First (partial) disappointment at the Houtsnip

This is diet time, which does not imply we avoid restaurants. We plan them in our weekly eating in order to reduce their impact as well as we are more cautious on what we take. Anyway, the Houtsnip has been something of a place we always liked to go. Reasonably priced and very good food. Before today a safe 13th in our ranking. So, today we were surprised.

The lunch started rather well. Despite it was unusually busy, we got our menu's pretty fast accompanied by the amuse. Amuse was simple but tasty: a little carpaccio and an asparagus foam with a little of smoked eel. The starter was also pretty nice. A salad with half a lobster tail, lobster claw tempura and tuna. I found it very tasty, but the oil flavor was a bit too strong. After the starter, we got surprised.

First they served us some sort of salmon piece on top of pesto pasta with fried onions on top. Taste? Onion and oil. Nothing else in it. Very disappointing. The following course was worse ... a little piece of cod on top of a tomato sauce, which tasted as a pre-made supermarket mushroom and tomato sauce and some ham on top of the fish it. And they called it cod in a ham jacket with comfit of tomato. Horrible! First time I get something so bad in Belgium.

Luckily, the dessert was tasty. A very nice strawberry and chocolate parfeit followed by a chocolate mousse on caramel biscuit base ... and a nice coffee.
To make things more disappointing, the service was not very friendly and professional (wine served too late and dishes taken away once even if we were not finished). All in all, this place let us down for the first time.

Would I go back? Not immediately.