Back to it, I don't want to get too far behind in my blog, and have been lucky enough to make multiple trips in the last month. I.e. it's been a very expensive month.
Brussels:
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| Something like that |
I was lucky enough to boondoggle my way to a trip to Belgium, specifically Antwerp, Bruge, and Brussels. It qualifies as my first trip to Europe as well! What a great place to be, with a completely different feeling, attitude, look, smell, and experience.
So the flight: Surprisingly quiet, and without too much action. The flight left around midnight, I had a business flight, so I was able to experience the Saudi Arabia business lounge. Eek. The sandwiches all had mayo, and looked as old as the guy working the counter. (Not a good thing). Both had the same specks of grey and white, and seemed just as bristley.
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Now add a beard, and this is what I thought the sandwich looked like.
Just as cottony soft too |
Flight arrives first to Franfurt, and then to Brussels. Business class is as awesome as expected, and drinks were available once we were in the air. I actually tried to reduce the amount of drinking on the plane, as the hangovers are pretty bad, since you're at altitude, and the air is fairly dry. The problem was, that I watched "Total Recall." Should have drank more to enjoy that one. Just not good. Not good. Woman with three boobs, not as awesome, as when I was a kid. On a completely separate note, for some reason, airline food gives me the worst gas in the world. I feel like I'm going to explode every couple of hours. Must be the high amount of processing. (Says the guys who eats ramen at least 3 times a week). Anyways, that's probably the most stressfull part of flying for me. You sit there waiting for the bathroom to be open, and you're holding it in, fearing the worst. I mean, what do you do if you accidentally soil yourself on a plane? I don't think they let you get into the luggage hold, and get a new pair of underwear. Anyways, yeah. None of that kind of accident, so don't worry.
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| Before |
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| After |
I get to the Frankfurt airport around 7:00 AM, with an hour layover. What to do? Check email, and have a beer! I guess not too many other people agreed with the second part. No line to the beer tap at all. I made sure to check and double check my flight time, so I don't pull another "Huy" and miss my flight. A quick 1 hour flight, and I'm in Brussels.
I arrive at the Brussels airport, and quickly find that English is the 4th language that people speak here, which is amazing in my opinion. First is Dutch, German, French, and then English. There are different places in which a language is more prevalent, but people will entertain your ignorant American self, and speak to you in English. Except the French. Meh, 1 out of 4 isn't bad. I'm lucky enough to book a hotel right at the airport, so that there isn't any issue with trying to find how to get anywhere. As a bonus, I check my email, and find that the guys in Brussels recommend that I arrive the following day, rather than the day I arrive. This is great, as I fear there would be no time to do any siteseeing. Well, off I go. I ask the concierge where to go, in order to get to the Grand Place, (I base all my siteseeing from what Tripadvisor tells me, they have been pretty good so far). Easy, just take the train, which is conveniently located right outside the hotel. I hop on the train, and, everythings written in German and Dutch. Crap. Well, what's the worst that could happen? I could end up in a different country, or whatever. Wait, "Grand Place" in Dutch, and German is "Grand Place." Nice. Prices in Europe are a bit higher than in the US, or in Saudi especially, so the concept of a 8 Euro ticket from the airport to the city seemed a bit high. What is definitely different is the fact that no one checks your ticket. It's on a random basis that they check everyone for tickets. If you don't have one, you get a fat fine, and a ticket. It's fair. But I didn't get checked anytime I went on the train, so it was OK. So I get off the train, it's a bit gloomy, rainy, but man, it's gorgeous!
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| Welcome to Brussels! |
Walked around, and realized that Brussels is not straight roads, and simple directions. There are many many many different curvy roads, that were built around other curves, and dead ends. Very difficult to navigate as a tourist. I could tell that I was not alone, as there were many others walking around looking as silly as me, with a giant map out, and trying to figure out where to go. Even the locals that I met, all had GPS, and really, chose not to, or had difficulty in getting to places without the navigation. Walked around in the rain, ended up near the Justice Center, and then realized that the Grand Place isn't anywhere near there. Started walking back, and it started to rain pretty hard. Good time for a break, and a famous Belgium beer. No data on phone, so I had to follow my gut feeling. Hmm, I should follow tripadvisor more often. Food wasn't terrible, I heard when the microwave went off, for the Spaghetti that I ordered. The selection of beer was pretty nice. My favorite part was finding this guy:
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"You don't have the guts to shoot..."
D'oh! |
Oh, and this is definitely one of my favorite beers now:
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westmalle_Brewery
Yeah. Commercialized monks. |
Lucky me, 3 beers later, the shop owner told me that the Grand Place was only a few blocks away, and all I had to do was go straight. I think I could handle that. And I did. And I was glad:
The grand place, is a big square surround by different buildings. The one behind me being the town hall. On other sides are just crazy extravagant buildings. I didn't notice at the time, but there is a mix of three types of archietecture here, Gothic, Broque, and Louis XIV, according to wikipedia. I'm guessing the Louis XIV buildings are the ones completely enamored in gold. Gothic have the gargoyles, and the Broque ones are the buildings with the intricate statures of saints all over them.
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| Louis XIV - Like a Boss |
From there, checked out quite a few churches, made a friend from Scopje, and she was nice enough to take some photos of me in the background of the awesomeness. I ended up going to the seafood district, where there were restaurant after restaurant, with Arabic folks trying to lure you in for food, and drinks. Not the best food, but I was able to get Belgian Fries, and Mussels. Yum. I then stumbled back to the room, ready for work, and very content.
