FOODSQUARE — Restaurant in Machelen

This 'restraunt' is very poor. We arrived as part of a tour bus staying at the Novotel Brussels Hotel. Restraunt was not ready to serve any of us and closed their doors for an hour, and we were told to come back. The bar was closed, so the only option was to buy some drinks from a vending chiller and pay at the hotels reception. Bottle of Leffe and 2 small bottles of wine. We were offered paper cups to pour our drinks into! I managed to get a Stella Artois glass for my Leffe from the restaurant manager. Yes I am a glass snob! When we were allowed in the food was worse than you would expect in a café. I ordered sardines on toast....is this really how this is served in Belgium? See photo - few leaves of iceberg lettuce, some crispy bread (similar to the very dry toasty things you can buy in Lidl) and a half opened tin of sardines still in the oil. Again I may be mistaken and this is a Belgiun delicacy? My wife ordered the Croque Monsieur. Or grilled ham and cheese sandwich. We had one of these in Wales last week and it was lovely - fresh sourdough bread with fresh ham and grilled cheese and bechemel sauce, onions etc. This was two slices of processed white bread, toasted to an inch of its life, processed cheese and ham, the latter of which was actually burnt! My sister had Tuna Rillettesd crispy bread. Same type of crispy bread that I had. I queried if there was actually a chef out the back or whether the front of house staff were preparing the food themselves. I ordered myself a belgiun beer that never arrived! I will say that the chips were really nice especially with some Belgiun mayo. We must go to the supermarket and get one of those mayo bottles. I appreciate that the front of house staff were doing their best but for a restaurant in a well known and nice hotel this isn't...

We had chicken, Flemish stew and fries. The stew was 2/3 edible and 1/3 literally had to be spit out. The chicken dish wasn't as good as frozen pot pies. The fries seemed like they had been fried 2 or 3 times. Service was fast. Price of 43 Euros was about 10 times too high. I suspect that the food was frozen when purchased and then heated to be served. Gordon Ramsey might have spotted that when the food came out. A lady behind us had very very little of her chicken dish (Vol au Vent), the same one as mine, and left most on her plate. She did eat her fries and finished...

Was hoping to place an order until the host/server looked at me with a unkind look and asked verbatim “What do you want?”. It was rude and unprofessional to say the least. I expect more from a nice hotel's restaurant. It would seem since there's no food around he feels he can get away with it.

I wouldn’t bother with this unless you want drinks, but he talked unkindly to other customers too while I stood there. The atmosphere is nice but I ended up just Uber Eats...