I ate my way through Belgium - Brussels Edition

My Grandmother is Belgian and I'm pretty sure I'm the first member of my family to come back here since she left in 1915 (I'm not positive that is the year but she was 5). Now, considering she left so young I can imagine that her Belgian identity was not super strong however I'm a little upset that she didn't have some really awesome recipes that she could pass down to her Granddaughter who loves to cook! I remember my Grandma made really great lamb and always served it with mint jelly and it was delicious but I don't remember waffles or truffles are any of the other food that is amazing here! I had no idea Belgium has such great food, however it's all unhealthy so maybe my Grandma was thinking about my girlie figure.

I arrived at my hostel pretty late so I didn't do anything that day but the following day I went on a free walking tour all over the city. After, I had some Belgian hot chocolate which was perfection, then fries, all before going on Belgian beer tour that night. Belgians think they invented the French Fry and it should actually be called Belgian Fries. During WWI I think American soldiers had them and coined the name French Fries, they didn't actually know where they were but heard French spoken and assumed they were in France. Seems plausible. There are fries everywhere here with a bunch of different sauces you can choose to have with them. The Belgian thing to do is have them with just mayo but I hate mayo with a fiery passion of a thousand burning suns so I don't get that one. My favorite so far is spicy mayo which tastes NOTHING like mayo. You can buy fries from carts all over the place but they are also served with everything in the restaurants. They are so good here because they are fried twice in oil. The first is at a lower temperature and therefore just poached till cooked through and the second is to make them actually crispy. Damn I kinda want to go get some right now.

The beer tour was both interesting and tasty! I didn't like some of the beers but I enjoyed trying them and learning about them. Did you know there are over 1,000 Belgian beers and they are all served in a different glass?! They never drink out of bottles here and each beer has a specifically designed glass that helps the beer breath or something. Also, they serve beer with the head on it because that keeps the beer from oxidizing too quickly.

A few other minor things I noticed in Brussels... there are police everywhere, there is a huge Muslim population, and the entire town smells like waffles.

I zoned out during this part of the tour but I guess some law was passed against billboards in Brussels and they decided to cover them with cartoons. You may have heard of Tin Tin, he's in all the cartoons I guess he's a Belgian.















This cartoon is actually painted in the gay area of town and that's Tin Tin on the right. Originally this was his companion was a male but apparently some people got angry that it was a pro-gay painting so they made her a woman by changing her shoes, widening her hips, and adding earrings.

Delicious Belgian hot chocolate