Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Paws off, Cochino!

So I'd heard about filet americain, a common dish here in Brussels, and I'd seen it in restaurants and the grocery and reveled in how unappealing it looked.... and I'll eat just about anything.  But I was rather put off by it.  On a whim at the Delhaize market the other day, I picked up a container of it and didn't look back.  I live here now;  so my French is bad... at least I can appear local.


What exactly is filet americain?  It's a type of steak tartare.  The beef is finely, finely ground and mixed with onions, capers, herbs, other seasonings, and a raw egg.  I typically prefer my tartare to contain bigger pieces of meat, however, and this "filet americain" is more like a sticky spread--the meat is beyond "ground," really.  Well, at least I only set myself back about a euro on the container shown here.




 I decided to spread it on some bread, which is a dish commonly referred to as "toast cannibale" here.  Toast cannibale!?

Well, people, it is my new favorite thing.  It smells heavenly and tastes like deliciousness incarnate.  I allowed myself the two small helpings here and then waited a bit before helping myself to regular small doses throughout the day.  I felt like a "cannibale".... I was craving it, salivating for more, but afraid to eat too much because, um, it's raw meat and egg.  But I was like an animal for it, I tell you!  It is my new favorite thing.  And that's just based off of a grocery store version.  Need to go out to a fancy place for it.... can you imagine how savage I might become for the good stuff??

Oh!  And they spread it on baguettes for sandwiches, as well.  There's one with filet americain, olive oil, sundried tomatoes, and parmesan that I've got my eye on.  Maybe as soon as the weather cools down a bit.  It is, you know, raw.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

A real live bouquet... and more!


Happy birthday to ME!  My mom and dad sent me a picture of the real live "bouquet" they had for me in St. Louis.  They also sent me a video of Aunt Helen, Uncle Bernie, Aunt Louise, and my dad singing happy birthday and blowing out the candles on a cake for me.  (There was even some controversy over an apparent "trick" candle at the end, but my dad managed to take it out.)  It was really great to see everyone!  Too bad I couldn't share in the cake, but as you will see I had a very nice dinner here.  




We went to Le Fruit Defendu on Rue Tenbosch for dinner.  It's a cute place that's virtually catty-corner from our current apartment.  It's really charming and small and all of the offerings change daily and are written on a blackboard that they bring around to your table.  This is really the only way, as far as I'm concerned.  We scored a spot on the terrace without a reservation and got right to it.



This was the amuse.  A marinated beef salad on the left (so simple:  beef, garlic, lime juice, onion), and a seafood mouse of sorts on the right.  Note the sole saltine standing by....


This was the lobster ravioli we shared.  Unlike many lobster ravioli I have had, it was quite light and not too creamy.  I swear, the filling was just lobster--so good!  And the sauce had an air of cinnamon to it.  




The winner of the night!  Swordfish with an octopus and artichoke vinaigrette over squid ink noodles.  It was incredible.  I think Byron was jealous, but the birthday gods saw to it that my food was tops.  He can best me (foodwise) on his birthday!







This was Byron's grilled sea bass.  Good, but no swordfish.  :)



And this was the molten chocolate cake, bien sur!  Well, what was left of it by the time I remembered to take a photo.  Dee-lish!

More weekend



I really wanted to have my picture taken by this, but I wimped out because there were people all around. But I love this tag.





Look at how cool Byron is sitting outside the Teddy L. patisserie on Chaussee de Waterloo.  Teddy has a few locations around town, so I was put off by its relatively chain-iness.  But really, the menu offered many choices, the sandwiches were good, and there was a nice patio out front.  Despite the blowhard Brit nearby going on about yoga the whole time, the meal was quite enjoyable.





Spotted in St-Gilles.



Spotted in St-Gilles 2.





This little feller was also in St-Gilles.

As is our new apartment building!  It's going to be grand!  (Found this site, which gives you the scoop on St-Gilles in a nutshell.)





This is the Prison of St-Gilles.  So magnificent!  It's interesting because it is still a working prison and it's smack in the middle of a really nice part of St-Gilles.  I mean, there are some really fancy houses right across the street, where I took this picture.  In fact, it's quite residential (and high-end) all around the prison.  It is not too far from our apartment, and there's a picturesque point where you're walking down our street and if you look to the right, you'll see the Prison of St-Gilles down the road and if you look to the left, you'll see the beautiful commune building of St-Gilles.  And the whole thing just feels so old world European.  *sigh*





Check out this hot dog in a bag!  It's even called "Frank!"




I've been taking photos of house numbers, especially the hand-painted ones.  But this sign was too good to pass up.  Pret a porter de luxe.  Yes, I will.

