De Vleeshalle — Restaurant in Mechelen

Went inside, first thing I noticed was the grease smell due to probably a bad exhaust. Went outside to sit, and my clothing immediately smelled like grease for the whole day.

Can happen to the best.

Then ordered food. Had a poke bowl. Day old rice which was too hard, should be used for fried rice. Not good, cannot recommend.

Had a bun bowl, little amount of noodles which for some reason had kiwi, melon, grapes and pineapple in it. A bit too much bean sprouts for the little amount of noodles. A dressing which had no taste at all, I think they only used sesame oil... It should be a tangy sauce containing fish sauce at least. Nope, no flavour.

Not the first time I had a bun bowl, this is by far the worst I ever had...

Ordered butter chicken, which was okay-ish. Especially compared to the other dishes. Also not a lot of rice, and the rice was not that great either. But the butter chicken was decent.

Spaghetti Bolognese, too much money for again, a very little amount. The sauce wasn't that great either, not for the 17-18 euro or something I paid.

I see a trend in the volume of food you get...

I had high hopes and expectations for this. I really wished I liked it, but no, I won't be coming back anymore.

I recently went to Wolf in Antwerp. Similar prices, but bigger portions and much better in flavour. The price reflects the food you get.

I know food courts in Europe tend to be on the expensive side, but in the Vleeshalle I felt ripped of for lack of...

I would love to give a 5 stars but the experience is not as great as it could be. Reservations can only be made from 12 people so big groups of 8-10 people will have issues. We were 6 and it was quite hard to find a spot. We ended up in a small table. The system to order food works great and is fast and delicious. Price-wise, prices were very fair for most of the food. Personally, ordered a fish&chips and the food was simply perfect. The salmon was crispy and cooked perfectly. The fries were delicious as well. For 22 euros, it really is as best as it can get. Drinks were outstandingly expensive, I will complain at every place where I see 0.5L of water at 6.5€. ridiculous! Last but not least and the main reason why I cannot give it a 5 is the smell. Extraction is bad, or is clogged, but there is a constant smell of fried things and the worst is that you will take it home with you on your clothes and your hair. They should really improve that. If you need to be somewhere afterwards, I would recommend to not go. If you are going straight home, give it a try and take a...

Vastly overpriced food court . Not enough seating, but the seating that is available is so comfortable that people linger for hours, working on laptops but not consuming and not freeing up space for those needing a place to eat their lunch. Every stall has its own checkout and you have to pay at each place instead of working with a personal card that gets scanned , with paying at the end if your visit. Waiting for 10 minutes to order a drink, pay, then ordering something to eat somewhere else, pay, ( if the machine is working, they have had problems for weeks now) waiting for 10 minutes, get the overpriced dish while risking that your table is being occupied by others or possessions stolen. The owners urgently need to get their fingers out of their nose and start looking at successful foodcourts in Asia. Here you pay restaurant prices ( or even higher) for a very annoying self service concept where one even has to clean the table and sort the plates and cutlery.

Good points: the food that we tried was of good quality, with the steak and ale...