Welcome back to Tales From Our Pocket. We are in Brussels today, and I am so excited to be here.
Some fantastic foods come from Brussels. I love chocolate. I'm excited to eat all the chocolate,
but Belgium is known for more than just chocolate. They're also known for their fries, their mussels,
their waffles, and their beer. Our mussels are here! All right, let's try them. And we're going
to try all of it today here in Brussels while we take in the sights. Behind me,
actually it's sort of on my right. Off to my side is the beautiful town hall
with its tower that's over 300 feet high, that you can see from multiple vantage points from all over
central Brussels. This is kind of a happening place right now. The weather today has been
raining, it's been sunny. It's neat to see all the people that have come out now that
the rain is taking a break. This is really fun. Most of the buildings you see behind me
were reconstructed in the 1600s after being destroyed. The number 5 building behind me
is actually an original from medieval times. Let's go get started. Our first stop is a waffle shop.
This is our chosen stop for waffles. We are hoping to try
2 kinds Belgian waffles. Wait, do you call them that? Aren't they all Belgian waffles? Okay,
the place that we're going to is a chain that has multiple locations. The first one had no
waffles. This one has waffles, so take two. Okay, so the store worker helped me order
and we got two waffles. One is a Brussels Waffle, the other one is a Liege Waffle.
We're going to try the Liege Waffle first. This one, he recommended having plain.
Oh, it's really sweet. It has like honey around the outside and it's really crispy and the inside
is nice and warm. This is like the perfect street food. Just eat it while walking around or sitting.
Oh, so good. All right, so the second one is the Brussels Waffle. This one he recommended
with chocolate and strawberry, and he gave us so much whipped cream.
I managed to get everything onto one forkful,
so let's see how this one compares. I'm not going to be able to fit this all.
Well, that's delicious. I don't know which one wins the waffle contest. They're both
really good. We're just going to have to keep eating while we're here in Belgium,
in order to discover which one we like best. They're delicious. Okay, we need a break from
all the sweet things we've already eaten, and this is the perfect place to do it. This is a
church that's just off of the main square in Brussels and it's St Nicholas Church.
Although the exterior of it is modern, it dates back in the interior to the late 1300s,
but it's been remodeled so many times over hundreds of years that apparently there's
this mishmash of styles inside. I'm really curious to see what this looks like and how it turned out.
Well, to be honest, I did not see a mishmash of styles. All I saw was a beautiful church that's
been well restored over the years. For our first chocolate stop today - because you know
we're going to have multiples - we've decided to stop at Godiva Chocolates. Yes, it's a brand
that we have back in the United States, but this is the very first Godiva shop anywhere,
so we have to try it. How is it different from the stuff in the U.S? Let's go find out.
All right, we have our Godiva chocolates in hand. Now we'll see how they compare. What is yours?
Mine is hazelnut, and it's delicious. Mine is frambois, which we think is strawberry.
It's so rich. Oh my gosh. Mine's a mix of truffle and white chocolate.
And this is the church where all the royal families got married and their
funerals take place, and it's free to go into, so let's go check it out.
The next stop we're headed to looks like possibly one of the prettiest malls that I've ever seen,
so I'm really curious to stick our heads inside and see what it looks like.
This is really cool. It reminds me a lot of the covered shopping galleries that are in Paris,
plus I don't see any chains here. No major chain brands, at least not that I recognize. I take it
back. There are brands that I recognize here, and they're the chocolate shops.
I don't recognize anything but the chocolate shops, but the chocolate shops,
I recognize. There's a cafe that I read has an art nouveau interior and I'm still stalling before our
next food stop, so we're going to just stick our heads inside and see what it looks like.
If I was hungry, I would eat here. This is beautiful - stained glass, look.
All right, we've stalled long enough. It's time for our next food stop. We are switching now from
sweet to savory. We maybe have done this in the opposite direction that we should have.
There is a place that, every time we've gone by, it has a line out the door for
fries. That is the place that we are choosing to have our Belgian fries,
like in a half hour when we're done standing in line.
A little longer than a few minutes later...
We are here at Fritland. The fries, we are told, are double fried in beef fat.
Perfectly healthy. I'm sure this is the healthiest thing we're going to have today.
We've got a couple different kinds of sauces. We've got curry ketchup, which I'll try first.
Lots of flavor. They're nice and soft in the middle, crispy on the outside. It's excellent. We also got
something they call pita sauce. It's a little like a tzatziki; they said it's mostly garlic.
Heather's going to love the tzatziki. Garlic, garlic, garlic. Well, we are getting so full
already. Our next stop, though, we think is going to be a pretty crowded one. It's a
pretty famous site here in Brussels. A little bit strange. Here's a hint to what we're seeing next.
It's smaller than you expected, isn't it?
It's ridiculous. It IS actually smaller than I expected. I expected it to be small,
and it was still smaller. I don't know which is more ridiculous: the size of the statue,
or the size of the crowd surrounding the statue. I mean, this is Mona Lisa level stuff here.