Wherever is the parade this weekend, my good man?

We were looking for a sneaker store (which also sells fixed gear frames) on Saturday and stumbled upon the Eglise Notre Dame du Sablon (or Church of Our Lady of the Sablon).  It was built in the 15th and 16th centuries, and is just splendid.  It has 46-foot high stained glass windows, but it also has all of these other cool carvings, paintings, and statues!  There were two small, black and white marble chapels that looked beautiful but were closed when we went.  Without further adieu, some scenes from Notre Dame du Sablon:


Creeeeeepy dead peeps.



The patron saint of dandies everywhere?




Crests!





This must be the "dame" herself.  Nice dress, hm?




The "dame" classes up some candle holders.  Can I borrow 5 euro?




From there, we strode through the Sablon Antiques Market.  What a charming market, it is!  There were some really beautiful and unusual pieces there--from anything-you-can-imagine made of silver to jewelry to frames to art to bits n' bobs to walking sticks to keys to whatever your heart desires.  Come for a visit and we'll go!








And surely you recognize this old friend?

I am quite taken with the Mannequin Pis.  So much so that if I know we are in the vicinity, I beg to be taken there. (I say "taken there" because I am perpetually lost in this city.  I can't get my bearings--north is south, east is west--the whole bloody city just confuses me.  I had it *down* in SF and Columbus and Philly, but Brussels??  Woof!  I hope it's only temporary...  Even the damn Tenbosch Park is like a warp zone for me!)  I just like seeing what he's up to and, well, seeing him!  This was the first time I caught him in an outfit, and my how jaunty he looks in his neckerchief!  Turns out, his costume was related to parade that had popped up a few blocks away because there were real live people kicking it off in the same outfits.




So it's not a weekend in Brussels without a parade of some sort!  This one featured huge paper mache effigies.  Each figure appeared to represent a city or region in Belgium, and each was accompanied by proud citizens of that city/region and a band.  Yeah, each figure had its own band.  Nice touch.








And that was just Saturday!

Friday, June 25, 2010

Catching up...

With this post, I will actually be caught up.  Or rather, you will be caught up!  But what I'm saying is, this shizz just happened!  As in the photos at the park were taken about an hour ago.  As Kool and the Gang would say:  Fresh.


I want to be Elliott Erwitt when I grow up.  Spotted this guy outside of this old-man betting "office" on Chaussee de Waterloo.  Love the trampy air he has about him.  The soda can just adds to it.





Went to paint some ceramics last night with Lynsey and Fran.  It was freeing and frustrating at the same time.  I was frustrated because look at that lousy grade-school version of Cochino I did!  But it was freeing because how often to you get to sit around and paint??  We had a great time.  And they made us dinner, as well.  It was a homemade pasta with a light tomato sauce and ham, with a salad on top.  YUM.




The ladies with their arts.





This is Park Tenbosch, my afternoon treat.  So, it's not the best capture of the park, but I feel funny going around taking photos there because everyone's up to something.  I can tell you that it's masterfully laid out so as to provide many private spaces and a general feeling of seclusion.  Again, you don't get that from this photo, but I swear it's true.  I've never experienced anything like it in a park of so little square footage before.

Oh, and there's a petanque court where the olds get some lively matches going.  I met an old man called Henri and two Jack Russells called Tommy (Hilfiger) and Paco (Rabanne) there the other day.  *Sigh*




Ten....... BOSCH!



And, if you haven't seen the photos of our new apartment yet, well dagnammit because they took the photos off the website because it's off the market!  We had the hardest time deciding between this place and another one in a more expat-y area (read:  fancyville).  We went for the one in St-Gilles, which has a more local (and sometimes very Portuguese) feeling.  The space is great, and the apartment's full of character and interesting details... and the best part is it has a grand bricked in "yard" in the back.  And it's all ours!  I can even take Cochino out there on the harness without anyone looking at me funny.  :)

Anyway, we are going this weekend to see it again, so I will take some snaps and post 'em.

Amsterdam with a Dash of Paris

So Wednesday I had an interview in Amsterdam for a company called ModeDesign, which is a large Dutch company with 700+ employees.  That's all well and good, but what you really need to know is they have a brand called "Sandwich."  Yup, as in club, BLT, what have you.  A womenswear line called Sandwich.  How about that?  It made me REALLY want to work there.  heh.


Spotted this bus on "Pause" on my way into Gare du Midi to catch my train.  It's hard to see from the picture, but there is a steaming coffee cup (or maybe it's a cup o'soup?) icon right next to the word "Pause."  This is cute.





