Lobster House in Brussels, featuring Parc du Cinquantenaire
Trying moules et frites, or steamed mussels and fried potatoes in Belgium sounded great. Our question was where. The Lobster House, a restaurant that offered seafood, Belgian specialties and traditional dishes near the Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert, seemed popular and worth a try based on pretty good reviews on tripadvisor.
It was between noon and one, I think. The restaurant wasn't busy with a lot of empty tables, which was good for us who didn't make a reservation - meanwhile it made me a bit worried about the place. Anyway, we ordered "Dijonnaise"-flavored mussels and paella to share. Both tasted fine. Mussels were not amazing but pretty good. Seafood, especially large shrimps and tender calamari in paella were enjoyable. The portion was generous and a little bowl with warm water and flower pedals to clean hands was a nice touch.
Before those dishes, we had gray shrimp croquettes as a starter. The filling was thick creamy sauce and sweet North Sea baby shrimps. I liked them very much. They were just like Ebi-Cream Korokke (Japanese Croquette with shrimp and Béchamel based sauce).
We enjoyed our relaxing lunch in a relatively quiet dining room. It was truly needed after our long walk to Parc du Cinquantenaire and in a huge museum there in the entire morning of the day without breakfast or even water.
Parc du Cinquatenire, or Park of the fiftieth anniversary was built during the reign of Leopold II, King of the Belgians from 1865 to 1909, to commemorate fifty years of Belgian independence. It was about 30 minute walk straight on Rue de la Loi/Wetstraat. Somehow we didn't see any cafe open on the street. Our plan to grab breakfast and drink on our way didn't work.
We simply walked toward the giant arch at the south eastern point of the park that was seen from a distance. Morning sunlight in the mid-February gently shined on the park and arch.
The two northernmost halls of the historic complex in the park housed the Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and of Military History, where we spent almost three hours.
The museum was enormous with the extensive collections of large and small various things from the Middle Age, Napoleon, WWI-II and modern times.
Surprisingly the museum had a gateway to the top of the giant arch. It was a great work out to go up the narrow spiral stairs to the exhibition room just below the top floor. When we reached there, we found there was actually an elevator. How did we miss it? Anyway, the view from the top made us feel very nice. The weather was fantastic.
To be continued...
