Epoque Belgian Beer Cafe

Years ago, when I was backpacking around Europe, my dad took me to a Belgian restaurant in Amsterdam and we ate mussels cooked in white wine and cream. It was a spectacular meal. I can't help but want to relive that meal at Cammeray's Epoque Belgian Beer Cafe, which specialises in mussels and boutique Belgian beers.

Through the glass doors there's an agreeable buzz. Warm and cosy, it looks like the inside of a ship: all wooden wainscoting, bevelled mirrors and gleaming brass rails.

We tuck into a table for two and take it in. If design is about setting a mood, the interior is perfectly judged to pique a certain appetite: it calls for moules frites (mussels with chips) and Flemish beer.

Overawed by the almost 30 beers on the menu, only two of which I've heard of, we both opt for the white wheat beer Hoegaarden ($7.90/330ml), which is named as Belgium's most popular white beer. Does that make it Belgium's VB? The Hoegaarden arrives in a hexagonal glass with a branded coaster. I don't like it much: too sweet, wheaty, a flat finish.

The waitress helps with a recommendation. My friend tries the Duvel ($10.50/330ml), which she likes a lot more than I like my draught Leffe Blonde ($8.40/330ml).

Turning to the food, we try the blackboard special entree of puff pastry triangles stuffed with blue cheese, apple and walnuts. They're delicious: potent creamy cheese oozes out of the crisped golden pastry with crunchy bites of walnut. I also choose the mussels poulette ($24.90) cooked with cream, white wine, bacon, celery and onion.

The mussels arrive in a big black pot accompanied by a bowl of chunky, perfectly crisp chips and a dish of moreish mayonnaise. It's superb. Almost as good - perhaps as good - as that long-ago meal in Amsterdam.