It was a sunny day in Brussels so we went with a bunch of colleagues for a quick lunch. Since we had enjoyed lunching in the garden of café Novo before, we decided to go there to have lunch outside. We were seven persons in total. Not a very big group, but the waitress asked us non the less to only order three different dishes.
From the start it was clear that the waitress didn’t have much experience. She started by bringing me the wrong drink. But ok, my drink got switched for the right one, so no big deal. We ordered two home made burgers, a sandwich with carpaccio, a falafel salad and a carrot soup (ok, so technically those are four different dishes, but we figured that the soup would be made in advance, so no extra hassle for the cook).
The waitress warned us that the sandwich could take some time. We were a little bit surprised by that, because, honestly, how long does it take to make a sandwich with carpaccio? Did they forget to bake the bread this morning? We joked a bit about it and waited for our food to arrive, meanwhile sipping from our drinks. My colleagues who ordered the home made ice-tea were very disappointed. The ice-tea was bright yellow and did not taste good.
One hour and a half later, we still didn’t have any food. We were by that time all very hungry and didn’t find it funny anymore. So when our food finally arrived (with no excuses whatsoever for taking this long), we were surprised to find that indeed the carpaccio sandwich still wasn’t ready.
Because we were all so hungry, we started eating, thinking the sandwich would arrive any moment. Sadly, the falafel salad I ordered was really terrible. The falafel was very dry, like eating sand. And there wasn’t enough salad on the plate. I finished my plate, since I was that hungry, but did not enjoy it at all. The home made burger and soup seemed to be better.
A quarter of an hour later, we had all finished, except for my poor colleague who ordered the sandwich. Since we were all running very late, he told the waitress to cancel the order and we left without him having eaten anything. An absolute disgrace.
Service at Novo was absolutely terrible. Never before have a been to a café or restaurant where one of the persons just didn’t get any food without any form of apology or compensation.
Personally I will never set food in this café again and I strongly advice against eating here.
Cafe Novo, Pl. de la Vieille Hle aux Bles 37, Brussels 1000, Belgium
http://www.cafenovo.be/
+32 2 503 09 05
Visited July 2014. You can find my review about Cafe Novo also on TripAdvisor. My scores: value 2/5, atmosphere 3/5, service 1/5, food 1/5.
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