Over the last few years, avocado’s have become more and more popular to the point that many people eat them every day now. But in the new Avocado Show in Rue Jean Stas in Brussels we recently found out there are still original and innovative ways to eat the green vegetable.
Text and food pictures by Mirte Spaey
We went for lunch in the newest restaurant of the Avocado Show chain in Brussels: in the Rue Jean Stas – a quiet side street of the busy l’Avenue Louise. From the bat, you can see this restaurant was not designed to be modest: with avocado-decorated windows, bright pink benches and ‘The Avocado Show’ in big golden letters, it demands to be noticed. The waitress enthusiastically welcomes us and brings us to our seats. We immediately feel the love.
Fruit or vegetable
It’s a never-ending discussion: is an avocado a fruit or a vegetable? We can’t write about the Avocado Show without first providing you with this crucial piece of information. Avocado’s are botanically a fruit as they grow on trees, but they are considered a vegetable because we eat them in ways that are similar to how we eat other vegetables. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s continue.
A good start
The Avocado Show doesn’t wait until the main course to wow you with its dishes. For starters, we got the fried avo fries and cauli flowers. When we bite into the moon-shaped avo fries, we immediately hear that perfect ‘crack’ of the crust. The creamy truffle mayo it comes with goes with it very well. The flavor of the avocado really comes through, and our initial doubts about warm avocado proved to be unnecessary. The cauli flowers were slightly less crunchy, but equally flavorful. They came with a less impressive mango mayo: we didn’t taste the mango and it could do with some more spices. But overall a very promising start.
Magic mains
The main dishes were our favorite. I ordered the Saint Stack of spirulina pancakes and my lunch partner the Mama Mango poké bowl. Both dishes – served on big blue ceramic plates – looked like works of art: so beautiful we almost didn’t want to eat them (almost). The green spirulina pancakes came as a stack of three, decorated with avocado slices, a pink flower and a generous amount of maple syrup. The pancakes were absolutely delicious, with hints of cinnamon and the earthy taste of spirulina. Texture-wise, the pancakes were very soft and moist like American pancakes should be. Avocado as a topping was surprisingly not bad, although some extra fresh fruit could have added some freshness to the dish. The portion was very generous, so if you’re really hungry this is the dish for you.
Both dishes looked like works of art: so beautiful you almost don’t want to eat them.
Mirte Spaey
The colorful Mama Mango poké bowl is perfect for a light, tasty lunch. It consists of a little bed of sushi rice, richly topped with mango, wakame, edamame and pickled cucumber. The flavors go very well together. The wasabi mayo could do with some more wasabi for that extra kick. The whole meal is held together by a crown of avocado slices. If you are hungry like a horse, however, we wouldn’t recommend this dish. Simply because it won’t be enough. But then you can also just order some extra dessert…
We went home very happy and will definitely return.
Mirte Spaey
Always room for dessert
On a beautiful pink plate, we were served the peanut butter avocado ice cream. It looked quite spectacular, with the black cone upside down on the ice cream. The texture wasn’t amazing: the ice cream was a bit crystallized and not that creamy. It was quite flavorful though: the peanut flavor really came through. We couldn’t taste the avocado, but maybe that’s not a bad thing. The peanut crumble underneath added some nice texture and did the trick. In short: we went home very happy and will definitely return. We highly recommend you try it out for yourself!
To check out the menu and everything else about the Avocado Show, visit www.theavocadoshow.com
