Aux Armes de Bruxelles

Just behind the Grand Place there's a fairly touristy street called Rue des Bouchers, which is supposed to mean the street of/with the butcher. It's cited as one of the biggest tourist traps in Brussels, but it's a lovely walk down the entire stretch lined with seafood restaurants.

The atmosphere is quite different at night - the cracks in the walls disappear, the peeling paint is no longer apparent and everything looks more colourful and vibrant.

Even the seafood displays seem to call out your name even louder

We did some homework and searched a number of food forums on the internet. We found Chowhound to be a pretty good start. Many of the posts mentioned that this was Aux Armes de Bruxelles was the only restaurant on this stretch that locals would patronise, so off we went in search of it on our 3.5 year wedding anniversary. We found it very easily, just opposite Chez Leon. We reached there about 9pm, and were fortunate to get a table that had just been vacated. First course: beer : )

Their bread was pretty good...we saved some for the mussel juice.

We ordered escargot to start with. These were fabulous. I loved the garlic+herb butter sauce.

Using the tongs was a bit more tricky. The husband nearly had a Slippery Little Suckers moment a la Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, but the flying shell was saved before it flew beyond the table.

I ordered a mussel pot with a tomato concasse base. This was lovely, and absolutely top quality. The mussels were extremely fresh and the flavours of the shellfish and combination of tomato, onion and garlic were incredible.

Mussels never come without fries : )

Plump and juicy : )

Website: www.auxarmesdebruxelles.be/