Anyone who knows anything about the Belgians knows that they live on moules-frites, waffles and beer. All washed down with lashings of chocolate. These culinary delights were my targets on a recent all-too-brief Spa-Francorchamps road trip. The more moules, the more frites, the more waffles and the more beer I could get my hands on, the better.
An artisanal Liege waffle
The varieties of waffle and beer available in Belgium are so numerous that any definitive work could only be written by moving to Brussels and taking up residency. With all the bureaucracy and form filling that entails I decided merely to taste the few morsels that fell to me during my brief travels across the country. My duty was clear. To eat without regard to calorific intake, to make detailed reports and transmit my findings to the relevant authorities.
Breakfast in Spa – Chocolat Chaud and a waffle
I started with breakfast in Spa. The very place that gave its name to the spa in your local leisure centre. A chocolat chaud and a gaufre. I was in a small boulangerie and all the waffles looked a bit precision engineered. However there they were, sitting behind a glass counter, available in a multitude of different flavours, including rhubarb. I wasn’t sure how they got rhubarb into a waffle and why anyone had ever thought it was a good idea to try to get rhubarb into a waffle. They appeared to have managed it though, so full marks for ingenuity. There didn’t seem to be a plain waffle, so I chose chocolate. Which was unexpectedly filled with a delicious custard.
5 out of 5 for breakfast, although paying for it proved more tricky.
Having finished my repast I called the waitress over. She peered at my plate as though trying to remember what I had had.
‘A chocolate waffle and a hot chocolate,’ I reminded her. I spoke in schoolboy French, of course, but it usually does the trick. The waitress went back to the counter. I assumed she’d return with the bill, but she came back with another waffle. That wasn’t what I had intended. I waved some euros and said,
‘No, I would like to pay.’
Or at least that was what I thought I said. She nodded as though she understood perfectly and returned the waffle to the counter. Then she picked up a pain-au-chocolat instead and brought that over to me. This was looking tricky. How do you ever leave a cafe if the waitress refuses to bring you a bill and keeps bringing you more things to eat?
‘No, I have already eaten!’ I tried. Thankfully that jogged her memory.
‘Ah! A hot chocolate and a chocolate waffle!’
I paid and left before she brought me anything else.
Lunch was a washout that requires no mention. So that evening I headed into Liege to see what local delights I could taste. Back in England I had carefully made a note of all the specialities I might come across in Wallonia. It was a long list of interesting sounding dishes. Unfortunately I had left it in the hotel. So I was left with spotting the suffix a la Liegeois on menus. Ordering something a la Liegeois seemed a fair way to get something local.
It was warm enough to eat outside, and I settled down at a table at La Maison du Peket . It was advertising Boulets a la Liegeoise which I remembered reading about. I felt I was on safe ground. Meatballs, pure and simple. I ordered, confused the waitress by changing my mind from beer to water owing to a headache of violent proportions and waited for my first taste of a real Belgian dish.
Boulets à la Liégeoise
To be honest, if I was Liegeois I would be campaigning to have the name of the Boulets a la Liegeoise changed. They could just be called Boulets, without bringing Liege into it. The sauce is a sweet concoction of sirop de Liege and beer, with a fruity taste and a thick consistency. It enveloped three large meatballs of finely chopped meat. The three separate parts of the dish might well have been delightful on their own, but together they didn’t really go. Especially not the salad cream and meatball sauce. I am still shivering at the memory.
The next day I breakfasted on a plain Liege waffle. These are delicious. Crispy on the outside with an asymmetric shape that is much more appealing than the rectangular one I had eaten in Spa. As beer drinkers make day trips to Calais to stock up on booze I recommend day trips to Belgium to stock up on waffles. They don’t really keep, which means you’d have to go once or twice a week, but I think you would find it worth it.
I was only away for a weekend and still I hadn’t had any beer or moules-frites. Lunchtime was a chance to make amends, but the only option at the Spa-Francorchamp circuit was a buffet of salad and sausages. As I helped myself to a tomato here, a bit of what-ever-that-is there I didn’t feel it was a fair representation of the local cuisine. However the glass of Jupiler was definitely a local beer that is surprisingly hoppy. It lacks body but is just what the doctor ordered on a hot day – if you can find a doctor that prescribes alcohol.
It was only a short trip to Belgium and I was looking like missing out on moules. I stopped in Nieuwpoort on the northern coast to try and get my hands on the elusive seafood. There were lots of boats and a general atmosphere of the sea. Moules were bound to feature on every menu in town. But the waterfront was taken up with Italian restaurants. Lasagne, yes. Moules-frites, no.
I set off to Calais. It’s another port town, maybe it would have a moules frites restaurant. It might not be in Belgium, but it was on the Belgian trip. It would count. But by the time I arrived in Calais it was only half an hour until the ferry. Still I didn’t panic. Surely there would be a big shopping terminal at the port, full of interesting restaurants. I would get some moule-frites there. I checked in and drove to my allotted line in front of the ferry. There was a cafe only a few metres away. I hurrahed at my good fortune, locked the car and walked over to the cafe.
I have rarely been more culinarily disappointed. How have the French managed to get away with a reputation for high-class cuisine? This is what was inside the door marked cafe…
Not wishing to indulge in long-life sandwiches I walked to another large building that I figured must house a large shopping and eating emporium. All these tourists hanging around looking to spend the last of their Euros – surely Calais had put two and two together and built an expensive eatery at the terminal. But it was a police station and having seen the dogs that were sniffing their way up and down the quay I decided to end the pursuit of moules-frites there and then. ‘Twasn’t to be. Instead, once on the ferry I had an egg and cress sandwich.
As egg and cress sarnies go it was quite a good one. Creamy egg and peppery cress. But I was disappointed. Moules-frites were the Scarlet Pimpernel of foods. Impossible to find. And in the duty-free shop onboard I remembered that I hadn’t even tasted any Belgian chocolate. I tried to make amends by buying some there and then, but the boxes they were selling were all from Switzerland.
Still, I’ve got a boot full of waffles.
Not the right place to look when you are hungry! 😉
Joking aside, the Belgian’s should get better at serving their waffles with icecream, I much prefer them that way 😉