishment for its renowned fish courses. The waiter was very aggressive to rush us through the meal and unattentive throughout (to name just one, he did not notice that we had no cutlery for the main).

QUALITY Very low quality LIDL type sliced bread that was old, in a region of baguettes it's a disgrace... The starter of charcuterie we ordered was also mass produced quality and you could see the shape of the packaging on it, definitely not freshly cut as advertised... The beef stew was hard leathery, cheap cuts. The fries were from a frozen bag, fried in old oil, that again a disappointing experience because frites are supposed to be a national pride?

CONCLUSION Awful food really, the ratio price/quality off the radar. The waiter finally realized that we were not impressed and did apologize, which sealed our opinion of it being a TOURIST TRAP. The next day we ate at a local homestyle traiteur on rue Grande, spent a third of the price and...

Over the past 10 years, I have been saving money to travel and explore the cuisines of different countries. This is the first time I've had a terrible experience because everything was bad. The first and worst thing is, I think the staff discriminated against me because I only speak English and don't know French or Belgian. The staff understood what I wanted but replied in another language and spoke loudly to me with an unfriendly attitude. I waited to speak to another staff member, but the second one had the same attitude. I waited quite a while for a table outside on the sidewalk. I was the first to arrive, but when a table became available, I went to sit down, and the staff gave the table to a couple who arrived after me, even though I was already waiting there. The customers who arrived after me had already been seated in another position earlier. When I complained, they pretended not to understand what I was saying and refused to serve me. I am very dissatisfied with the staff here. I wanted to speak with the restaurant manager, but unfortunately, no staff members spoke English. I wonder if they were pretending not to understand English since I noticed some Asian customers eating at...