Next day, had to actually do some work, taxi's in the country are quite expensive. I think I ended up paying about $50 one way each way to go from my hotel to the work site in Overijse. Work was pretty normal, a lot of pretty cool things if you're into logistics and material handling. If not, then I won't bother with the details. The cool thing was one of the guys that I worked with that day, had a "crazy idea" to go visit Bruge. I hadn't heard of it before, but he talked it up, as if it were the best thing since sliced bread. You can't ever go wrong, by hanging out in a new place with someone who's extremely excited to go. And he had a car to get there. I'm glad I went.
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| Just lovely |
The trip itself was a pretty far drive, about an hour to get out there from where we were, and about 2 hours back to Brussels, so I was pretty tired, especially after the food, and beer that we had. (Of course!) Ok, so back to the city. Bruge is yet another Unesco world heritage site, which i guess means it's old, and it should be preserved. It's true. It's like a small compact version of a 13th century medieval architecture. Lots of canals around, the square is like the grand place, only with a different size, and scale. Everything seemed packed in really tight. The rental car we were in, was pretty tiny, but it was pretty scary driving to find a parking spot, most lanes were one way, and all cobblestone. The main attraction was the old belfry in the background.
Food was really good, I was lucky to try a traditional dish from Flanders, called "Waterzooi." This was made with mostly fish, and shrimp, with some mussels for good taste. For some reason, I forgot to take a picture of it. Dunno why that is. It kinda looks like this. For a hardy stew, it was very light tasting. The weather was just a bit drizzly, and very dark, so it was difficult to see the really old stuff, but I think we hit all the main points. The architecture matches the Flemmish design of 90 degree angles for roofing, as seen above.
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| Almost looks like this in the dark |
The final days were spent hanging out with a colleague I had worked with back in Houston. He's a big food person, and enjoys his beers as much as I do. It was a good 2 evenings. The premise was set when we met at the subway, and the question was "So do you want to eat something good, or drink a good beer." Without a blink, a good beer of course. "Excellent." We went to the bar right next to the famous statue of the peeing boy. The name of the bar was Poechenellekelder, which means puppet cellar. Yup, creepy puppets everywhere. Kinda dark. Beers were very strong, and surprising light on the hops, and stronger on fruit flavors. We had cheese and crackers, and many a beer. The Delirium beer was probably one of the favorites on the list, and it was awesome because, after the beer, we went to the bar in which it's made. The Delirium bar was located next to the statue of the peeing girl. Apparently, those are the famous places to visit. Big crowds around these tiny statues, maybe a foot tall or so.
The final day in Brussels was definitely one for the books. We decided to go all out, and try the best that Belgium had to offer.
On the way there, we had just enough time to visit Ghent, yet another gorgeous city, although it had many similarities to Bruge. It was a bigger version, a little more spread out, easier to walk around. The shops were more modern and larger, and plenty of canals.
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| Ghent Canal |
Oh, and it had a real life castle. A FREAKING CASTLE! Sorry. My first castle. I thought it was awesome.
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| We're standing where the moat would be |
How cool is that. Well, it's almost as cool as where we went after that. Culinary wise of course. The top restaurant that was within driving distance was "Hof Van Cleave."
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| http://www.hofvancleve.com/ |
The drive up to the restaurant was a different one. You exit off of the main street, go into a small tiny town, and then take a turn off on a small dirt road, and you end up in front of a small little ranch style home. It kinda reminded me of Texas Chainsaw Massacre actually. We were pretty spooked. So we parked where all the other cars were. We found out afterwards that this is where the staff parks. Explains the spookiness.
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| Valet parking on the other side |
Hoff Van Cleave, a restaurant created by chef Peter Goossens. It's a 3 Michelin Star restaurant. Enuff said. Haha, not really. Restaurants of this caliber just know what they're doing. And when it came to price point between here and Dubai, if you're paying that much money, those 2 other stars just take it to a higher plane. So here's what I noticed:
Ambiance: Very similar in both, controlled lighting, plate usage, silverware. Heck, the waiter gave us a story of how each of the steak knives were made. Cheesy? Yes! But I chose the natural teakwood knife, and my partner in food got the naturally found ivory (sounds good). The knives were carbon steel, not stainless, and were all handwashed, and buffed after each meal to maintain edge, without rusting.
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| Not pictured - The knife I was talking about |
Staff knowledge: Of course, the menu was known, but each dish at Hoff had a story and the wine paring was two fold, some which were good with the food, and some that serve as a good intermission, or possible transition to the next meal.
Pacing of the food was much more timely at Hoff. The second you were done, the staff noticed, and made sure to clear your plate, when there was a pause in conversation.
Presentation: Top notch in both regards. Everything on the plate was deliberate. Hoff was more fluid in terms of ability to eat. It was quite simple to understand "how" the chef wanted you to eat his creation. Al Mahara took a little more effort, portions were a bit too small or too large to enjoy all the flavors on the plate.
Taste: What can you say, this is top quality. The one thing I love is the intricate balance between temperatures within the same meal, the blend of all flavors on the tongue, sweet, sour, spice, bitter, and savory, all in a single bite. What Hoff did very well, was trick you between what you saw, and what you tasted. Nothing was what it was made to be on the plate.
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| That's not cuttlefish, or squid |
I'm just being nit-picky of course. But I did just eat at the 42 best restaurant IN THE WORLD. (Down from 17 the year before) Pretty difficult to top that. Well, I can think of 41 different ways, but I'll have to plan those.
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| Whew! |
