Sea Grill, Brussel **
 

For a long time I didn´t eat in Brussel. In former days I ate at Comme Chez Soi (3 star at this time), but I don´t have too good memories. So this time I wanted to try something new, In the end I decides to try Sea Grill, a 2 star restaurant.

The restaurant is located at the Radisson Blue hotel. The hotel (while not my choice) has a quite interesting lobby which includes parts oft he old town wall. Location is very central.
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The restaurant is semi-open to the lobby and elegant furnished. I liked especially the Orchidees in the middle.
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Service was very professional, friendly and convenient autious during our Lunch, very high level. We choosed the Lunch-menu with give you 2 choices per course and is with 65,00 € very reasonable priced.

First we got butter (unfortunately no explanation) and different kinds of fresh bread.
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First Amuse Bouche were Parmesan-balls with an anchovy – very good
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Second Amuse Bouche was a mouse with smoked fish inside – refined
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Third Amuse Bouche and at many starred restaurant an appetizer was a duo of mackarel with a kind of tortellini and a crab – great!
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Fruit-cocktail:
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Now it was time fort he first course. We both choosed „Little sole filets, Bouchot Mussels – curry, coconut, Spring Onion“.
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Stunning dish! Very good texture and perfectly done. Alternative was Sea Bream Carpaccio with Yuzu, Bergamot, Cucumber and red onion.

Next came the main-corse. I took „Back of Cod – Cress, Star Anise, Mousseline from Ratte Potatoes with Seaweed Butter“.
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A reasonable sized course of high quality. The fish was perfectly done and the potatoemash one of best I ever had. Overall a light dish - absolutely great!

My company had „Sea Bass – Girdles, Edame, Tomato, Balsamic Juice“.
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She absolutely loved it! I found it good but as it was very intense and „dark“ in it´s textures. If you like „heavy“ sauces with red wine you will really enjoy it. I preferred mine. That´s the advantage if you may choose…..

Now the pre-dessert: Marshmellow with rasperry-soup and dark chocolate ice. To die for!
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The dessert: We took „Carpaccio from Peach – Yoghurt, Verbena, Lime, Ice Soup“.
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It was a good dessert. I would call it solid but without absolute wow-effect.

For the end we got 4 very nice petit fours.
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Was hard to see at the neighboor-table that 2 women only eat 1 and 3 beautiful petit fours went it´s way back and (can´t really think about it) to the rubbish-collection. OK, she didn´t have my body but you have to set priorities

I can highly recommend Sea Grill, as our Lunch was on a very good 2 star level.

Tickets is just crazy popular - all the tables are booked within minutes of release. I'm actually going there day after tomorrow, looking very much forward to it. The trick (which I got from a Norwegian foodie blogger) is to be ready by your computer two months out at midnight to place a reservation. That's when the tables are released (and subsequently booked in a whiff). Good luck!

I gave up on Spain and booked Tantris in Munich and another two star outside Venice. I hope you will come back and tell us how it was! Have a great meal

Thanks a lot, will definitely report back!
I hope you do too, sounds like exciting restaurant choices!

If you had to pick just one of the starred restaurants in Athens, which would it be? And a second choice?

We're looking at Funky Gourmet and probably one other place for mid-October.

I would think that Funky Gourmet and Spondi would be the two premier destination restaurants in Athens. I've been meaning to get to Spondi for awhile but haven't managed to. Former chef Arnaud Bichnon is now at the Greenhouse here in London. If Spondi now under his former sous chef continues in his style, I would expect a very heavy meal.

Andy Hayler was at both in May and has extensive reviews on his website.

We went and did it through the "tickets tour" that you can get pretty easily. I absolutely loved that restaurant. Probably my favorite overall place in the world, since it is 100% normal there to wear shorts. :)

Awesome, thank you! Radisson might be up there with Westin, Aman and Four Seasons as my favorite luxury brands after seeing that they have restaurants of this caliber.

Going to Momofuku Ko (2 stars) for wedding anniversary dinner tomorrow. I've been to Ssam Bar (very good) and Noodle Bar (less impressive), so will be interested to see how David Chang's flagship turns out. I am excited.

just wondering how the french food rates on regent cruise line its 6 star dining and am traveling in 2 weeks out of nyc thanks

The Ninth, London, England, UK [REVIEW:PHOTOS]
 

Our dinner experiences, July 2017

My fiancé and I have followed Jun Tanaka from afar since he was responsible for the Pearl Restaurant at the Renaissance Chancery Court. This is now the Rosewood London.

We had always wondered where he had gone to and were happy to find out he had a new restaurant, called The Ninth, and holding 1 Michelin star. It is his 9th restaurant hence the name.

The cuisine is inspired by Jun Tanaka's travels.

In July/August 2017 we spent a long weekend in London, so we booked a table for dinner at Jun Tanaka's newest venture.

