Belgian Yummyness

Belgium's probably not on your list of places to go if you're into food. It wasn't on mine, for sure. But in the days leading up to our trip there, I started thinking about what it'd be like and, true to my nature, what the food'd be like. All I kept thinking about, though, was waffles. I figured that I'd eat some big, ole', fat, Belgian waffles (like the ones we used to make at Nifty Fifties). But, more importantly, guess what I discovered also comes from Belgium!!!

FRENCH FRIES!!! Along with the namesake waffles, fries are everywhere!!! Here's a fry shop (Friterie) right next door to a waffle shop in historical area of Brussels:

In fact, the first thing we did (after Diana's appointment) on our first full day in town was try some fries at a little Friterie stand near the tram stop.

The guy working there was a character and we had fun ordering in a combination of Spanish, English, and German.

Fries in Belgium (and in Amsterdam, I'd later find out) are usually served in a paper cone and topped with mayonnaise or flavored-mayonnaise sauce. We opted for the Andaluse sauce this time, which was a slightly spicy one that we really liked. I know that for Americans the idea of mayo on your fries is a bit strange but I'm digging it. Even in Spain, a common topping for fries (or patatas bravas as they're called) is similar to this sauce.

As has been the case like when I didn't find pretzels at the Pretzelfest, or when I didn't see Perrier while in France, I didn't really know if they eat waffles in Belgium. Well, let me put that to rest...they do!

They're everywhere and seemed that people eat them like people in the United States would eat a doughnut, either as a breakfast food or a snack during the day. I came across this place (with a really strange character-based theme) near Manequin Pis that was selling them for 1 euro (about $1.30 U.S.). The kids were literally lined up to buy them.

One of my favorite things to do while traveling is going to supermarkets to check out what they're selling. I went to three or four different ones on this trip but forgot to take photos until our last day when I ran into a Carrefour to take a picture of their waffle display area. Carrefour, which is a French supermarket chain kinda' like a Target and a supermarket fused into one, is not really the best representation of a Belgian supermarket but it'll have to do. As you can see, there are six different types of ready-made waffles in just this one photo in just this one store. Belgians seem to like their waffles!

I ended up trying a couple of different ready-made ones and these were my favorite. They come in a bag of five individually-wrapped waffles and they have this difficult-to-describe crunchy sugar (they call them sugar pearls) inside that are addictive.

I think I managed to polish off like ten of them (waffles, not bags!) in the few days that we were in Belgium. Breakfast each day looked something along the lines of this:

...and lunch looked a bit like this (fries with a "samurai" sauce in Ghent):

Belgium's also, obviously, known for its chocolate. Godiva is from there and I saw Godiva stores on quite a few corners around Brussels. Diana and I sampled chocolates, truffles, and hot chocolate from a few independent chocolate shops. My review in just two words: outrageously delicious. Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos but you probably already know what chocolate looks like.

The last Belgium-is-known-for food we ate were mussels, which we had at a restaurant in the center of Brussels. Yep, Brussels mussels, with a side of fries, of course:

In case you're wondering, the mussels on the left had a Tuscan sauce on them and the ones on the right had an amazing garlic-butter sauce. Mussels aren't on my favorite-foods list but (Diana and) I enjoyed them and the rest of our Belgian delicacies:

Ghent Belgium

Diana and I spent a rainy and fun-filled full day in Brussels but wanted to check out another town before we left Belgium. We talked about going to Bruges, which is a popular town with tourists northwest of Brussels up near the North Sea. The only thing that I knew about Bruges was that there was an art movie a bunch of years ago called "In Bruges". I never saw it but it was just enough for me to be interested in going there. Diana had been there (of course) but she was up for going back so I could check it out.