Although the Mona Lisa comparison is a pretty good one, I believe when you go to see the Mona Lisa,
it's actually the real Mona Lisa, and that statue is a replica. The real one is in a
museum. It has been vandalized and stolen so often that they needed to protect it,
so all we get is the replica. And it's starting to rain again - or I got pooped on. Probably
got pooped on. Great. While we were looking at the statue, a group came up to us, and for some
school project needed to play rock-paper-scissors. Turns out I have a secret superpower!
I either tied or won all of them, so that was kind of amazing.
I don't think you can throw the game of rock, paper, scissors, can you?
We're just walking to our next place and we just found the coolest street,
with the coolest old buildings on it, and all we're doing is following directions
to our next place. This is an amazing street and it's pedestrian only, too! So cool - look.
We couldn't leave with just having Godiva Chocolate. We are at our second chocolate
stop of the day. This is Laurent Gerbaud, which is the 2021 Chocolatier of the Year,
so let's see how they compare to a brand that we can get back home. Let's pop inside.
All right, we have traveled a little bit outside of the historic
center in search of some hopefully non-touristy mussels here in Brussels.
That's just kind of fun to say; you want to say it over and over. Mussels and Brussels.
I have waited a long time to have mussels here, and I am super excited to try them.
Belgium is known for its fruity beers and it was also recommended to give one of them a try
with the mussels. We've got here a cherry beer, which is very characteristic. It's a
Kriek - I don't remember exactly the word in French, but it translates to sudden death.
Oh, it's really tasty. It's very sweet and it's very cherry - and I'm feeling all right. I
don't think I'm going to die any time soon. In fact, I might have some more.
Our mussels are here! All right, let's try them. They smell super garlicky.
We ordered them with wine and garlic and cream. They're really good, really briny, nice texture,
not rubbery. They're delicious. I feel like it's going to take us forever to eat this pot though,
and then will we be full when it's done? I don't know. They're so good. Do you eat them with
your fingers? I'm probably doing this all wrong. I'm sorry, Belgium! This is really good. All the
mussels, really good, the sauce is excellent, and we got a little bit of bread here. We're
able to mop up some of the sauce, which is really nice. We've also got the pomme frites. The fries
which just go perfectly with the mussels, and the beer. We ordered just one portion, which was
plenty for us to split. We've actually heard that that's typical, and the restaurants are happy to
let you share. Highly recommend this if you come to this area. Mussels, cherry beer, and fries.
They all just went really well together. Delicious. Definitely recommend the Bistro
Port de Halle if you are in Brussels and want to try some mussels. I just can't stop rhyming.
And it's right across the street from a great view of this really cool castle. Now we are going to
try the chocolates from the 2021 Chocolatier of the Year. More rhyming! I can't. I just.
Now we lost track of which one was which, so we're actually just going to each try a half
and then trade. That's the best way to do it anyhow. You get to try multiples. Okay.
Mine has a Speculoos interior. It's more sugary than Speculoos. That is really different. It's a
ganache filling. The one I had was cacahuete, which is peanut. It's actually peanut butter.
It actually tastes freshly made. Heather loves peanut butter. We'll see how this goes.
That's like a ganache Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, except better.
That was really different. It was really good. We have one more stop to make, and we have saved
the best for last, and then I'm going to roll myself back to our place.
We mentioned that we saved the best for last. Here we are. This is the Royal Palace of Belgium,
here in Brussels. It is normally closed to visitors but it opens about five weeks a year,
and we happen to be here when they're open,
and managed to snag entry tickets, so we are going to see the inside of the Royal Palace.
This one is actually inhabited by the King and Queen of Belgium, who live here in Brussels,
and that's really unique that we're able to go in and see where they're currently living. I'm not
sure that there's another palace in Europe where you're able to do that. I'm so excited to see what
the inside of this looks like. If you decide to tour the Royal Palace while you're here, here
are just a couple things you need to know. First, you make a reservation online. It's super easy,
but they do fill up, so book early. Two, they don't allow large backpacks or liquids right now,
so leave them back at the place that you're staying at or in a locker nearby.
Well, that was super interesting. The palace is incredibly opulent. I can't imagine having this
be your everyday home, and be surrounded by the magnificent artwork and these rooms that are just
massive in size. They're huge! It's a good gig, if you can get it.
There's a lot of information in the Palace about what the Royal Family has been doing
over the years, especially in the 20th century, and a lot of very recent information about what
they've been doing during the pandemic and helping the community and Belgian society in general.
I will say I did not expect it to be a solid marketing campaign for the royalty of Belgium.
Everything was incredibly well signed, in at least four languages,
so it was really interesting to go through. I would recommend it if you happen to be here during
the couple of weeks that it's open. And besides, the price is right - It's completely free.
We have a lot more to come from the rest of Belgium and southern Netherlands. We hope
you enjoyed our DIY food tour today. If you enjoy watching Americans try food from other cultures,
we're going to do that all over the world, so be sure to subscribe. We really do like to eat
Nasi Gareng, Chicken Rice, all the things, ice cream, spring rolls, ice cream, wine, cookies,
beer, donuts, more wine. The donuts are more for her. More chocolate, more donuts. Donuts...