It is located on Charlotte Street, within ca. 20 minute walking distance to the British Museum. There are other Michelin stared restaurants in the area, one even on the same street, and the Charlotte Street Hotel is just across the road.

Again the front is unassuming like The Portland (see review) and we walked past The Ninth once, when looking for it.

At the time the weather was nice, so patrons could choose to sit outside on the small terrace and enjoy the sun.

We were greeted warmly by the Maître d' and brought to our table. Our jackets were taken.

Tables were close together, so we could easily overhear the conversation of our neighbors. If you are looking for privacy or a more peaceful atmosphere this isn't the place to go to. It was probably the loudest of the four Michelin stared venues we had lunch or dinner during our three nights/four days in London in July/August 2017.

Our fellow diners were international and one group celebrated a birthday.

Soon afterwards we were asked if we would like to have an aperitif or a bottle of water. We asked for still water, which was The Ninth Eau de Vie.

We also had a The Ninth Cocktail. It was a refreshing summer drink and we liked rather much, it's made with Hendrick's Gin and served as a Martini.

Since it was our first time at The Ninth we were explained that all dishes on the menu were made for sharing and we should choose five to six each. They would arrive whenever they were ready. If we wanted we could have a break after a certain amount of dishes arrived.

The waitress and we had a discussion about Bilbao and oxtail, since one of the dishes we had ordered was oxtail croquettes. We had eaten this particular delicacy the first time at the Cafe Metropol at the Gran Hotel Domine in Bilbao last year. She had been to Bilbao and the Biskaya too, but more for the wine. The croquettes came highly recommended by her, though.

One of our neighbors ordered it, too, but the rest of his family wasn't interested, even so he tried to convince them to try some.

Our choices were as follows:

Four oxtail croquettes,
Burrata, Datterini and fresh almonds,
flamed mackerel, dill, cucumber, capers,
sea bass Carpaccio, salsa Verde and pickled Kohlrabi,
Osso Buco tortellini,
rabbit lasagna,
chargrilled cauliflower, tomato and yogurt,
one slice of Comte cheese, 36 months aged with crackers,
Pain Perdu and the caramelized lemon tart.

All dishes looked appetizing and were outstanding in flavor.

The oxtail croquettes were moreish.

The Burrata was creamy and worked well with the crunch of the almonds and the juicy, sweet-tart Datterini tomatoes.

Both fish dishes were refreshing and beautiful.

The Osso Buco tortellini and rabbit lasagna were astoundingly light, considering that these are traditionally heavier dishes.

The cauliflower was crunchy, while the yogurt was soft. Flavor was added by the tomato. Jun Tanaka is famous for his vegetarian dishes, so you should try at least one.

The Comte was stronger in flavor, still not over powering, ideal for a taster.

The Pain Perdu was thick, crispy on the outside but soft on the inside and large. It tasted heavenly with the vanilla ice cream.

Normally I'm not a big fan of lemon desserts. It's more his thing, so I was pleasantly surprised when the lemon tart found the right balance between being sweet and tangy. The slice was ideal for sharing too.

The bill was 110.81 GBP / ca. 125.20 Euro / ca. 142.80 USD including service charge.

We would return, because we like the sharing concept, the colorful and tasty dishes and the warm and personal staff. Value for money is very good too in our opinion.

Here's a selection of our images we took during our memorable dinner in July 2017 including:

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Would we recommend this restaurant to a friend? YES! ^
Would we want to enjoy lunch/dinner at this restaurant again in our future? YES! ^

Thank you and safe travels. :)

Congrats on the anniversary! Let us know how it is--I'll be at The Modern this week and Atera this weekend. Will report back as well.

The Modern is excellent. I enjoyed Atera when I went, but the food was a little too muted when it came to the flavors. I would be interested to hear your opinion, as the head chef is somebody different now.

Thanks! But only restaurant-wise;) The hotel itself seems to be a standard business-house.

The food Looks very good, well worth considering it^

Sorry I didn't take pictures because my wife and I had dinner last night at Tempura Matsui in New York and it was spectacular in every way. I think it might be all fixed course, with a few selections of numbers of courses in the meal you get. We got the kaiseki course. They bring out a set up before the first course including a small plate to squeeze fresh lemon onto as well as a cool lemon squeezing gizmo, a bowl of tempura dipping sauce, fresh grated diakon radish to add to it and two types of salt. Each course is delivered to the table by a waiter with chopsticks and he explains which sauce or salt to use with it. The do one course at a time. They alternate vegetables and things like squid and snow crab. We also got the lobster add on which was sublime. The tempura is super thin and crispy. It was a wonderful experience. It has one star and I think it deserves 2. It's a small place, 19 seats I think it said. The chef was a retired chef from Tokyo who a fairly large restaurant company, mainly based in Japan, brought out of retirement to run a restaurant in NYC.

I highly, highly recommend it. One of the most friendly service and superb food experiences I've had for a while. Probably have to back a few years to a 3 star restaurant in Rheims to match it.