BELGIAN FOOD TOUR! (First Time in Brussels, Belgium)

That sauce is amazing. I can't fit that. Whoa. It's my favorite too. And it's still good. What's up guys? We made it down from the Netherlands to Belgium. We're in the heart of Brussels right now. And the city, as you can see, it looks absolutely amazing. But we're here to eat, so let's not waste any time. This is our very first time in Brussels. And when in Belgium, there are a few dishes that we need to try. Let's make our way to the first So first spot we came to is called Goffres and Waffles. And of course, one of the staples of Belgium and here in Brussels is Belgian waffles, or as I call it here, just waffles, because we're in Belgium. And it's in this nice little street passage here. It's like this indoor style market. It's pretty fancy looking. And we got two different types of waffles. We wanted to start out with the standard Belgium original waffle. That's what it says on the menu. And it's just this typical Brussels style waffle with powdered sugar on it. It's pretty stiff, as you can see. It's not like floppy or anything. Just powdered sugar to get the taste of the waffle. And then we have a topped one as well. They also have sweet and savory, starting with sweet. It's very crunchy on the outside. And then the center. Check that out. It's just very creamy still. I think it's just the dough that's not fully cooked. And that's pretty nice. I first thought maybe there's some type of custard in it, but I think it's just the dough. Pretty good. I like the powdered sugar. We're more excited for the other one, the savory one. This one is filled. It's called Beef Tartare or Beef Tartare in French. Everyone here speaks French or Dutch. And this one has capers, a mayonnaise-based sauce, pickles, some greens on top. It looks really good. The one thing you'll notice is all the topped ones have way bigger holes, so you can put and fill it with as much as you want. But why did they leave the last three empty? You know, just to get a little hand-holding section. I'm not sure. I guess. All right, so let's give it a cut. Oh, we're cutting a long side. I see. Let's see. I gotta get the whole thing, no? There we go. So we have the Beef Tartare in there. I've got capers. I have a pickle in there and some nice mayonnaise-based sauce is what they said. It's on a very warm waffle. They're pretty fresh. They're making them right there on the grill. Yeah. So yeah, let's give it a try. I can't fit that. I can't fit that. More bite-sized. To be honest, it doesn't taste like the Beef Tartare that I'm used to, but the mayonnaise, it gives it a little bit of a tuna salad vibe. I'm not gonna lie. Also, I feel like in America, every waffle is advertised as Belgium. If you have Beef Tartare, it's very tender. It's very mushy. It has a very creamy vibe. The sauce is kind of overpowering, to be honest, and it takes over the whole flavor. The waffle itself is just a vehicle to transport the whatever topping you have on this. Yeah, it's pretty good. I have never eaten anything like this. I like his fork and knife action here. No need. Finger food. Here we go. It does not taste meaty at all. Like you said, it's more like a tuna salad with a pickle on top. But yeah, the savory one, I definitely like better than the standard powdered sugar one. Because it needs syrup, right? Yeah. I don't know. The Belgian people are gonna judge me hard for that comment. Having finished one of the styles of Belgian waffles, we head off towards the city center, admiring many of the beautiful buildings. Pretty impressive first impression. Yeah, they still have a lot of quaint alleyways with historic looking buildings, a lot of trams, bike paths still. Feels very nice. It's very walkable so far, but we've only been here for a little bit. I've been here once with a school trip for one day. I don't remember anything. You literally say that every school trip you've been on. Yeah. Like I've been advanced, I don't know how you call it like in English, you know, like the Leistungskurs, advanced program, politics, stupid decision back in the day. And with that course, we went here because the European Parliament is in Brussels. So it's like the political heart of Europe. We continued towards the city center as a smell of deep fried potatoes filled our noses, reassuring us that we were on the right path. So for the next spot, we had to do it Belgian fries because they're staple not only in the Netherlands and a lot of other countries, I assume, but Belgium is known to have amazing fries. So we came to the spot behind us called Britland, literally meaning the land of the fries, basically. In the center here, it's super busy. They had a lot of seats too. It's full as a long line, so they have to be good, right? This is the small portion. With the sauce is only four euros. This is pretty big. It's huge. You have this choice between like 15 different sauces. We got Piri Piri or Pili Pili sauce. Pili Pili. Pili Pili sauce, which is a spicy mayonnaise. We will probably get mayonnaise later on in this video as well. But this one sounded amazing. It's the spiciest they have on the menu. So it is mayonnaise with paprika and African chilies. It sounds really good. And if you know anything, we like spicy food. So here we go. Oh yeah, that looks good. I'm just gonna eat this fat dipped one here first. Here we go. Damn, that sauce is amazing. Wow, that's overpowering. Let me actually get a fry quickly without any sauce. It's hot. They're literally boiling right there. It's amazing. I think you saw them making them there. They have this huge