From The New Orleans Menu Daily By Tom Fitzmorris Originally published March 6, 2007 Clementine’s Belgian Bistro 3$ Gretna: 2505 Whitney Ave. 366-3995 Lunch Tues.-Thurs. Dinner Thurs.-Sat. DC, MC, V (No American Express) I spent some time in Belgium a few years ago. The food there was the most pleasant culinary surprise in all my European travels. Belgian restaurants have polished, unforgettably delicious food served in a French style but with much less pretension than in France. A handful of specialties come from the Flemish half of the country, but the flavors are overwhelmingly influenced by the French side. For the past few years, we've been treated to a good taste of Belgium at this charming restaurant in an unlikely location, a bit hidden in the innards of Gretna. It occupies the former Willy Coln's Chalet (a reference to ancient history, but surely some readers will know what I'm talking about). The great specialty of Belgian restaurant is mussels. So start there, with the offbeat garlic mussels--using the standard green sauce you find on snails, baked on the mussel shells. The flavor of the mussels gets subsumed, but scooping up the garlic-and-herb butter with bread is as good as ever. They do shrimp in a somewhat similar but less buttery way, and that's nice too. The standard entree serving of mussels in Belgian is measured in buckets. Four or five dozen. Clementine's has black mussels from the northeast Atlantic, fresh and vivid, served three different ways. My favorite is the vin blanc style, which includes not only the white wine of the name but also enough cream to make it pretty rich. Onions, herbs, and the mussel juices contribute to the sloshy sauce at the bottom of the big bowl, which is just great eaten with a spoon, dipped with bread, or even slurped out of a mussel shell. They also make the commonly-seen mussels mariniere without the cream, and a Provencale version with tomatoes. Each is good, involve the proper surfeit of mussels (mussels, the restaurants don't want you to know, are very cheap), and come with a side order of fries. The passion Belgians have for fried potatoes is so intense that the French make ethnic jokes on the subject. Let them laugh: Belgian fries are the world's best, and you never get enough of them. Clementine's are fresh-cut fries--which right there places them far above the local average. However, I've had better. (They're not quite crisp enough.) Ask for some mayonnaise, the classic dip for Belgian fries. The other rare specialty here is fondue, in the three classic versions: cheese (you dip bread), steak (you boil thin sliced in stock), and chocolate (you swish pound cake and fruit). Two people are required to order any of this, but the price is affordable. On the regular menu, the best items are the poulet estragon (chicken with a tarragon cream sauce), carbonnades Flamandes (an herbal Flemish-style beef stew), the almond catfish (which would be better with flounder or trout), and the basic sirloin steak with fries. They also make crepes stuffed with many different fillings, but these are very light. Crepes, speaking of that, make the best desserts here, and the best of those is the crepe Clementine. They bakes some apples into a thicker pancake than the word "crepe" suggests, top it with ice cream, and flame it at the table (if they can get the damn lighter to fire up) with Grand Marnier. The premises are modest but comfortable. The wine list isn't impressive, but the beer list includes those wonderful strong Belgian beers--some of them cloudy with yeast. The service staff is almost too nice, particularly one older waitress who came straight over from the old country and treats you like her family. If she serves your table, there's almost no way you can leave Clementine's without a smile on your face. Click here to return to today's edition. Click here for an index of all restaurant reviews. © 2007 Tom Fitzmorris. All rights reserved. news@nomenu.com.