Dubai: As I stepped inside Lucien, a Belgian café in the heart of Bur Dubai, I had a narrow agenda: explore the Flemish items before everybody else gets there.
It must be said that until then Belgian cuisine had been an unfamiliar territory to my palate, though not to my dining partner (Frenchman and our lensman Abdel). So as we placed the orders, I was a bit uncertain how my first tryst with the Belgian dishes would turn out.
For appetisers, we tried the traditional Dutch Bitterballen (Dh42), made of finely ground beef (topside) mixed with onion, carrots, celery, parsley and mustard paste. As the beef is literally turned into a paste, the fusion of beef and mustard sauce – coated in crunchy deep-fried crust – is interesting to say the least. It was the first ‘wow’ moment of the night.
Our starters, called Asparagus Flamande, is a delightful jumbo green asparagus with chopped hard-boiled egg, parsley and nutmeg mixed with clear butter. We tried Lucien’s six-piece shrimp salad (Dh59) too, which came with generous amounts of avocado strips, doused in olive oil vinaigrette. The serving is simply delicious, and is quite a meal in itself, if you’re not hungry as a hunter.
Beef it up
Beef Carbonade (Dh79) came for the main course, an intense Flemish-style beef stew with fries. This, the hotel’s award-winning executive chef Suresh Kumar explained, is made of topside beef sautéed in beef stock and slow cooked for about four hours. The result: the beef swims in its own thick creamy sauce, a bit like the Tagalog beef ‘caldereta’. The Belgian fries (twice larger cut than French fries) tasted great when tossed into the sauce while the beef somehow melted in my mouth.
Lucien does offer international flavours too – Chicken Tikka Masala, Paneer Makani, Tortellini Ricotta, and Thai chicken curry as well as light meals. From the grill, one can order beef medallions and steaks – ranging in price from Dh95 and Dh159, which at 450 grams (16oz) are hefty cuts. We skipped all that for the moment.
My personal favourite for the night, though, was the steamed mussel pots (Dh145) which came in three flavours. What I liked best was the blue cheese-flavoured pot. Make sure you ask for this and where the mussels are from. At 800 grams a portion, the Australian mussels we had were great, the best I’ve found this time of the year – they’re just the right size and won’t torture your jaw. I’d give this a five star. The two other flavours, though, I found uninteresting.
The restaurant seats 120 and gives a good of view of night life in the area. The crowd we saw was quite multinational. A duo of entertainers sang in a corner (Yana and Robert).
What better way to cap off the night than to have the crispy Belgian waffle served with apple compote (stewed apple, Dh32) - simple yet divine. All of that was washed down with my coco-nutty virgin pinacolada (Dh30), which I found to be just as expected.
Lucien is a Belgian café, alright. The ambience gives it a throwback to the 50s and 60s. While the menu is decidedly Flemish, it gives diners an options to try out eclectic mix of flavours too. The four-star outlet does know how to make some five-star food (with great steaks that are quite reasonably priced). If you want to try something new and tasty when in Bur Dubai, Lucien may be a good first stop.
Details
Meal for two: Between Dh180 and Dh240
Location: Ramada Hotel, Bur Dubai
Opening hours: noon to 2am
Call: 04-506 1158
