Canal — Restaurant in Vilvoorde

The place looks polished, clean and design-ish and there is a lot of space and a pleasant view on the canal. Reservations are simple and convenient to book. The food however and presentation, I have difficulty understanding: I ordered mussels and believe me, they taste better at Delhaize. The quantity didn’t seem much, I suppose a little less than a kilo since usually these mussel pots are entirely full till the top if not, more)The pot they came in was half rusty - probably clean but looked like it belonged in the trash. Its common curtesy to bring special napkins to wipe off the smell of fish, a spoon perhaps for the soup? however none were given. The surprise of the evening was that on the online menu they were listed at 24,50€(No mention of quantity) when the bill arrived they charged 28€! That is OUTRAGEOUS for “mussels nature”. I mentioned it to the waitress and she told her boss that didnt bother to talk to me and told the waitress it was because “the quantity was more”. That was written nowhere and i didnt ask for this, I ordered what was on their menu- not a “special” extra 3,50€ Noone asked for. Its a matter of principle. I have an allergy to sneaky things like this. The waiters however were polite...

Let's start with the good stuff. The view is very nice and the food is very reasonable. The croquettes were good and well fried and the presentation was good as well. The carpaccio was good too. The filet pure could have been a little less dry around the edges and I suspects (not sure) the sauce to be not ready made. The fries were very good. The mussels were a little overcooked.

However, the staff was mostly absent and one of the staff members refused to speak any English. It's okay, we were a quadrilingual party but the rude refusal to speak English was a let down. The food came very slowly as well. It took over an hour for the main course to make it out of the kitchen. All in all the bill came to over 130 euro for 3 person's for 3 starters and 2 main courses.

In short: if you speak Flemish or French and are not super picky about your food and have time to spare then this is a good spot. If you don't speak Flemish or French, are a little picky about your food or don't have money to burn then this is not the...

Disappointing. The menu has been drastically reduced since we last visited. Even though it is printed on a plain piece of paper, lots of choices were not available. Appetizers are mainly deep fried. The wine list is very limited, with for example only three white wines, of which one was not available. The service was not attentive, forgetting to inform us about the suggestions (of which one was not available). The meat was not cooked as ordered. We ended up spending 60€ p.p. on a lunch that consisted of deep fried appetizer and a steak. When we came home, we discovered we had been charged €14 too much, for the...