Moules, frites, and bier

The capital city of Belgium has 3 often-used names: Brussels (English), Bruxelles (French) and Brussel (Dutch). This city of 1 million people is also rightly famous for 3 things:

1. Moules - mussels to us English-speaking folk. The best place to have it is the a restaurant called Chez Leon, and the house specialty involves cooking them in white wine. They were very good, and the best thing is that we didn't have to worry about red tide.

2. Frites - when some pissed-off Americans started calling French Fries "Freedom Fries," in retaliation for France's strong opposition to the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, some people in France commented that frites actually originated in Belgium. Pictured above is Maison Antoine, which means "get your fries here" in French. They serve the best fries in the world, 10x better than the ones Mcdonald's serves, and 100x better than the crap Jollibee dishes out.

They are cut thickly and served in a paper cone, topped with mayonnaise. You can also get them with a bunch of other sauces, like cranberry and strawberry (I am making imbento here of course - but I do remember seeing some strange sauces on the menu).

3. Bier - ahh beer. You just have to love a country that has more than 1,000 kinds of beer. They're also really anal about it - each one has its own special glass, and each one has to be served at specific temperature - depending on the type. In Manila, you're lucky if you get your beer cold, and if you want a glass and a bucket of ice ("que horror - you drink your beer with ice?!?!?")- you have to ask for one.

Above are 8 different kinds of Belgian beer. Out of these 8, guess which one I tried first? Thats right - the one with the most alchohol content. The left-most one said on the label that it was the "strongest beer in Belgium" - with 12% alchohol. It was terrible - worst beer I ever had. I still finished it though - sayang kasi eh.

"Pope, what about Belgian chocolates?" Well, yes they are also particularly good - there is actually a chocolate shop in almost every corner in this city. However, I don't know the French word for chocolate, so I am ending my post with beer.

I'm going back to Brussels next month - I can't wait.