Brussels hotels

A couple of my favourite restaurants in Brussels are La Grande Porte, 9 rue Notre-Seigneur, Marolles district: good trad Belgian cooking Vincent, 8 rue des Dominicains near Grande Place: slightly more expensive but excellent fish. But in general restaurants in Brussels are very good due to a choosy clientele. However, don't eat anywhere in the rue des Bouchers area north of the Grande Place except for Vincent or Aux Armes de Bruxelles - tourist trap central. Especially don't eat anywhere that has a guy standing outside dragging people in (you think I'm joking).

We'd recommend Place St Catherine, which is two Metro stops from the Central Station. That neighborhood has an excellent choice of restaurants at several price levels. Our final dinner the evening before leaving for London was at a Belgian restaurant that seemed to have about 20 duck dish variations on the menu and it was excellent. Unfortunately, I can't find the card at the moment so do not remember its name but its around the corner from the square and quite near a good laundromat on the same side of the street. I can't recommend Rick's 2 star Ibis hotel. It was probably a good budget offering with a very helpful staff and excellent location but just a tiny bit too downscale for us 70s age folks (room very, very small; no hand towels or wash cloths; no room safe . Fortunately, we ended up with a "triple" with our last-minute booking so had an extra bed on which to pile most of our stuff given the inadequate storage. Aside from the room, again kudos to the excellent staff.

I suspect the restaurant with duck was the Domaine de Lintillac at 25 rue de Flandre. I've been there as well - pretty good.

I agree with Jim about staying near Place St. Catherine. We like Hotel Les Ecrins. We had a delicious, fun meal at Le Fin de Siecle. Check the reviews to decide if it's the type of meal you're looking for!

Domaine de Lintillac at 25 rue de Flandre it was.