Here it is!  One of my favorite broodjes!  There's a yummy sandwich shop at the Central station in Amsterdam--nothing fancy, we're talking train station sandwiches here--that I just love!  This is the second time I've gotten this same sandwich (chicken [kip!.... haha if your name is Kip!  But then, translation aside, isn't that embarrassing enough?], bacon, rocket, tomato and wouldja look at that beautiful egg?).

I must admit I got excited as the train pulled into the station, bringing me closer to my true sandwich love. (Lies.  I have no true sandwich love.  I've been slutting around with a whole lot of them of late.)  I grabbed one and sat outside in the sun to eat it, watching all of the tourists walk out into the sunlight and take their first glimpses of Amsterdam.  (My favorites are the groups of backpacked young people huddling up and planning their attack on this city, which embarrassingly thwarts them in the end as they over-consume and end up stumbling around or incapacitated.  But here they are all bright eyed and excitable... tomorrow, bleary and feeling badly.)





The scene of the broodje-eating.

So, I had the interview at the company I now just call "Sandwich," and it went really well.  Great work environment and nice people.  It was a good experience and I got back to the train station in enough time to catch the first half of the England/Slovenia match at a bar there.  I had to watch the England match because no one gives half a crap about the US game that was on at the same time.  There was a group of 20-something British guys in there watching and if there's one thing that connects all viewing circles of British men watching their team, it's the shared tone with which they cry out, "Rooney!" when he gets the ball within scoring range.  It's done with the same breath and excitement and hope as a child would exclaim "Santa Claus!"  Magic.  Anyway, I quietly gave away my citizenship in the way I dramatically measured my breath or rolled my eyes.  Though no one noticed, it was satisfying to me, being that I was outnumbered.

So I board the train, getting updates from loyal friends on the game, and was feeling pretty good by the time we got to Brussels.  We were at the Gare du Nord in Brussels as I was thinking about what I was going to pick up from the market that night, waiting for the 5 minutes until we reached the South station.  (There are three main train stations in Brussels--the north station or Gare du Nord, the central station or Brussels Central, and the south station or Gare du Midi or Zuid.  If you think the fact that one station has two names and that the "Midi" station is not the "Central" station is a tad confusing, then surely you will be understanding of what happened next.)  I was lost in my thoughts and playing it cool so as not to get up until we reached the South station when the train started moving again and I noticed that it was the South--NOT North--station sign that was growing smaller........ SHIT!  I missed my stop!  Did I miss my stop?  I missed my stop!  Hey, do you speak English?  Was that the South station?  So... we're going to Paris???  What do I do?  Go to Paris?

Well, that's what I did.  Surprise!  Went to Paris.  I had never been so disappointed to go to Paris in my life.  The train manager was helpful and understanding (he could see in my eyes that I felt bad about my mistake, an honest mistake), whisked me off the train at Gare du Nord in Paris and turned me over to his colleague on the 9:20 pm train back to Brussels (the next train out), who sat me on the train back with less compassion and less conversation than Claude (my angel!) from the Brussels train.  But whatever, I didn't have to pay for my mistaken leg to Paris, nor for the return to Brussels.  The only thing I wasted was time, but without a job these days, I'm getting quite good at that.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Think about it.

Bathroom in Ixelles.

Indulgences...

You can buy a whole leg of Jamon Iberico here.  I think it'll set you back around 180 euros, though.  Worth it?




Another sandwich treat.  This one had some kind of sliced mystery meatball (I think it was pork), with cheese, rocket and (ready?) truffled mayo.  Is there a more indulgent delight in this world than truffled mayo???  You could literally see the spots of shaved truffle in it--this was no add-a-smidge-of-truffle-oil pass off.  Oh, and egg!  It had hard-boiled egg, too.  YUM.




Rotisserie mayhem at the Flagey market.





Flowers at Flagey.






And look what Byron has found!  The towel he has always dreamed of!  And only 5 euros!

Monday, June 21, 2010

Bicky Burger O'Brien

Keegan had a day's layover in Brussels on his World Cup/30th bday mini-tour of Europe.  So we dragged him all over town, and he was quite the sport about it.  (Dare I say, he even enjoyed it!)  The weather could not make up its mind... there was rain and sun and rainy sun.  And it was a dash on the cold side, but still.  We were all feeling festive.

Started off in Ste Catherine and shared a plate o'tapas.  Then browsed the shops on Dansaert.  Stopped to watch the Ghana-Australia game and share a large bottle of ketchup (seriously, the bottle barely fit on the table... noted you are on to our being Americans and this is what you think we want... but no thanks).

