A Taste of Gou

Recently, I had lunch with two friends at a small restaurant in Woluwe-Saint-Pierre, Belgium (just to the East of Brussels center). I had heard a lot about Gou, which is a French play on the word goût (taste). The name certainly lived up to my experience. I just wish that I hadn't tasted so much!

There is a limited lunch menu which offers several choices of pasta, fish, salad and steak. Two of my group decided to try the pasta, while the other tried the fish. I ordered the Papardelle with mushrooms, parma ham, roquette, and truffle oil. At first taste, this dish was phenomenal. The mushrooms and sauce were wonderfully prepared and I could really taste the hint of truffles that was written in the description of the dish. Then I took another bite. That is when the dish went downhill. The parma ham, while a good idea in theory, did not do so well in the practicality of the dish. As most people know, parma ham is a salt-cured product. Add that to the extreme amount of salt added to the rest of the dish, and you end up with a salt-laden waste of food. I ate what I could, but ended up saving the rest for my husband - who is a self-proclaimed "saltaholic" (and even he thought that it was too salty).

Salty Papardelle

My friend ordered the plank roasted salmon served over mixed vegetables and garnished with a light lemon sauce. She said that it was very good and it was also very nicely plated.

Salmon

Now comes the fun part. My friend's daughter was with us for lunch that day. She ordered the "Spighe" which, on the menu was described as: artisanal pasta, tuffed with ricotta, truffles, and sage butter. Seems pretty straight forward. What she ended up getting were four pasta dumplings filled with a gritty mixture of shrimp, salmon, and ricotta. On top of that was a slice of smoked salmon and a cream-based sauce. Never have I seen something so different from what was ordered come out of a kitchen. Luckily, she liked fish! On a side note, I was trying to determine if perhaps spighe is the Italian word for salmon or fish. It turns out, spighe is the plural of spiga, which is defined as being an ear of corn or a spike. I honestly have no idea why this dish was named as it was.

The Mysterious Spighe

After our mostly disappointing meal, we tried the desserts. My friend's daughter ordered the dark chocolate mousse, while I ordered the Dame Blanche (In Belgium, Dame Blanche - or white lady, is a very popular dish equivalent to an ice cream sundae. It consists of vanilla ice cream, whipped cream and a small pot of warm chocolate to pour over the sundae). While our main courses were all plated beautifully, the chocolate mousse looked like - as my friend so aptly put it, "Something you would find on a sidewalk." Once you look at the picture, I think that you will see what she means.

My Dame Blanche left a lot to be desired. For such a simple dessert, it should not be too hard to get it right. The ice cream had pieces of ice mixed in with it, making it almost gritty and not pleasing on the palate. The rest was fine, but for the price, I expected better.

After my lunch there, I spoke with another friend who loves Gou and has eaten there multiple times. She had never eaten there for lunch, only dinner. Maybe I will give it a try for dinner, but knowing how the dishes and descriptions vary, I am not so sure that I will go any time soon.


Gou
Avenue Orban 231
1150 BRUSSELS ( WOLUWE-SAINT-PIERRE )
Tel. : 02.770.20.25
Fax : 02.770.20.22
Closing days: Sunday, Monday
http://www.gou.be/

Pricing: For the three of us (with no alcohol), the bill came to around 70 Euros. I feel that for the quality of the food, the price was pretty high.

Ratings:
Ambiance: 7/10
Service: 8/10
Food: 6/10
Price: 6/10