The chef at Belga Cafe is pretty accomplished. Lots of noteworthy “palmares” to use a cycling term. It’s advertised as a Belgian restaurant complete with a proper Vlaamse chef. Having spent some time living in that part of the world, I am always anxious to eat at a place that is properly European. They offered a limited selection for Restaurant Week (RW):
Lunch
Red & Green—Tomato confit stuffed with baby grey shrimps and Salade Roulade with goat cheese and fresh herbs
Mussels—Mussels with Rodenbach beer, asparagus and bacon
or

Steak—Grilled hanger steak with béarnaise-beer sauce, farm vegetables and Belgian fries

Red Fruit Soup—Cherry and peach beer soup with fresh berry’s, home made vanilla ice cream
Dinner
Tomato, Sushi & Cigaar—Tomato gelee with seafood and curry-creme, a Chinese salad with Belga’s Cigaar and ‘Belgian Endive Sushi’

Rabbit and Crawfish—Rabbit fillet and sausage with sautéed Girolle mushrooms and crawfish tails, accompanied by a lobster and béarnaise sauce

The Belga Dessert Sampler—Belgian chocolate, summer fruit, home-made ice cream and Belgian Waffle
Nothing particularly struck a fancy with me, plus I wanted some good Belgian mussels, so I forewent the RW menu and went straight for the normal menu. I had:
Lauwe Aspargesalade: a baked asparagus salad with frisee tossed in a simple vinegarette topped with slightly cooked pieces of salmon. I have to note here that they totally forgot I ordered this. As I reminded them after one of my dining companions had already finished her salad and they were setting down the flatware for the next course, they finally brought it to me. Time was about 40 minutes after we sat down at the table. I’ll revisit this issue later. The salad itself was perfectly done otherwise. The salmon was fresh and just the right combination of seared on the outside and pretty much raw on the inside.
Mussels with Rodenbach Ale, bacon, and asparagus: Nothing really to say except this was exactly what I was looking for. Served with Vlaamse frites, this really hit the spot. Not a bad thing to say about this and you get exactly what you think it is. The mussels themselves were perfectly done.
Ice cream with waffles and chocolate sauce: Simple, exactly what the name of it is. The waffles were soft and tasty, the chocolate sauce was the consistency of Nutella, but good nonetheless. It reminded me of getting waffles at this corner pastry shop on the Leidsestraat in Amsterdam. Not Belgian, I know, but they were good waffles.
So I have to mention that the service was flat out bad. Between them forgetting my salad, LONG delays in service, I was really ready to hate this place. I really wanted to hate the aspargesalade but, damn, it was good. I just couldn’t get myself to do it. The place was packed, and we even had to wait quite a while to get our seat even though we had a reservation. The staff was trying though, and I think RW just really pushed the limits of the small space and the small staff. I’m not quite sure I could hold that against them in good conscience. I definitely would like to go back when it’s not RW and see how different things are then. I’m definitely going back for the mussels.
Belga Cafe
514 8th St SE
Washington, DC 20003
(202) 544-0100