bowl, bathtub of fries sitting there. They're super crispy on the outside. They're super hot, steaming and fluffy on the inside, just how they're supposed to be. Where opinions differ is when it comes to the seasoning of the fries, right? These are fairly plain, just a little bit of salt. That's it. Nothing wrong with that. And I think that's why they go amazingly with this Pili Pili sauce, which is mayonnaise texture, but it's definitely spicy. There's some pepper in it. You can really taste the flavors in there. That's good, man. For four euros, you get a lot of food, a lot of carbs, a lot of calories. So my only knowledge of Belgian fries is I did Toastmasters for a while and there was this girl from Belgium there and she made a huge speech about how fries originated in Belgium, not France, and she was very passionate about it, very convincing about it. So this is an homage to her. Just try it. The sauce is crazy. Damn, that sauce is so good. That's powerful. The fries are great. It's very fast turnover, so you know you're getting like some fresh fries, very potatoey. I need a bottle of that sauce though. How can you not like a country where the national food literally is made from potatoes? Yes, I mean, yeah. Amazing. Phil finished up those fries and we walk around a bit more before our next food stop. I cannot say enough of how beautiful some of these streets were with different building facades and shops. We make our way to the Grand Palace Square, which opens up to even more beautiful buildings. There was a flower time festival going on with impressive elephant statues, and as the clock strikes 3 p.m., it is time for a nice sweet treat, and we can't go to Belgium without eating some Belgian chocolate. So we had to get some chocolate here in Brussels, Belgian chocolate, and we came to this place called Laurent Gabor. But we have a nice hot chocolate here, super fresh. They had a whole bunch of little chocolates to choose from, and this set came with a little chocolate of your choice. This was $3.50 for this hot chocolate set, which is really nice. Beautiful. You can always spike it. They had rum options, but we went with a non-alcoholic option today. Hot Belgian chocolate. It brings me back to being a child. I mean, it tastes very creamy, very rich, very milky, so my lactose intolerance is going to kick in later, probably. But it tastes really good. It comes apparently with a little shot of vodka. That's water. If you want to down that quickly. This is water. Yeah, it looks like it. But then you have a little chocolate ball. I'm going to take a bite. This one is the Noisette. It's like a nougat one with nuts. We got some nuts in here. I actually chose that. I think that's one of my favorites. Oh, that's so good. It looks so moist. It's literally peanut butter inside of a chocolate. 10 out of 10 chocolate. This is so good. That's a good chocolate reaction. Should I try the hot chocolate very quickly? Quick hot chocolate. Whoa, that's so intense. In Germany, we had a lot of cold chocolate drinks, the Nesquik or whatever, cacao. With cold milk, we just mix it. That's intense chocolate. Very nice. We got this little bag. This is 100 grams of assorted Chocolatier Bruxelles chocolates, which are probably the best ones in the world because they probably say they're the best ones in Brussels. And Brussels probably say best ones in Belgium. So here it is. Best chocolate in the world. This was 10 euro and a little bit. 10.50. Yeah. We will compare it to the Milka chocolate standard that I'm used to, which is one euro per hundred grams. So this is 10 times the price. Get out of here. That's not comparable. I'm going to also start with the nut one because I think that's probably the one. I mean, just because we love some nuts. Who doesn't love some good nuts? It's really good. Yeah. Like it's really moist peanut butter in there. That's weird. It's so good. Like that is my stuff. I mean, look at that. Most of them are in the square form. Tiny piece of pistachio. There's a nice pistachio on top. I don't know if that's one in there. The nice lady working there said this one was her favorite and one of the most popular ones. That's even better, man. Because it's nougaty on the inside as well. And then the pistachio is just on top. So when I was Googling Belgium chocolate in Brussels, I got into a Reddit thread and a lot of people said this is some of the best chocolate. So that's why we ended up coming here. We kind of just told her, just put the best in there until it gets out to a hundred grams. I have the coconut, so I'll just give this a quick try. Do we only have one coconut? Yeah. So I won't eat it all. That's for Papa. That's so good. It has this very dark chocolate flavor to it, which I prefer. I think you don't like it as much, right? It depends. I like it when it's this soft. This is really soft. You know, when you bite into a cold chocolate and this is the opposite, it's really creamy. Yeah. It's so good. Yeah. So good. Should I try the pistachio one too? I think she's right. Whoa. It's my favorite too. Yeah. This is the Belgian diet. You drink chocolate, you eat chocolate. You eat it. We're going to save some of these for later. They're so good though. I'm very pleasantly surprised. That one was so nice. This is an awesome experience. I don't know if locals do this, but as a tourist, this is amazing. Yeah. I think it's awesome. I mean, it's not cheap, but if you're in Rome, right? You gotta try the chocolate. When in Brussels. Get some mussels coming up next. We should get mussels next. Let's go. I mean, I already have