Things we ate in Brussels

Hope you liked my recent blog about Belgium chocolate. Today, I thought I talked about our recent trip to Brussels.  I hope you like mussels, mussels and mussels, but also waffles!

Brussels is a great place if you like eating and drinking - you get mussels everywhere, chocolate everywhere, waffles everywhere and beer everywhere!!! But it's not a cheap place, unless you eat burgers and chips all the time but what's the point for these if you don't have mussels, waffles, chocolates and beers in Brussels....

Friday

So we arrived at one Friday early evening in mid March, checked ourselves in at a hotel few minutes walk from Grand' Place and went to this restaurant my husband has been before,  La Moule Sacree (http://www.lamoulesacree.be) to eat 'real' Belgium mussels and fries.  When we went there, it was early evening of Friday night so the restaurant was not that busy yet and we were seated right away. The restaurant had rather unassuming atmosphere but was nice and relaxing with friendly service.

My husband had a bowl of mussels in its natural juice with lemon whist I had a bowl of mussels in white wine, cream and garlic sauce with shallots and celery. These came with portions of fries and a basket of bread to mop up sauces. They were really delicious and we ate all up!  Mmmmm, I wish I could eat them again right now!  We did not order any desserts but had coffees which came with some mini Belgium chocolate eggs, which I thought was a lovely touch.

Finishing off the first meal with a lovely coffee with Belgium chocolate eggs - Welcome to Brussels!

Saturday

The next morning we went to Exki restaurant which is not far from our hotel for breakfast. This is healthy version of fast food chain restaurant, offering Fair Trade coffee. Hotels in Brussels are very expensive during the week, cashing in on Eurocrats doing business during weekdays but over weekend hotel prices drops quite a lot, yet they still charge a lot for breakfast. Our hotel was charging 29 euro per person so Exki became our go-to-breakfast place for the next few mornings. You can get either a freshly squeezed orange juice or a cup of coffee with either croissant or pane chocolate for 2 euro! And every coffee you order comes with a small Fair Trade chocolate!!!  

After being fuelled with good breakfast, we walked around the city centre of Brussels, admiring lovely buildings that surround Grand' Place and then looked for some comic murals on building walls.

Hotel de Ville, the 15th century-built Town Hall on Grand'P Place.

Brussels has series of large wall murals dotted around the city centre celebrating the comic strips heroes. You can actually follow the comic murals trails around the city and tourist information or hotel can give you maps showing the trails.  Most famous is the one by Brussels-born cartoonist Frank Pe featuring his famous character Brousaille crossing the road with his girlfriend. Opposite from this is another mural by Francis Carin showing secret agent Victor Sackville.

Brousaille crossing the road with his girlfriend

Secret Agent Victor Sackville

Having explored the city centre little bit including seeing the famous Mannekin Pis, before you know it's lunchtime. Since we were in Brussels, we thought, why not try Japanese and we went into this restaurant that advertised lunch set menu. Yes, I know this does not make sense and you are right about that. I always get apprehensive about going into a Japanese restaurant outside Japan, London, Paris or New York as it can be a hit or miss... and, especially if there are no Japanese tourists or Japanese person living locally eating the food there. This restaurant looked rather authentic Japanese inside, alas taste wasn't. They were not doing any lunch set menu over the weekend so we had to order from a la carte menu which was not cheap. My husband had seafood okonomiyaki (savoury pancake)  with fried egg on top and I had seafood tempura udon noodle.  Frankly speaking I thought they were overpriced and definitely not a good value for money but Hey, we were hungry and after all it is Brussels, food are not cheap here, right?  But we should have known and yes, this did not make sense after all and so much so we can't even remember the name of this restaurant now....  I suggest you stick to Japanese restaurants which are rated highly on guidebook or on internet if you really want to eat Japanese food in Brussels, but I think you just stick to Belgium food and do the mussels.

Seafood Okonomiyaki with fried egg on top

Seafood Tempura Udon Noodle

We had to recover from the shock.... so we decided to look for somewhere where we could have a nice dessert. We then went to Neuhaus Salon de Chocolate for a hot chocolate and a cake, had a little bit to chocolate luxury and our equilibrium was restored. (Please see my earlier blog, Brussels - Chocolate Heaven http://mwhe.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/brussels-chocolate-heaven.html)

That night, we decided 'Do what Romans do' and went to city centre looking for authentic Belgium restaurant.  There is a street called Rue des Bouchers in the center of the city. You have seen them in guidebooks, packed with restaurants with striking shell-fish displays. This is also the street, patio-heated with pushy waiters in front of every single restaurant on the street, overly eager to attract passing trade, which many guidebook describes 'tourist-trap' or rip-offs. It does however look interesting and makes you really want to take pictures but my husband warns me not to stop on this street for taking photos. Before you know, you are literally surrounded by these waiters, asking you to come into their restaurant as they got much better deal than next door.