Then we walked down Louise back to Chatelain, watched the Denmark-Cameroon game (viva la colorblock!), and finally hit the Place des Palais for a tripped out Grandmaster Flash show.  (And let's not forget DJ Demo, struggling to keep himself on the big screen and, well, just to be relevant.)  As bizarro as it was (he was spinning Top 40 hits, basically... and there was no rapping besides his constant demand of the crowd to "Get your hands up!"), it was really enjoyable... if only to see how Grandmaster Flash had tailored his show to play the EU market... and for the really bad dancing.  Oh, the dancing!

BUT... the most meaningful thing for me was that we got a little closer to understanding the phenomenon that is a Bicky burger.  I have been meaning to do a post about Bicky burgers.  Now, I do believe there is a chain called "Bicky Burger," but Bicky burgers also appear generically all over Brussels, popping up at falafel shops, mostly.  I told Keegan and B how I'd seen them all over town, but wasn't quite sure what they are.  (Because the wikipedia entry for Bicky burger is in Dutch.  Thanks for nothin'.)

The guys decided to try to the Bickies, no big deal like.  The crispy grey-ish burgers (don't YOU wanna try a Bicky now?) were prepared with two kinds of sauces (a yellow and a red... but not mustard and ketchup... they were more like curry sauces), pickles, and crispy fried onions (nice touch).  Keegan noted that the meat (now we were sure it was some sort of meat, when going in we were prepared for a veggie/falafel type patty) had a sausage-like flavor.  So we asked some of the kids working the Bicky burger cart what exactly type of meat it was.  The first said, "beef"... but then another rolled over and did what looked like a bad-wedding-reception-style duck dance to explain that it was chicken.  Either way, it was unsatisfactory (read:  yucky) and we were kinda skeeved out by the Bickies.  But we did it!  We tried Bicky!

Last night, I dug a little deeper, however (translating the wikipedia page, etc.... ha) and found that the one thing that makes a Bicky burger a Bicky burger is that the meat (whatever it is) is deep fried.  That's right, they just drop them patties right in the deep frier.  But still, they could be horse meat.  Just deep fried.


Keegan and Bicky = not best buds.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Yummies

This sandwich may not look like much, but trust me it was.  I branched out from my usual "club" sandwich (oh, I'm just mad for hard-boiled eggs on a sandwich and the club has them a-plenty... with jambon to boot!), and tried a "Provincial."  Of course, I've found a favorite sandwich shop, so there was already a level of trust.  (By the way, one of my requirements for a sandwich shop is a menu of options on display since my French ain't so hot and neither is my imagination to make up sandwich varieties.  You've gotta give me something to choose from.)

OK... so this "Provincial."  It was sliced chicken with emmental, grilled chopped veggies (onion, eggplant, zucchini) tossed with some balsamic, and topped with microgreens.  Oh, and the bread was perfection, as well.  Such a perfect sandwich.  Shoot.  Now I'm craving it....




This has become my favorite snack.  Cheese with this delicious forest berry jam on slices of bread.  Here it is with a chevre, but I've also got a Tomme de Savoie that I top with the jam, as well.  Mmmm....





This may be the freshest, most delicious nougat on earth!  There was a new nougat guy at the market yesterday, so I had to dig in.  He had so many varieties--nougat with cherries, nougat with figs, even nougat with speculoos (more on those later), but I wanted to try his basic nougat with lavender honey and almonds first.  All of the ingredients were fresh and organic, and it's quite evident.  What a moist and fluffy slice o'nougat.  Well done, nougat guy!






This is speculoos ice cream.  Speculoos is a biscuit rampant in Brussels.  And, boy, are they tasty.  Turns out, they use 'em to flavor ice cream, as well.  (Oh!  I once bought a mustard on tap at the Maille store in Paris that was flavored with speculoos, as well.  Yums.)  Where had this ice cream flavor been all my life?!?  Because we are totally best friends now.  LOVE.  It almost tastes like the ice cream is the flavor of the cone.  But this is a good thing.  Really.






Cochino's prezzy from the market--cat grass!






Went back to Cafe des Spores last night.  It is truly some of the best food in Brussels.  And such a great space, as well.  Had to take a (crappy iPhone) photo of this boiled egg topped with truffles.  Oh... those... truffles....





Recent selections... the Palm is a nice, easygoing one.  Nothin' fancy.  And I figured it was high time I sampled some gueuze and some kriek--especially since the kriek is "St Louis" brand.  Love that.  Of course, these are the more mainstream brewers of gueuze and kriek.  Now I need to get out there and drink some on tap!





Someone just *had* to model with the bottles.






Same someone knows that she should not be on the kitchen table, but here is heartily yawning upon being awoken from a nap.