Discovering Brussels in 2015: food and fashion

Happy New Year!

I was asking my friends if they had any good new year's resolutions, but most people were avoiding any such promises. Me, on the other hand, I couldn't invent any meaningful resolutions. Maybe I'm such a perfect - or ignorant - person already?

However, back in Brussels after Christmas holidays in Finland, I got this great idea of trying to follow one of my new Brussels guidebooks "The 500 Hidden Secrets of Brussels" by Derek Blyth and write down my thoughts about these discoveries here in the blog. 

It's a very nice guidebook listing cool bars, Belgian-style restaurants, small museums, beautiful parks etc. usually off the beaten tourist track. I'm sure it has plenty of ideas even for people who have lived in Brussels a while already.

I followed the book's advise for my choice of lunch today as I wanted to get out of the apartment despite the heavy rain. In the list of "The 5 most exotic Asian restaurants", there was Hong Kong Delight in Rue Sainte-Catherine in the Dansaert quartier. Blyth writes that it serves some of the best Cantonese food in town.

My knowledge of Cantonse food is not very refined as such distinctions are rare in the Chinese food scene in Finland. However, I must say that the food we ordered with my sisters in Espoo from a Chinese restaurant called Jufu was really good and better than the food I had in Hong Kong Delight. Jufu's aubergine in garlic sauce was excellent while Hong Kong Delight's tofu with Chinese vegetables was just basic good. 

Taken that the place features in the list of the most exotic Asian restaurants in Brussels, I was expecting something a bit more exceptional and surprising. For sure, the food was good and there were many vegetarian options (which is always positive in Brussels), but I expect there to be a dozen similar places around the neighborhood. However, I wouldn't mind going back there again for a simple lunch.

Oh, I dream of the Gourmet Dumpling House in Boston, the best Chinese place ever!

No 28: Hong Kong Delight in the list of the 5 most exotic Asian restaurants.

I managed to visit another place listed in the book during my Saturday rainy day stroll in the Dansaert quartier. Dansaert / St. Catherine in the city centre is, by the way, a cool neighborhood with hip boutiques, like my favorite Cotélac, and some nice-looking bars and restaurants that also feature in my Brussels guidebook. So, obviously it is a quartier I need to visit many more times in order to finish my 2015 to do -list.

The January sales was of course a good moment to visit the "most inspiring Brussels designers". One of them, Annemie Verbeke, has a boutique at Rue Antoine Dansaert. Despite the sales, the clothes were still a bit too expensive but otherwise they were really cool and would fit my garderobe. For a special occasion maybe...

It is interesting to notice that the Belgian fashion and design scene is mostly occupied by Flemish designers. Some of them seem very cool indeed. For me, there are many discoveries to be made in this area. And window shopping is enough!

No 160: Annemie Verbeke in the list of the 5 most inspiring Brussels designers. Photo from the website of Annemie Verbeke.

I visited another shop of Flemish design further down the street and bought this pair of funny shoes. There were also a tempting collection of colourful cardigans. Unfortunately, the shop of Roos Vandekerckhove was under "liquidation totale" so I don't know if the whole business has come to an end. It would be sad because of the "Made in Belgium" label in the clothes. I was hoping that decently priced cardigans can still be made in Europe (in a profitable way)!

Shoes by Roos Vandekerckhove. My own discovery. You know, they are also possible...

Enoteca

I have to post something in honor of my enoteca.

I love my neighbourhood in Florence. I have my café, my pasta shop, my casalinga shop (where you buy all the possible house ware stuff from mosquito nets to parquet wax) and my enoteca. Signore Amadei is my wine seller and I appreciate him fondly. Already after my first wine purchase in the shop, he started greeting me in the street and welcomed me into his shop with such a cordiality that an unfamiliar Finn would feel suspicious.

Yesterday I went to buy red wine to go with French cheese. He remembered to ask how I had liked the last wine I had bought. A chianti classico, the famous Tuscan wine from the Chianti region. I had to admit that even if I'd love to like chianti classico, I just don't. He listened emphatically as if I was telling him that I'm anxious about wars and corrupted politics. "È molto tannico", he comforted me. Instead, he recommended a pinot nero from Alto Adige, Northern Italy, to go with the cheese aperitivo. "Anché Mozart è daccordo", he concluded referring to the classical music we were listening. As an unusual small talk he mentioned his love to classical music and thanked me for shopping in his enoteca. Where else would I go?

I'm more and more sceptical about the viability of the option of living in Finland. Am I strong enough to return to the land of state monopolised wine and clinic, brightly lit alcohol shops where shop assistants wear bordeaux red uniforms and try assure me that even the best wine companies don't use a real cork any more (they do in Italy and anywhere where wine is quasi-sacred!)? What will I do with my spare time if all the daily shopping can be done in one huge super market in the suburb of the city? When I can do my weekly sport activity by pushing the shopping cart filled with harmonised and standardized food hundreds and hundreds of metres in the cold corridors of the market? Why haven't the Finnish people already started a revolt against the cartel of two super market chains that makes grocery shopping faceless, expensive, annoying and inhuman? In Italy, most of the shopping is still done in individual little shops, or negozio, that value entrepreneurship and social and human contact in everyday life.

P.S. I forgot the bottle of pinot nero at home and had to buy a regular chianti from a night shop on the way to the cheese aperitivo. So that's it for my sophisticated wine shopping...