Frites!

Last night, Don and I were out for dinner and one appetizer on the menu caught our eyes- truffled Parmesan frites. How could we say no? They arrived in a little basket lined with paper and a cup of garlic aioli with a drizzle of balsamic. Tossed with herbs, salty Parmesan, and LOTS of garlic these were scrumptious. (By the way, no vampires last night so I guess they did their job.) 

My apologies for not posting a photo. By the time I thought of it, they almost 1/2 gone! A little depressing note was that we only had one order and one sauce... On our most recent trip to Brussels, we ordered at least 8 cones and about a dozen sauces. I don't think anything can top our frite-fest, but this NY version certainly tasted good as it brought back fond memories. Speaking of which, we need more pickel [sic] sauce!!!

My foodographic memory in action

Don went to the bakery grand opening on his birthday to get something for breakfast. Pain au chocolat (chocolate filled croissant) is always a good choice! As we were enjoying our warmed goodies, he recalled having them when we arrived at Heathrow airport in London two years ago. Enter my curse/blessing of a memory... I knew exactly what we had at Heathrow- baguettes with bacon- AND where we had the pain au chocolat that he recalled- at the train station in Brussels. Not bad, though... at least he remembered it had something to do with transportation!

Another trip back to Brussels...

... in my mind, anyway. Well, and stomach.

Go figure that even though I've been sick this whole week, my appetite never skipped a beat. I guess that's a good thing, right? I noticed a banana on the counter. It was one of those bananas on the verge of going beyond edible- more brown speckles than yellow. Probably better than scarfing down a pile of chips. Hmm... chips. There's a bag of chips... chocolate chips. Chocolate chips + banana = frozen chocolate covered banana! 

So I sliced that banana up and popped the slices in the freezer. I felt guilty about opening a new bag of chocolate chips just to melt enough to coat banana slices, but only for a mere second. I melted the chocolate, coated the banana slices and stuck them back in the freezer to set. Here's what I got:

Not the prettiest things, but really tasty!

Immediately I thought of being in Brussels this past Christmas. Jeff and Melissa have this pretty big refrigerator/freezer (by European standards) and, oddly enough, all that was in the freezer was a box of Oufti frozen banana slices. Though now that I think about it, knowing Melissa, it's really not that odd. One night we stayed in, watched movies and scarfed down Oufti bananas and strawberries for dessert. Not one complaint from any of us!

I had to post my inspiration for Melissa to see. This, in turn, inspired her breakfast of banana pancakes. (And a trip to the store for more Oufti!) 

The power of food...

Crisps... again

One would not think that a trip to Brussels and Amsterdam would yield a post about crisps (aka potato chips). Well, enter one funky concept hotel known as CitizenM. In the lobby is their "Canteen" where you can get snacks, drinks, lip balm and stuffed animals 24/7. Lo and behold, prominently featured were (among others) the following bags of salty snacks: 

OK, so the bag on the left isn't THAT weird, right? Seems kind of normal next to the other one, doesn't it?! Of those in our party, I was the only one yearning to delve into the wonderful world of roast ox crisps. I wasn't winning over many friends and I almost had to go it alone. After carefully checking the ingredients, I found that there is no ACTUAL ox in these crisps. Ox flavor, yes, but not real ox. (Ox flavor?) Anyway, I could resist no longer and had to have them. To appease everyone else, ham and English mustard was purchased, as well as sweet Thai chili. 

I must admit, the roast ox crisps were my favorite! They tasted akin to very salty roast beef (but way more crunchy). The ham and mustard crisps were interesting, too. A slap in the face of wicked salty baked ham, then a lingering taste of zesty mustard. As for sweet Thai chili, I've had that flavor before and while they were tasty, they didn't blow me away.

So, keep your eyes open during your travels. You never know where you'll find some interesting crisps in unusual flavors!

Waffles, Part Deux

Back to Brussels for Christmas this year. Man, I love this place! First of all, we had amazing hosts and a gorgeous place to stay. Aside from that, Belgium may be a small country, but they're huge on tasty things. 

We arrived on Christmas Day and in an effort to keep jet lag from getting the best of us, we headed out in Brussels in search of the perfect Christmas waffle. (That should be a tradition, no?) Well, we ended up at the same stand we encountered six years ago. Though they had a little different set-up, the waffles were still lovely works of culinary art and tasted absolutely scrumptious. 

Choices, choices!

What have we learned since our last encounter with these delicacies?

1. Stay away from powdered sugar! Upon first bite, your tendency is to be so excited that you inhale in anticipation, thus resulting in a coughing fit during which you end up blowing powdered sugar all over yourself and your companion(s).
2. Avoid going for "the works." There's only so much space on a waffle. Sure, who doesn't love bananas AND strawberries AND chocolate AND whipped cream? There is physically no way to get that all in your mouth at one time. Order a couple different waffles and share.
3. Waffles are best enjoyed in close proximity to Manneken Pis. (Yes, the peeing boy statue.) Who knows why the combination works, but it seems to be the thing to do. When in Rome, er, Brussels!

Live and learn. Then eat more waffles!