It’s always sad to move out of a lovely place, and today was even sadder as we would be heading to the airport hotel for our final night in Brussels. Once we got ourselves all packed up, we headed into Brussels for the day. Our focus was an foodie tour of Belgium food in the city centre.

We met our guide Amin at a fry shop called Patatak at noon. The plan was for us to eat 3 salty foods and end with 3 sweet foods. with our starting point of Patatak, I thought we would be starting with frites, but no, our first food was a delicious sausage called Frikandel. This is a sausage made from both beef and pork with some spices and bread crumbs. It’s then deep fried and served with dips. Patatak make their own and we enjoy our Frikandel with apple curry and basil mango sauces.

Our next stop was Belgium Frites! They are special because a) they are a special potato that is very fluffy when cooked, b) they are double fried. The first fry is at 150C for about 3-5 minutes, and the second is a hotter fry for about 2 min at 180C and c) they are fried in beef tallow. Absolutely delicious! The sauces we were offered were again homemade and were a black truffle mayo (my favourite) and a blend of mayo, pickle, onion and ketchup…. Actually not bad!

Our next stop was fish shop and restaurant called La Mer du Nord. Here we were treated to fried cod. Another delicious dish served with homemade tartar sauce.

From here, we graduated to sweet bites. Our first stop was at a shop that hand makes speculous biscuits. Delish!

And what could a tasting tour be without a visit to a chocolate shop. Amin had chosen one called “Elizabeth’s Chocolates”. Beautiful hand made chocolates with some very interesting flavours. I tried one made with berry and bay leaf flavouring. Very exotic!

Our energy level was picking up and we were ready for the grand finale, Belgium Waffles! Amin took us to a favourite of not only his, but supposedly the King’s. He sends for these waffles when he has a hunger for one!

While they offered many delectable toppings, those supposedly are mainly for tourists. If you have a great waffle, you don’t need anything else with it. And we can attest to the fact that these were absolutely incredible! Fresh made with sugar caramelized on the outside from the cooking.

At most of the other stops we shared portions, but once we came to the waffle house we each had our own!

Our tour took us along some new inner city streets where Amin showed us some very interesting sites that Dan and I had not noticed on our walking tour yesterday.

We also walked by some interesting churches… both the first and the second in Brussels, built in the 13th and 16th centuries respectivley.

We also found another Amorino gelato store, and yes, we made a stop there as well! We finally stopped in at a beer emporium and discovered the largest and most exotic collection of beer in anyone place that we have seen… all Belgium brews!

Well, we were getting tuckered and still had to get ourselves to the airport, drop our car and check into the airport hotel where we were staying for the evening. It was goodbye to the lovely, walkable old town of Brussels and head off to drop our car. What a lovely day we had! We even saw a glimpse of the royal palace On the way out of town!

We made it back to the rental drop off area, and had to walk into the terminal, up to departures and to our hotel… almost a kilometre in total! Oh well, after the walking we’ve done this trip, this was nothing!

It’s time to call this a day. We are up early tomorrow with a delayed flight, now departing at 10:00 am Brussels time. By this time tomorrow we should be at home sweet home! Thanks for coming along on this trip with us. It’s been a blast!

Ps… the wifi is very poor at the hotel, so I’ll do an update tomorrow when we’re home so you can see all the pics! Thanks for coming along on this tour with us!