Well, I’ve disappeared for a few days due to a three-day trip to Flanders in Belgium where I was sated with three-course lunches, beer tastings, chocolate testings and four-course walking dinners. After the first day of eating three times my normal daily food intake, I skipped breakfast still feeling full from my wholesome beef steak the night before. On the second day, I had to skip dinner still feeling full from my three-course lunch and an afternoon beer tasting with cheese dipped in celery salt and Dijon mustard snacks. By the third day, I struggled to look at a menu and even though it all sounded good, for once my eyes were smaller than my stomach.
Are the portions of food really so small in Sweden that I got “food overload” in Belgium? Or am I simply poorly trained to eat such gigantic portions of food? Or is home-grown Belgian cuisine simply just too much for those of us who are used to a sandwich for lunch and sometimes, sushi or a Thai takeaway for dinner?
Our tour guide in Ghent, a town in Flanders, put it well when he said on Thursday, “Flemish food is Germanic portions with French quality.”
Belgium may be famous for Tintin and being the heartbeat of the EU but it’s even more famous for mussels, beer and chocolates.
And yes, it is a chocaholic’s paradise! Especially The Chocolate Line in downtown Brugge run by Dominique Persoone, a well-known chocolate chef, who definitely counts as one of the most interesting and creative chocolate chefs I’ve ever met … not to mention one of the most charismatic.
He dazzled our tastebuds with a Choc-tail – Costa Rican 64% bitter chocolate ganache with lime pipette filled with tequila silver and Maldon crystal salt. How do you devour it? Simple. Lick the salt, squeeze the pipette on to your tongue and finish up by swallowing the chocolate. Even though Tequila turns my stomach, the experience is something truly memorable. Forget dark chocolate flavoured with chilli pepper, think chocolate mixed with basil flavours, smoked cocoa (cocoa beans smoked with rosemary and Herbes de Provence) and Oud Sluis caramel, which mixes Cabernet Sauvignon vinegar and a praliné of pine nuts. Truly exotic and unforgettable. But even the most sceptical non-chocolate lovers, couldn’t help but be impressed by his sniff cocoa – sniffing cocoa with ginger and mint to get a kick and enhance the chocolate experience. But don’t worry, it really is just cocoa powder.
Part II about Belgian cuisine coming soon!
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