Monday, September 25, 2006

Street food and beer

DSCF0544 We found a street vendor selling poached snails that were quite delicious with a hint of saffron and herb. Belgium is also very famous for its fruit beers. The most well known is Kriek, flavoured with cherry juice - very refreshing and not at all artificial tasting. We also tried peach and raspberry flavours.

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Sunday, September 24, 2006

Les Crustacés

Quais aux Briques 8
Bruxelles

This street in Brussels bristles with seafood restaurants. A long walk failed to find anything worthy, but Les Crustacés beckoned with its friendly family run atmosphere and proprietress.

We started with an amuse of very tasty prawns and escargots. The latter we ate with a pin so we could prise out the meat from inside.

collage7Brussels is known for its mussels so we had to have some: steamed in white wine and fine herbs. Of course this comes with chips: homemade, perfectly crisp on the outside and creamily soft on the inside - served with home-made mayonnaise, bien sûr.

For our mains we ordered Lobster (Homard). I was tempted by the Thermidor, but wary of the excessively rich sauce that could disguise the taste of the sweet meat. We elected for a medium lobster split in two and cooked two ways: with garlic butter and flambéed in brandy.

collage8Looking back, the brandy flambéed version was quite inferior. The bitterness of the flamed brandy really came through and kinda ruined the sweetness of the meat. The seafoody freshness was also totally destroyed.

We enjoyed our meals and waddled out replete, ready to visit Frederic Blondeel.

Exotic chocolate in Brussels

Frederic Blondeel is an exotic chocolatier in Bruxelles, Belgium. Here you can find such novel flavours such as dill, szechuan pepper, chilli, green cayenne pepper, black cardomon, green cardomon and blackcurrant.

The husband and wife team that run this establishment are so sweet and helpful.

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Although the quality of the chocolate is not as good as a Godiva, the flavours are definitely quite exciting.

Friday, September 15, 2006

An interview: Me on Food and Science

I was recently interviewed on BBC Radio 5 as part of some publicity surrounding a talk I did at the Dana Centre about some science behind food and cooking.

My friend Tim kindly re-recorded it for me:
http://www.timbomb.net/download/DavidLoongOnFood.mp3

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Noordrmarkt in Amsterdam



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The Noordrmarkt (North Market) has the most splendid array of fresh food I've seen in a long time. Perhaps it's the pollution free Amsterdam air that makes the fruit and veg glow with vitality? Borough market just seems so dusty with the rattling trains overhead.