Food and Travel Overseas [10] 2012 – Belgium, Luxembourg

Table of Contents

Belgium

Luxembourg

BELGIUM

♥ Ghent (Jan 2012)

Ghent is one of the most popular cities to visit in Belgium. True to its name, the landscape in Ghent is very beautiful and has a lot of calm rivers with mirror images reflecting sereneness and soothing the soul.

Even the park and the lake have an indescribable extraordinary beauty in them.

Flea markets of second-hand goods are very common in Belgium over the weekend. One can go to a few of them in one city. I also love to discover some of the furry second-hand winter clothes which is one of my favourite clothing items.

They are very cheap and sometimes as low as € 10 for very good fur quality. I take the opportunity to emphasize here that I do not support buying real animal fur and against animal cruelty. I only buy synthetic fur that feels soft on the fingers.

Why do I love winter? Taking leafless branches against the deep blue sky is one interest of mine. I could go on talking non-stop just for this genre.

The castles are grandiose! I was blown off believing that I was in a fairy tale land where the kings, queens and horses still existed.

The fortress was one of the attractions which I would want to go in to explore but unfortunately, it was closing time and I could only take a quick photo of the interior. One full day spent in the splendid Ghent city which is the largest city in the East Flanders province was indeed an eye-opener.

♥ Leuven (Jul 2012)

Leuven is a small city but still beautiful on its own. I spent half a day shopping in Leuven.

In Europe, sandwiches are often taken for lunch because it is easy to grab one on the street and also cheaper compared to a meal in a restaurant. The average cost of a sandwich is around € 3.50 in Belgium.

Panos has one of my favourite sandwiches – Oriental Chicken. I have discovered another speciality of Belgium which are the sauces that are very tasty and unique which I liked very much.

I have the Asian mentality and like to compare eating a sandwich and a satisfying meal in Singapore with the same amount of cost.

I also have this feeling that eating a sandwich will never make me feel full and that something is always missing – like I should eat rice or noodle instead of a sandwich.

Such a stereotyped mentality changed much later when I stayed in Nantes, Paris and Antwerp in 2014 and that one can feel satisfied and full just by eating the sandwich. It is a matter of getting used to it.

When one is hungry outside, one would eat anything. The trick for me to curb such a problem of eating outside is to have a very heavy breakfast (which I am capable of) and so around noontime, I will not feel hungry or tempted to eat any food until much later.

I will then have a heavy meal (lunch cum dinner) between 4 pm to 7 pm at home (in Europe in 2014) depending on my hunger level. This definitely helps to cut down some weight.

By taking dinner as early as possible, we could allow the body to have more time to digest the food before storing the excess as fat. Early dinner also ensures better sleep quality without sleeping with a full stomach.

♥ Antwerp (Jul 2012)

When asked for one national dish, mussels would come up as one of the top lists. Belgians love their mussels and were obsessed with them. During summer, people can be seen eating mussels with the famous Belgian fries outside the restaurant basking under the sun.

The photo showing mussels cooked with Hoegaarden Beer and Creamer was my wild stimulation after watching it on a TV programme in Singapore 9 mths prior to the trial.

There was no actual recipe for it. I just use my own method to cook it on my first time eating with food cooked in beer (with creamer??) make me nervous with anticipation.

I have asked a few Belgian friends and they have all never tried mussels cooked in beer. They have tried mussels cooked with wines but beer, they didn’t even hear of it!

I would describe briefly how the recipe goes and you can vary the ingredients. The end result was superb! My Belgian friends loved this mysterious mussels dish that I have cooked for them as a foreigner.

Special Recipe: Mussels with Beer and Creamer (For 2 pax)

1. Boil the mussels with 2 cans of Hoegarden beer recommended by the Belgian TV programme.

2. When the mussels are 3/4 cooked, add in one packet of creamer inside the soup. I use concentrated creamer for cooking bought from Delhaize and Aldo Antwerp.

3. When the mussels are almost cooked, add in the vegetable and stir for 1 to 2 minutes. 

4. Taste the soup to see whether you need to add in the sugar.

♥♥♥

I realised that sugar is released from the beer while boiling and thus the soup will be naturally sweet. Another part of the flavour has to come from the creamer that you buy.

I tried the cooking 2 times in different years and used 2 different types of creamer bought in Antwerp. The taste was almost similar. I used Hoegaarden beer both times.

Have fun experimenting. I am sure you will love the delicious taste because all my Belgian friends said so.

LUXEMBOURG

♥ Luxembourg (Jul 2012)

Luxembourg is one of the smallest countries in Europe and is situated on the border of France, Germany and Belgium. It is a landlocked country meaning that the country is entirely surrounded by lands and had no sea resources surrounding it and no fishing activities. The country is so small that many Non-Europeans have not heard of its name nor know about its existence.

Luxembourg is one of the world’s most developed countries, with an advanced economy and the world’s second-highest GDP (PPP) per capita, according to the IMF. It is also scored as one of the safest countries in the world to live in according to a survey in one of the years.

I took a train from Antwerp, Belgium to Luxembourg and it took me 4.5 hrs to reach there. I felt excited and honoured to visit such a country initially. I stayed 2 nights there. The country is so small that you could finish the city centre and its vicinity in 1 day’s time.

It was mostly surrounded by a lush green landscape which I must applaud for its green effort. This was the unique focus of Luxembourg which other cities paled off. I personally felt that there was nothing much to see and which was why it was not on my top list of recommended places to visit because the travelling time was long and so was not really worthwhile in my personal opinion.

The buildings were not nice looking as compared to the buildings in some of the European countries that had a traditional and intrinsic design which I am particularly fond of. The buildings had not much design and none were made of bricks which would definitely enhance the look esthetically. The people weren’t friendly either as compared to the Europeans in other countries whom many would readily give you a smile.

A Chinese restaurant in Luxembourg that I had been to. There were 2 Chinese symbolic lions and no more laughing Buddha outside the entrance, (or maybe there was one inside?). We had dinner in this restaurant. The food was quite good.

The beer “Diekirch” was produced in a city in Luxembourg called Diekirch :).  It seemed that the British Cider “Bulmers” was rather popular and could be found in the menu of the restaurant and bars that we have been to. It tasted very nice and sweet with a choice of apple and pear cider. I drank this whenever I had a chance.

Related Articles