It just so happens that there was a young student from Spain living in one of the other bedrooms of the house we stayed in (via airbnb) who we made quick friends with. He had been living in Brussels for about ten months and suggested that we go to the town of Ghent as it was possibly even cooler and not nearly so touristy compared to Bruges. It was that easy. The next morning we took the train about one hour northwest of Brussels to the exceptionally well-preserved medieval town of Ghent:

Ghent has about 600,000 people and for years was one of the largest and richest cities in Europe. Walking around the historic core is an architecture fan's dream. I can't find the dates but I think these two awesome houses are from like the 1500s:

Ghent is fairly quiet but quite nice. We went on a Friday so I'm guessing that it might get a bit more crowded on the weekends or during summer (if summer ever comes to northern Europe!?!?). We lucked out on the day we were there as it was rain-free, which I'm under the impression is a fairly rare event. Random Ghent street scene:

And what's a real medieval European town without a castle? Well, Ghent's got one of those too! I love this photo with the super-modern tram running in front of the Gravensteen Castle, which was built in 1180:

Diana and I wanted to take advantage of the relatively nice day by eating outside somewhere but we couldn't really find anything we wanted. Instead, we went to a local supermarket and bought some snacks, drinks, and the ingredients to make sandwiches. A few minutes later and very few steps away, we found our lunch spot. We chose these stairs overlooking one of Ghent's canals. Can you ask for a better picnic spot???

In Diana's quest to visit every church in Europe, we stopped by as bunch while we were in town. In one of them, we came across this religion-inspired fashion show, which definitely wins the award for unusual things you might find in a church. I'm guessing that it was put together by the daughter of someone who's well-connected and that the church's senior person is somewhat flexible.

Oh, and the best? ANOTHER head of John the Baptist! No self-respecting European church should be without their own sculpture of good-ole' John's head.

The amount of beautiful buildings and canals in Ghent is impressive but it almost seems too perfect - like it was designed by Disney or something. But I can say that it's definitely worth a day trip. On our way out of town, we stopped to take photos on a bridge that had great views of the city but we thought that we'd shoot a video instead. And for those folks who like to find mistakes, I say in the video that we're in Ghent, Brussels but it should have been Ghent, Belgium. :-)  Enjoy!

Brussels

This was another trip made possible by a meeting that Diana had. A quick two days back in Barcelona after our whirlwind Italy trip, we flew up to Brussels to spend time checking out Belgium before going on to Amsterdam for a couple of more days, something that I was really looking forward to.

Brussels (and Belgium as well) is one of those places that I never figured that I'd visit but I was excited to "add" another country to the growing list (I'm a simple guy, I guess). There had never been a reason before but, there we were, in the city that's sort of the Washington, DC of Europe. Like its United States' counterpart, there seems to be a lot of folks with money there. You know, people in suits, big SUVs everywhere, and really expensive places to get a drink. In the case of Brussels, it's caused by the fact that the European Parliament, which serves as the centralized government body for Europe, and NATO (among others) are based there. The it-probably-won't-be-winning-any-architectural-awards-anytime-soon European Parliament building:

What I can tell you about the city is that it rains. A lot. They say around 200 days per year (not just cloudy - but RAIN) and I can attest that it's wet there. We were walking through the Grote Markt (the Grand Place), the city's main square, on our only full day in town and it was coming down like we were taking a shower. In a lot of good ways, the city reminded my of Munich, especially in the main square and surrounding area. The Brussels Town Hall and Grote Markt:

We arrived on Wednesday evening and Diana's meeting was early on Thursday. After her meeting, we headed into the city center to walk around and achieve my goal of eating some of the food items that Belgium is known for (I'll write about that in another story). When it wasn't raining unbelievably, the city was quite lovely and seemingly a nice place to live but probably not as interesting as Munich or some of the other places that I've been.

This little street was full of buildings that housed restaurants serving tourist-style bowls of cooked mussels. Diana and I had dinner in one and the mussels were delish and quite a deal at 10 euros per serving. It's not often that you can get a decent meal for two in a super touristy, and quite-expensive area for under $30 (U.S.) but we managed it! Score one for Bussels!

Other than the food and the area around the Grote Markt, the other tourist hot spot is a small, peeing statue named Manaequin Pis. This little dude has been letting it all hang out in this spot for almost 400 years, which I guess is pretty surprisingly although the statue isn't "original" as it gets stolen from time to time - but still. Also, the day we were there he didn't have any clothes on but people apparently put outfits on him for different reasons. Oh, it's also worth mentioning that Mr. Pis looks a hell of a lot like my nephew.

I ended up enjoying our quick Brussels flyby even though what I'll probably most remember about it besides the peeing statue (and maybe the food) was that my feet were wet the entire time...and, no, these two things were not related...