On Saturday we had a great girls’ evening out, the last one before I leave for Sweden next Sunday. We were only five, two French girls (C & S) and three Swedish girls (M, J & me) and I was worried that we would be even less as Brussels is not the healthiest of cities at the moment – J had been home all week and I am still coughing, but the other three girls seem to have managed to avoid the current flu/cold epidemic.
We started off at Café Central on Place St Géry, close to La Bourse (the old Stock Exchange in the centre of Brussels). Place St Géry is a square full of bars: PP (it used to be called Puck Puck – I always used to wonder if it was puck like ice hockey puck?!), Le Roi des Belges (great sandwiches), Zebra (my friend Å’s real Gucci bag was stolen there in 2002), Mezzo (the bar with a dance floor!), Mappa Mundo (the walls are covered in maps) – and Café Central, which I couldn’t remember until we arrived there on Saturday and I realised that it was the “alternative” bar!
I have heard that 10 years ago this area was very seedy and the buildings were falling apart, before a group of entrepreneurs decided to renovate and invest in the area. Nowadays it is one of my favourite places in the centre of Brussels, all the bars have terraces which are completely packed in the warmer seasons and during the day you can sit and read your paper, have a coffee or lunch. However, it had been ages since I had been out in the area so I decided that it had to be the place for my last night out in Brussels!
Dinner was reserved in a very special restaurant – an Ethiopian place called Kokob where you eat with your fingers! It had a great atmosphere and we ordered a discovery menu for 18 EUR each – the food was served on a big round plate in the middle of the table, different kinds of stews and vegetable mixes which we ate with the help of some small pancakes. Yummy! I really like dinners which make you interact with the others – like raclette, fondue or just eating from the same plate!
After dinner we returned to Place St Géry and headed to Mezzo, which was buzzing with life – S and I had mojitos of course! The first time I had a mojito was in Brussels more than 5 years ago, in Sweden it hadn’t really become popular yet (at least not in Lund!) but in Brussels everybody was drinking either mojitos or capirinhias. We found a table close to the dance floor where we listened to the music and talked – there is a ten year gap between the oldest and the youngest of the girls but you wouldn’t know it, we had such a great time together. At 02 we headed home with a sneezing taxi driver…
I forgot to mention the presents that the girls had bought me; a pink hoodie with a Manneken Pis-drawing and a magnet where it says “Brussels – where rain is usual” (perfect for our stainless steel fridge in San Juan!). Really sweet souvenirs of Brussels and of my lovely friends here!
Quote of the evening: ABBA, aren’t they dead?
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