Croissants and Hot Chocolate

I could live off of croissants forever in their buttery, flaky deliciousness. Especially pain au chocolat!  I may or may not have eaten upwards of 3 of these one day...

Today I had one that was brushed with some sort of sugary coating on the outside. It was SO GOOD and even better than a plain croissant. The slight sugary coating sealed the deal.

Isn't this hot chocolate interesting? I've never quite had it served like this: hot milk with some chocolate bits in the bottom that were starting to melt. To make it drinkable you just stir it up. It was really good and creamy! Better than powder any day, but still not as chocolaty as straight melted chocolate, no milk, like some of the chocolate shops here do.

I didn't have the croissants with the hot chocolate, but that would have been vraiment delicious. (I have French words stuck in my head this week from working to understand all the French being spoken around me.)

Scenes from Brussels

Yes, I had to get the obligatory Belgian waffle (gaufre). Since it was only about 3 euro though, unfortunately it wasn't that great. Looking into the chocolate shop windows and smelling the deliciousness inside- that was great!

 

One thing the city is famous for is the Manneken-Pis- a statue of a little boy peeing. Supposedly he gets outfits from all around the world to wear! When I saw him he seemed to be in some sort of cleaner's outfit. Pretty sweet city mascot if you ask me!

 

One fascinating thing about Brussels/Bruxelles/Brussel is that it's a bilingual city. Belgium is split between the Dutch (Flemish) speaking north and the French speaking south. Though Brussels is in the Dutch part, the city's main language is French. Every sign has both French and Dutch, like this sign ("Sword Street"). I can understand way more French, but it did help me to translate words into Dutch. After 2 months in Amsterdam, the Dutch almost looked more familiar than the French!

 

Allors, no pictures, but I did score a box of delicious looking Belgian chocolates, each of which I picked out myself! Picking out weird truffles to try is one of my favorite things. Mmmmm...

Brussel Sprouts in Brussels

Last night we had a delicious brussel sprout soup made by a friend of the couple I'm staying with. I know many people don't like brussel sprouts, but I actually don't mind them and would much prefer to have brussels in Brussels than mussels in Brussels!

This was a sort of after-dinner small evening meal. After dinner the sprouts were picked right from the jardin (did I mention that I'm in French speaking territory now?) in the back. The wonderful chef prepared the soup to absolute perfection- really. On top was a bit of chopped up sprouts and smoked duck sauteed in butter (similar to bacon), which made for a perfect crunch and texture to balance the smoothness of the soup. It was salted and seasoned (from some Szechuan pepper spice) just right, creamy (from creme fraiche), hearty (from potatoes), and fresh (from the brussel sprouts). C'etait parfait!

P.S. I can understand the spoken French and write little phrases much more than I can speak it... :)