The entrance to Rue des Bouchers - 

Amongst the chaos of these, there is Aux Armes de Bruxelles (http://www.auxarmesdebruxelles.com/en/), old fashioned restaurant serving Belgium classics that does not have any outside tables or eager waiters. This place is often mentioned in guidebooks.
One of Belgium classic is Croquettes de crevettes - tiny North Sea grey shrimps in the béchamel sauce, deep-fried in breadcrumbs. My guidebook informs me that this is the place to eat this popular starter so we ordered one to share between ourselves. There are 2 croquettes, size of a lemon, garnished with fried parsley, which interestingly tasted like fried seaweed. Croquette was nice and creamy. I liked it but my husband was not sure of this dish....

Shrimp Croquette

We then had another vast pot of mussels and fries each for the main course, mine was with white cream with shallots sauce and my husband's with red pepper and chilli sauce.  I enjoyed my mussels however I would have preferred them if the sauce had garlic in it like the one I had on previous night. My husband's red pepper and chilli sauce had a great kick but was also very tasty and he finished all his mussels.  We suggest you try this if you ever have a chance to eat at this restaurant.

We left the restaurant with happy stomach, walking quickly through the hawks of overly eager waiters on the street whilst avoiding eye contact till we got to the main road. We then thought we had a night cap so we went into this Champaign bar Champagnotheque (http://www.champagnotheque.be/?l=en) on the way back to our hotel. When we walked in, this man with Beethoven like mane of hair started explaining passionately about their beautiful Champaign bottles in French with some English words in every now and again. I thought he mentioned Pinot Noir, some numbers, something about organic and about small producer on France.  All sounded great, thinking numbers he was talking about must be years of grapes or something. We just said yes please to rose for me and organic no artificial coloured white for my husband, nodding with excitement. We found some chairs to sit toward the back of the bar. Beethoven man brought 2 bottles and 2 glasses to our table and started pouring Champaign into our glasses. Liquids of pink and white gold hue were bubbling up beautifully in our glasses and we then realised that the numbers he was talking about earlier was the price per glass. Off course, we should have realised ... Champaign, Pinot Noir grapes, small producers ...  so my glass of rose was 16 euro and my husband's was 23 or 25 euro. Oh well, we were on holiday after all, besides how often do we drink a really good Champaign for no reason at all???   We really enjoyed the glasses and our little luxury for our night cap. 

Sunday
We went back to Exik for quick breakfast and decided to head toward the Upper City of Belgium to go to the Museum to see the works of Magritte and look for Pierre Marcolini, the famous Chocolatier.
Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos of Magritte's works at the Museum. I bought some postcards and a coffee mug and we head for Pierre Marcolini. (See my earlier blog about Belgium chocolate heaven).

There are many restaurants being shut for Sunday so we went back to the centre of the city, walking through Rue des Bouchers whilst remembering my husband's advice of no stopping and no eye contact rules and went into famous but rather touristy non-nonsense joint of Chez Leon (http://uk.chezleon.be).
This is a big place, at least 2 - 3 stories with lots of tables occupied by many tourists, families, couples, etc. Being Sunday, we saw many families with grandparents and grand children, all eating pots of mussels and fries! I notice there was no children separate menu, unless I missed anything. So I did not see any children eating fish fingers or mini pizza like we do in Britain. Yes, even small children as young as five or seven (?) or teenagers were all eating mussels sitting alongside adults. How civilised.

Anyway, we were here to eat mussels but to be honest we were by this time musseled out. We however ordered Spaghetti Leon - spaghetti with creme, mussels, shrimps and mushrooms and we enjoyed this for a change.

After the lunch we walked around the city to explore and found more comic murals on the building walls and some cartoon characters including Tintins.

By this time, our legs were tired and we were a bit thirsty so we went back to our 'local' pub just around the corner from our hotel for a glass of Belgium beer.

Belgium produces more than 700 kinds of beer and counting. Appropriately named beer, Delirium Tremens, is delicious and refreshing but 8% and comes in a glass with pink elephants all over it. You just need to pace yourself as it is very easy to drink otherwise it would hit you unexpectedly. I am not a beer drinker so I just sipped up to 1/2 and gave the rest to my husband. After all our hotel was only around the corner so we could stagger or crawl if we had to, just kidding. We were not drunk but just happy and went back to our hotel for a wee nap till dinner time. 

Each Belgium beer is served in its specially designed glass. I loved this Delirium Tremens' glass so much we later found a beer souvenir shop in the city centre and bought 2 glasses to take home. 
Another beer I tried that came in an unique glass is called Kwak. This is a strong, light coloured beer and again 8% and is served in a glass with a spherical base that sits in a wooden stand in order to remain upright.  It was fine but I think Delirium tasted much much better.

Later that night, we went for a pizza rather than having another pots of mussels.

Monday - last day in Brussels
Went to usual Exik for breakfast. It was a bit cold but lovely and sunny day with temperature at around 8c. As our flight was not leaving until early evening, we had almost all day to spend our last day in Brussels so we decided to go for a walk through Parc de Bruxells via Cathedrale des Saints-Michel-et-Gudule.