them, you know, but you know what I mean. And we continue towards our last stop on this Belgian food tour. These travel and food videos are possible thanks to you all watching. So a big thank you to all of you. If you want to further support us, you can do that at patreon.com where we make additional monthly blooper or behind the scenes videos. Now time for the For our main event, we came to this restaurant called Schoedeveld and in this area, there's a ton of Belgian restaurants and some of them have not so good ratings. So we picked one with a very good rating. It's a brasserie, which I think means a brewery. We just ordered two very Belgian things. I'm very excited for, because I think neither of us had either of them. We're going a little alcoholic now. I have a Stella Artois, which is very common Belgian beer. Very common also in the UK. When I studied in Durham, I drank that actually a lot. I don't know why, but every pub in England seems to have Stella Artois on tap. It's very common in the US too. Yeah. So, and it's still good. So the food came out and it looks fantastic. I'm not even sure exactly what this is. This is called, I think, water soy. And it's this creamy stew with chicken also here. And I think there's also mushrooms in there. This might be a little puff pastry. Oh, yeah. Look at that. It's a little puff pastry in the center. Creamy stew around it. And then garnished with some, I would assume, parsley. So when I Googled up Belgian dishes, this one popped up a lot. And it looks like a very traditional hearty stew. I don't know if this bread thing in the center, it's like puff pastry. It's very common with it. So there we have it. Water soy for the first time. The chicken is super tender. I don't know if it's boiled chicken or if it's fried. I would assume it's like boiled in the sauce or something. It tastes like that. You know, when you boil meat in a sauce, you get this super soft meat with the flavor engraved in it. And then you have mushrooms, which I like a lot with this creamy sauce. And overall, I love it. I feel like potatoes, like just boiled potatoes could go with it or just boiled rice, you know. Phil just loves potatoes. Well, I think you have this bread that goes with it. There you go. But maybe that's what that puff pastry was for. Yeah. But that works very well together as well. And now for the mussels from Brussels, the most American man, Jean-Claude Van Damme. That's not Jean-Claude. Sorry, but there are mussels. So a very common dish I've seen on every menu here has been mussels with fries. They are served together, apparently. And I think it's super iconic. There's a lot of pork and sea here. Yeah, it's called moules frites, which moules, I think, are the mussels and frites are the fries. You just pull out a mussel from the inside. It looks like it's cooked in here with a lot of cut up celery, onions. You have a lot of herbal garnish in there and it looks very nice. So I'll just pull this out here. We have a nice mussel. It's very oceany, like you expect with like any type of seafood, but it's surprisingly a lot more like seasoned and heartier than I thought. I really like mussels like in a white wine cook production. I thought you're going to say the white man. That's true. This is awesome. I think as you dig down, there's going to be a little more sauce in there. Yeah. And I don't know if that's what the fries come in for. I'm not used to fries and mussels, but it's a pretty good combo. Well, Belgian fries and Belgian mussels. Very nice. So this combo right here, I think with the beer is supposed to be 20 euros, which is not a bad thing. Yeah. It's a pretty, pretty big pot. Yeah. So I'm happy. I don't know when I had mussels before, maybe at the gourmet festival. Was that mussels? You had oysters there. Oysters, potato, potato. Am I right? This is really nice. Very creamy. Use your fork, man. Why? They're just here and people love to eat with their hands, right? Very good. They acquired a taste. It's boiled in a nice broth. It tastes like a nice vegetable, herby broth that they have it boiled in. Also fries again, pretty good. I like that this area focuses more on the mayonnaise. The Netherlands as well as Belgium, right? Fries, standard sauce, mayonnaise. For me growing up, standard sauce was just ketchup. Yeah. Same in the US, just ketchup. But I think I prefer mayonnaise. You're left with this full on soup broth. And maybe that's what the fries are for. And I would assume that's what you're supposed to eat that, right? Yeah. I've been eating it. The broth itself, that's so nice. It's so flavorful from all the mussels. Yeah. Love it. Overall, I have to say, even for the hardier dishes, this is something very uncommon for me, at least in Germany. And overall, a great day of eating. And we're going to enjoy the rest of this off camera. Yeah. I love Brussels so far and the mussels from Brussels. The mussels from Brussels. Right here. That is me, Jean-Claude. Okay, enough. I'll just eat now. Okay, bye. All right. So that was our food tour here from Brussels in Belgium. I'm highly impressed with the food, with the city, with the vibes. I definitely want to come back. As the rain comes down, it was perfect ending to a day. Let us know what you would eat here. Have you had any Belgian food before? Did we miss anything? As always, thank you so much for watching. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye. Bye. Behind the scenes, Phil trying to open one of the mussels that are too closed. There you go. Oh, you got it? What is that though? Oh, don't eat that. Don't eat that. It's kaput.