Vuvuzela

Feeling a bit adventurous on Tuesday, Eve and I decided to take a 30-something minute bike ride to the Vuvuzela in Ham. Once we had a handle on how we supposed to order drinks, and after the food had finally turned up, it was all very pleasant.

The service did feel quite slow and, while they certainly weren’t speedy, I may be being a little unfair here.

With Tuesday being a public holiday, we’d had quite a late breakfast and, consequently skipped lunch. As such, we were both more than a little peckish by the time we arrived. Then we realised that the couple at the next table had ordered a stone-grilled steak. This is where you get the raw meat and a hot stone so you can cook your own — and it smelled so good…

Some of the slowness was probably also a reflection of the fact that this is primarily a fiets cafe — somewhere for cyclists to stop for a drink. I’m guessing, therefore, that they would normally expect you to order food at the bar and are struggling a bit with the switch to table-service that the coronavirus restrictions have imposed on them.

This has left them, however, with the maddest compromise possible.

While someone will come to our table to take our food order, and to serve the food once it’s finally ready, we are still expected to traipse into the bar to order and collect our drinks. It would probably be a bit saner to accept that things will be a bit slow and let the waiting staff handle the drinks as well.

That said, the drink selection was rather good — with much of it on draft as well. They have several very local beers, including their own Vuvuzela Bier. This was okay, but I much preferred the Cuvée Clarisse, a strong dark ale from Brouwerij Wilderen.

The food itself was very Flemish, which is no bad thing, and sitting on a terrace with a beer and burger is one of the better ways to spend a summer evening.

The cafe itself is situated in a large outdoor area with plenty of space for walking, cycling and mini-golf.

The kids should all be able to manage the bike-ride there, so we will certainly go back to explore further. Although next time, I will be very tempted to order some snacks along with our main course, just to keep us going while we wait.