Brussels is not a bit city, you can walk around Lower City, Upper City and Grand' Place area easily.
We came back to Grand' Place and decided to try one of the restaurants on Grand' Place called Cave du Roy (http://www.caveduroy.com/page.asp?DocID=101904&langue=EN). They were serving two course lunch set menu with a glass of wine for just under 19 euro.

So for starter, we had mushroom on toast and for main course we had trout meuniere. Both were simple but very delicious and we really enjoyed these. 

We did not have any desserts here because there was still one thing I had to try whilst we were in Brussels. It's Belgium Waffles!!!!

They are a mixture of butter, flour, eggs and sugars, grilled on deep ridged waffles irons and sole on the street. You see them everywhere, smell them everywhere and see people cueing up and eating them on the street everywhere..... They come with so much varieties of toppings, loads of cream and chocolate sauce....

We went to Maison Dandoy (http://www.maisondandoy.com/en/home/) to try their waffles for desserts. This place is famous for ginger bread and has cafe upstairs where you can have waffles, ice cream, etc. We had Leige waffles - my husband with ice cream, red berries, strawberry and cherry sauce whilst I had one with ice cream with hot chocolate sauce. They were really delicious. 

I had a list of food I wanted to eat in Brussels and I ticked everything except one thing!
I really wanted to have French or Belgium fries with a dollop of mayonnaise on top in a large paper cone, but unfortunately we never had a chance, so all I have is a picture of a sign on a street.

Now it's time to go home. Checked ourselves in and relaxed at the air port. Had a quick look at Duty Free and got some last minute chocolate shopping for souvenir.

You get sandwich and drinks on an air plane but we decided to get something quick to eat at the airport for dinner. Guess what, we had Pizza Hut's 'one person special pizza set' to share between us. It came with 2 slices of pizza (vegetable one) and 2 slices of garlic bread. We could not handle anymore mussels even as we were leaving Brussels.

I am now too scared to stand on scales to weigh myself, having consumed all these food and drinks. When we came home, we really wanted to eat lots of vegetables, especially greens such as spinach, broccoli, green beans, etc. I think this is what it lacked in our diet while we were in Brussels. Mussels were really great though, so as chocolate, waffles and beers.  One day I shall go back there again and eat another pot of mussels, this time with red pepper and chill sauce. 

My husband on the other hand is going back there for business this week. I wonder what he will eat this time...

That's all forks.

p.s.  No toilet check report from Brussels but I took one photo..... at Magritte Museum, I told you that we were not allowed to take any phones of his work, but they could not stop me taking photo of this!!!

What we ate for Easter Sunday Lunch

Hope you all have had a lovely Easter holiday weekend.

Yes, we did have a lovely and relaxed one. I was wondering if we should go out for meal but instead we decide to eat at home, which meant I was cooking.  We invited Mary, my mother-in-law, and Emily, who is now living with her fiancé Craig. Craig is currently in Mexico for business whilst Maria was working at a restaurant for weekend.

My husband asked me not to make 10 courses-meal and just do something quick and easy. Well, I don't really do 10 courses, he is just exaggerating but referring me for slaving in the kitchen for hours trying to make something fancy whilst guests are neglected or ignored in the living room...

I decided something easy, something that does not require me being to/from kitchen and living room much whilst cooking and for being Easter, using eggs in recipe.

I made sautéed asparagus with fried egg on top with drizzle of olive oil, parmesan shavings and balsamic graze for starter. This is easy and quick as long as I am careful not to fry eggs too hard as it should be half yolky so that when you cut into the egg, yolk would ooze out over the asparagus.  And I managed to fry eggs too long so yolk did not ooze out and I could not find a parmesan shaver so we had to do with grating the block of parmesan with cheese grater. Well it does not look perfect but it was rather tasty, I must say.

For main course, I made fish pie for the first time in my life. I have some cooking books that feature posh fish pies but recipe sounds far too complicated. I googled and found an easy and straight forward fish pie recipe by Mitch Tonks, 'How to make fish pie' on BBC Food website (http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/fish_pie).  Ok, potato topping did not turn out as the way it looks on the website however this has now become our family's favourite recipe.  I have also added salmon to the recipe as we love salmon. We really enjoyed this but next time I would also look for another fish pie recipe that uses mustard to give an added flavour.

 

For dessert, we had apricot tart from M&S with vanilla ice cream - I was contemplating baking something but let's be honest, I am not a baker, so I decided not to and bought ready made tart to pop it in the oven. Just as well, it was much better being able to spend some time talking with family rather than slaving in the kitchen all day.

And to finish off, we had macaroons (from M&S again, so no I did not make them) and chocolate fudge with mugs of tea!

We talked about our recent trip to Brussels, our cat Yuki, family and friends, and Emily and Craig's wedding arrangements. Ok, the meal was nothing fancy but at least it was easy and quick to make, we enjoyed our meal with family (minus poor Maria) and it was much cheaper as well!!

Hope you also have a nice Easter Sunday.

That's all forks!