ne gets an imitation of a
Parisian meal at half again the Paris price. I have little doubt that
the cessation of gambling will bring all the prices down at the hotels,
but during past years gamblers' prices have been asked and paid. At the
Continental there is a 10-franc _table-d'hote_ dinner, much patronised,
because people know exactly what it will cost them; and at the Palace
Hotel there is a _table-d'hote_ room where the food served is well
cooked; but it lacks the life and bustle of the restaurant, and most
people who go there for a meal or two revert to the restaurant with its
_a la carte_ breakfasts and dinner. There is a Chateau Laroque in the
cellars of the Palace at 7 francs a bottle which is quite excellent.
There is a little restaurant, called the Taverne St-Jean, in a side
street, the Rampe de Flandre, kept by an ex-head waiter from the
Restaurant Re at Monte Carlo, at which the cookery is thoroughly
bourgeois, but good of its kind and the prices low; and there is on the
quay a house, kept by a fisherman who is the owner of several smacks,
where the explorer who does not mind surroundings redolent of the sea
can get a good fried sole, and a more than fair bottle of white wine.

Any one who wishes to see what a Belgian meal can be in the number of
courses should go by train past Blankenberghe, which is a pale
reflection of Ostend, to Heyste, and partake of a mid-day dinner there
at one of the hotels patronised by the Brussels tradesmen and their
families, who come to the little sea-town for change of air. Fifteen or
sixteen plates piled in front, or at the side of each place, mark the
number of courses to be gone through, and most of the guests eat the
meal through from soup to fruit without shirking a single course.

CHAPTER IV

BRUSSELS

The Savoy--The Epaule de Mouton--The Faille Dechiree--The Lion
d'Or--The Regina--The Helder--The Filet de
Sole--Wiltcher's--Justine's--The Etoile--The Belveder--The Cafe
Riche--Duranton's--The Laiterie--Miscellaneous.

Brussels must have been a gayer city than the Brussels of to-day when it
earned the title of "a little Paris." There is at the present time very
little indeed of Paris about the Belgian capital, and, in the matter of
restaurants, there is a marked contrast between the two cities. Here the
latter-day Lucullus will have to seek in queer nooks and out-of-the-way
corners to discover the best kitchens and the cellars where the win