@Bralo20

7 months ago

Welcome to Belgium :-) Unfortunately it seems that the last restaurant was a tourist trap. That "waterzooi" wasn't really a waterzooi, it looks like they sold you '"vol au vent" for waterzooi. Waterzooi is more like a soup while vol au vent is like what you got. The are almost the same but not exactly (in waterzooi you'll find potatoes and carrots for example and no mushrooms). The portion of mussels you got seems extremely small, a normal portion should be at least 1,1kg (preferably 1,2 to 1,3kg). And yes, we Belgians mostly eat fries with our mussels, it goes great together. Normally you get also a mussels sauce (mustard, vinegar, pepper, salt, water and some cooking juice of the mussels. Most pre-made mussel sauces will be mayonaise based with the addition of extra mustard and vinegar to make it into a more dressing like consistency). Another give away that it was a tourist trap: the prices are way to low. While tourist traps can serve decent or OK food, normal restaurants will give you higher quality food. Like the mussels for example, you got from the looks of it the "extra" mussel, which is the smallest (and cheapest) mussel available. A self respecting restaurant would never serve anything below the "jumbo" mussel (mussels are graded from big to small: 1) Goudmerk 2) Jumbo 3) Imperial 4) Super 5) Extra). I'm happy that you loved the food but unfortunately you got conned by a tourist trap :-) And Belgians in don't eat hearty waffles, those are solely for tourists. We love our waffles plain or with some sweet toppings at most (like whipped cream for example). Go inside of any restaurant, brasserie (tavern) or coffee house and you won't see it on the menu. Anyway, if you ever get back here, give a yell and I'll take you to some places where they offer decent Belgian food (my treat!).

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