Sunday, March 18, 2007

Meknes in Saint-Gilles

10pm on a Saturday night in South-West Brussels, a starving young couple is searching for food...

For once, we've decided not to walk up from home to Louise but rather to discover the Parvis de Saint-Gilles, a place we knew but weren't used to go to.
With quite realistic expectations, we thought we would get a still eatable pitta or dürüm in some fast-food restaurant, when we saw an open place called La table de Meknes in the middle of the square. Starving as we were, we haven't hesitated a minute and entered after a quick look at the menu posted at the door.
Spicy merguez and kefta, all served on a richly dressed plate with salad and French fries on the side by the most charming young boy, all topped by an offered fresh mint tea, truly warmed our hearts. We left the place knowing that we would certainly return very soon...
On our way back home, we saw a woman in her pajama's searching for someone in the street. Noticing that we were amused by her outfit, she looked at us smiling. We smiled back and went on our way.
This is the magic of Saint-Gilles, a town in the middle of the city, the sun right next to the moon, the warmth of Meknes in Brussels...

3 comments:

Erinc Salor said...

I was never a 'neighborhood kid', mostly because I preferred to be indoors and also because I was never aiming to be the most socially active. It is then a little surprising to find a neighborhood with such homeness about it. For the first time in my life, the local grocery, bakery and the newsagent know me. But on second thought, it is not so surprising, because it is with the person I share St.Gilles that I have discovered a new sense of homeness and for the first time, really and truly opened up for the other, for the other is for the first time so worth opening up to.
Thanks for such a clever choice of residence, and a much bigger thanks for everything else. I can only guess we will be finding out and enjoying the magic of many cities to come in the future.

Anonymous said...

hey, i wanted to send you an email concerning the dave & tim-concert almost two weeks ago.
but your address that you use to comment, doesn't seem to work.

Ayse Erin said...

Hi Maarten, it should work: canan@marasligil.ch
Try again!