On Thursday the 16th of June I got on a train at London's Kings Cross St Pancras station bound for Brussels, Belgium along with Kristen. But why Belgium of all places? The idea first came to us after our visit to Paris in which we met up with Marine who was going to work in Brussels and the idea just kind of grew from there.
It's only about 2 and a half hours on the train right into Brussels and we had booked ourselves into a hotel within walking distance from the station. This turned out to be a fortuitous decision as it placed us in the Marolles district right on the square containing the main flea market of the area. The hotel was a rather nice affair for the price and though the room was small, there was quite a gorgeous wee dining area on the ground floor that evoked very classic French bohemian feeling.
Around the square were a few cafe/pub establishments that were quite reminiscent of cafe's in France, only different in that their main poison happened to be beer rather than wine. And now I'm making it sound like we arrived in Belgium and immediately started drinking, which is not wildly inaccurate, but the first matter of the first day was to get our bearings.
We did this by walking purposefully down the main street of the Marolles towards the city centre. We didn't get far before we stumbled over the first retro clothing shop. Then we tripped over an antiques store with oddest jumble of beautiful junk. And then we fell headlong into another and another. I've never seen anything quite like it and it was all really rather exciting.
We eventually came to the centre of the town and I remember lamenting that the city was not as immediately beautiful as Paris. I think now that I spoke too soon, as we turned a corner and there stood a large group of tourists all crowded around something. The Mannekin Pis! It's really just a tiny statue of a little boy peeing that has gained no small amount of fame for some reason (later, we saw the little girl version of this hidden down a secluded alley and were rather disturbed).
It was around this area that we saw our first waffle stand (which is not surprising as we had just entered tourist land) so I had my first Belgian waffle, drizzled with nutella. There's something about the combination of soft cooked waffle batter seeded with rock sugar and slathered with warm hazelnut spread which I shouldn't even need to state.
From there it is a very short walk to the Grand Place, which is, in a word: breathtaking. It's a full 360 degrees of amazing, old building façades. During the day, the place is overrun by tourists all snapping pictures, but as night draws in it brings with it groups of teenagers and young adults who sit on the cobbles and drink.
Off to the side of the square is La Cure Gourmande, a French confectionery store which Kristen first found while we were in Paris. She took me along to show me and the place is so beautifully laid out and addictive, I wanted to buy everything. It's almost a good thing that a branch hasn't opened up in London.
By this time we were feeling quite peckish and went in search of food and found a curious establishment which appeared like a cafe, only they serve no food. Instead, they welcome people to bring their food from the sandwich shop next door and sit at their tables with it and drink beer. The other strange things about the cafe's in Belgium is that they tend to only have about 2 staff members on to run the entire place. One will stand behind the bar and talk to the partons, pouring the odd drink, while the other will go between the tables bringing out the drinks and clearing them. That's with maybe 20 people in the bar and the service is actually quite fast.
We had a drink and then headed back towards the centre where we found a frite shop that came recommended by the internet. The frites here (basically French fries) are triple fried and both crispy on the outside and soft on the inside and come with a choice of about 30 different sauces. They are a treat that is absolutely not to be missed, more than any other thing in Belgium: try the frites!
Next up, we crossed the centre of town again to find the oldest shopping mall in Europe. As you might expect, it's not the sort of affair that one would associate with a mall today, but rather it is a high ceilinged boulevard lined with luxury boutique stores. The shops are rather nice, but a little expensive perhaps, though we did buy some chocolates here.
Just off this mall is the cramped restaurant tourist trap, the Rue des Bouchers. We were given a piece of advice near the end of our stay in Belgium: If there is someone standing outside trying to persuade you to go in; don't go in. We are quite wary travellers so we do so by instinct, but it's quite a good piece of advice. Some of these places are notorious for being rip-offs.
Bearing that in mind, we headed back to the hotel and the sky opened up and bucketed down on us. We took shelter in Delhaize, the local supermarket and did a spot of shopping. After freshening up, we headed back to the Rue des Bouchers and to a restaurant we knew to be all right from checking the internet.
I had a rather tasty moules gratin with cheese and garlic butter and Kristen had a pork chop with mushroom sauce. Rather straightforward fare, but very good. Afterwards we met up with Marine and went to a very ancient bar hidden down a secluded back alley. The place exuded a rustic charm and if I remember correctly this place even allowed patrons to smoke indoors. Also, I believe this place only had one or two staff on. We had a drink or two, met one of Marine's friends and then headed over to another more modern bar where we sat outside.
At the end of the evening, Kristen and I detoured past the waffle shop and had another, this time with whipped cream added into the mix. Is there any better drunk food?
[gallery link="file" orderby="ID"]
No comments:
Post a Comment