OK, so I had no time to work on blog entries this trip, so
we’re going to have to settle for one massive round-up at the end which I wrote
on the flight home. I guess being so busy is the sign of a good trip.
Champagne was great. Reims is definitely a smaller town and
the whole area is a lot more rural than I expected. Did a couple interesting
tours, saw the cathedral, and had some good food. On one night I hit a
Michelin-starred outfit were I got to select a cheese course from the most
pimped-out cheese cart I’ve ever seen in my life. Other than that, I was trying
to hit the French classics pretty heavy before I got into Flanders were I expected
the food to be very different, so I was loading up on escargots, steak tartare,
rilletes, and crepes. The most surprising thing was how damn hot it was—it was
in the mid-nineties all three days I was there, and up to 99 degrees one day.
Made for some pretty steamy sightseeing.
While I Champagne I also took a day trip to Laon, this very
charming medieval town about 40 minutes away by train. Apparently I was getting
somewhat off the beaten path in this case, as I got involved in a conversation
with a local on the train on the way there, and whose primary topic was “Why
are you coming to Laon?”.
After that it was on to Lille, a charming Flemish city in
northeastern France. It was here that I started getting introduced to Flemish
cuisine and the absolutely amazing beer (mostly Belgian) which comes from the
area (more on that later). I really enjoyed Lille, despite a calamity with my
laundry that the hotel created that pissed me off so much I decided to unleash
my inner ugly American and let fly a torrent of yelling at the hotel staff in
front of other guests because their failure to follow the very basic, yet
extremely important, instructions on had given them on when I absolutely had to
have all my clothing back which was likely going to result in missing my train
connection the next day.
While there I also took a day trip to Arras and Amiens, the
two really good-looking little towns in the area. Arras, like Lille, is in the
historic part of Flanders, and it really shows. All the architecture really
looks more Belgian or Dutch than French, although Arras wasn’t laced with
canals like Dutch and northern Belgian cities are.
After Lille it was on to Bruges. It’s surprising how off the
radar Bruges is for most Americans given the crushing amount of tourists there.
The old town has Venice-like levels of tourists just completely inundating the
city. They’re there for a good reason, though, as the city is really fantastic.
People are friendly, too. I was fortunate enough to meet up with a young local
couple that I ended up going out with for drinks on my last night there.
Overall, all the cities in Belgium were really impressive.
In retrospect it is surprising how underappreciated they are by most North
American tourists. While I only stayed in Bruges and Brussels, I day-tripped
into Ghent and Antwerp, and both of those were great, too. The Belgian cities
have it all—lots of history and beautiful historic buildings, great café
culture with tons of charming places lining all the canals, good-looking
people, fantastic beer, good food in large portions, and a clean and orderly
society. Antwerp was maybe not so heavy on the canals and ancient building like
Ghent was, but it more than made up for it with all the attractive pedestrian
streets, the fantastic shopping, and the incredibly stylish people walking
around. Antwerp also had what was maybe the most impressive building I saw on
the whole trip, the central train station. In lots of ways Belgium (but also
the Netherlands) reminded me of Austria in how they have a great blend of the
southern European joie de vivre while also at the same time having a Germanic
orderliness and productivity that makes for what appears to be a really
appealing place to live.
Brussels was also a good time. It probably won the award for
best food of any place I went on the trip. Lots of great seafood places.
Mussels, mussels, mussels, everywhere, although there seemed to also be a lot
of skate wing and the Belgian tomato-based soupe de poisson was also very
common. I had to look far and wide for another typical dish, the eel in the
green sauce—tons of places have it but it was often sold out as eel is getting
hard to come by nowadays and they never get very much—but this one actually
didn’t impress me that much when I had it. Of course, there’s all the beer and
the chocolates. I think there’s a chocolate shop on just about every block in
Brussels. Godiva is probably the most conspicuous representative, although
there a plenty of other less internationally well-known outfits. I was buying
my breakfast of champions from Neuhaus, myself. And frys, frys, frys, frys, frys,
frys, frys, frys. I can’t understand why there are hardly any fat people in
Belgium. They must eat a pound of frys every single day. Eaten with mayonnaise,
no less. Deep-fried potatoes dressed with emulsified fat ain’t exactly health
food. Frys with mussels, frys with steak tartare (which they call, in French,
“American steak”, for some reason), frys with regular steak, frys with burgers,
frys with Belgian cheese, frys with
salad, Frys with just a beer, whatever. I must say, though, the frys are pretty
damn good. And health issues aside, the mayonnaise they have here is indeed a
vastly superior condiment to ketchup.
