But before that happens, I wanted to celebrate Thanksgiving (a food-centric holiday if there ever was one) by finally describing some of the Flemish food we ate on our trip two weeks ago. And as with all our posts recently, there's too much information to give all at once, so this will also be in parts.
In Lille, at A la Renaissance, Maggie ordered carbonade, which is the typical Flemish dish. It's beef stewed in beer, chocolate, and pain d'épice (gingerbread), usually served with some version of potatoes. As Belgium is known for having invented French fries, both times we ordered carbonade it came with fries.
I tried potjevleesh, a terrine of different kinds of meat (pork, rabbit, turkey, beef) served cold and held together by a kind of gelatin. I liked Maggie's carbonade more, but this was good too, especially if you like meat.
Our night in Bruges we dined at a disappointing establishment called Poules Moules, which (as you might guess from the name) specialized in chicken and in mussels (moules-frites, or mussels with fries, is a "specialty" of Belgium, although I'm sure you can get better mussels elsewhere). So I won't talk about that meal, except to say, don't go to Poule-Moule.
Luckily before we left Bruges we enjoyed some amazing chocolate (for which Bruges is famous) and a waffle (which is more of a Brussels/Wallonie thing than a Flemish thing, but what the heck.)
The chocolate came from Van Mullem Servaas Patisserie/Salon (believe it or not, that's written on the little slab of milk chocolate), the waffles from one of many tourist-oriented stands scattered around the old city.
Aside: We just got back from dinner at Rachel and Adam's, and cannot believe we're going to do this again Saturday. Right now, I can't even conceive of putting any more food in my stomach for at least three days. When we post pictures of all the incredibe (and surprisingly gourmet/non-traditional-for-Thanksgiving) food we just had, you'll understand why.
Posts