A couple additional notable food items are the carbonnade
flamade, the Flemish beef stew, and also the Flemish-style braised rabbit stew
with prunes. Both turned my crank in a pretty major way, and I’m actually going
to try to make them at home later. The shrimp croquettes didn’t dial me up in
the same way. Most interestingly, I had gotten a tip from a friend-of-a-friend,
a Belgian living in the US, that I absolutely had to try a Bicky Burger. This
is a burger available in from little fry stands and food carts around the
country. I did a little research, and it apparently consists of a deep-fried
(yes, deep-fried) patty made of a combination of beef, pork, and horse meat
(yes, horse) heavily slathered with a couple secret sauces, topped with fried
onions, and eaten in a sesame bun. One of the two sauces was somewhat mayonnaise-like,
and the other somewhat resembled a barbeque sauce. I personally found this
recommendation to be a bit dubious, but against my better judgement one day I
gave it a shot, and I must say, it wasn’t too bad. I may even go so far as to
say I kind of liked it, aside from all the self-loathing eating such a culinary
monstrosity induced after I was done.
Most surprising to me was the beer. I’ve never liked beer.
Just never had the taste for it. I can drink Belgian Trappist all damn day,
though. Well, maybe that’s not entirely true. While many of the Belgian beers have
been the first that I’ve ever truly enjoyed, I can peter out on them after a
couple. There so rich and filling, after a couple I just can’t get anything
else in my stomach. Drinking one of the double or triple-fermented ales they
make sometimes made me feel like I was drinking a donut. A very tasty,
alcoholic donut.
After Belgium it was on to Amsterdam. The Netherlands was
all it was cracked up to be. Incredible art in some off the greatest museums in
the world, picturesque canals, fit, good-looking, friendly, and exceptionally
tall people that speak perfect English riding bicycles everywhere, beautiful
countryside full of flowers and cows, interesting architecture, and yes, marijuana
shops and red-light districts full of prostitutes in windows. While there I was
able to make day trips to Haarlem, Delft, The Hague, and Alkmaar. Every one was
quite attractive and charming. The Dutch clearly have their shit together.
If there was any one critique of the Netherlands, it would
have to be the local food. This was the first place I’d ever visited where I
flat-out gave up on the local cuisine and started eating international food.
There is definitely some great stuff: the cheese and dark bread is great, the
pickled herring is, well, at least satisfying, and the Dutch pancakes are
great. My favorite was the bacon and apple one I had on the first day. In
addition, there’s plenty of Belgian-style fries, mussels, and cured salmon. Also,
there’s lots of Indonesian food. We can
essentially say it’s Dutch-ish, since it’s everywhere due to the cultural and
historical association with the former colony, and because you really can’t get
it in most other countries. I ended up going to two different places for what they
call the rice table, essentially a gust-busting delivery of about 10-20
different items you can sample.
After that the Indonesian food, though, things fall off the
map pretty quickly. So it didn’t take too long for me to throw in the towel on
the local stuff and start seeking out international cuisine. One day I went to
Chinatown for lunch, one night I tried a Portuguese restaurant, and another day
I actually went to an Afghani place. While the Chinese didn’t impress, the
Portuguese and Afghani place were great. And of course, there are Italian and
middle-eastern restaurants absolutely everywhere. So you can definitely get
really good food, you just have to not bother trying to find stuff that is
uniquely Dutch. I guess no place is perfect.
While the local food didn’t impress, the one thing that definitely
did was the shopping (and not just for the magic mushroom or the ladies in the
windows). The Dutch definitely have style, and I found myself being repeatedly
sucked into shops that had interesting window displays. It seemed like leather
goods were particularly popular there. I actually ended up upgrading my simple
canvas messenger back I often carry on vacation for a more pimped-out brown
leather version.
Overall, this ended up being a great trip. Next time I just
have to make sure to do my own laundry.
