Frederic Blondeel

I know what you're thinking: lucky Bec, living in Belgium. I bet you buy sachets of chocolates whenever you want to, and slip them into your bag to eat surreptitiously at the bus shelter or at your desk.  But no, I protest, that's simply not true - cue the sympathy violin!  The only time Bec visits chocolatiers is to buy presents for others or to show others where to buy chocolates for others.  It seems a bit mean to buy just for yourself!  The best Belgian chocolates need to be savoured and shared, drawn delicately into your mouth so you can linger over the filling.  Often the shops don't even bother slipping a card in the box to identify what you've bought.  This encourages you to take your time to work it out for yourself.  Now, is that basil, thyme, earl grey or rose?

I realised I was beginning to appreciate chocolate, perhaps even to become a connoisseur, when I opened the door of Chocolatier Vandenhende up in La Chasse, where the scent of cocoa nearly sent me into a swoon (and then later his fondant au chocolat was praised by anyone I allowed near it.)  And when I first got my hands on a cup of molten chocolate in Frederic Blondeel's shop.  There are dégustation tables for sampling the various hot chocolates, including the eye-watering Fredericisme; and ice cream creations (including "Belgian Sunshine"); and shelves stocked with rich pastes and jams (think the Charles-Louis raspberry dark chocolate spread: honestly, who could return to Nutella after this?)  J'am jam indeed.

So I think this is it: my favourite chocolatier in Brussels!  And I like Frederic because he's down to earth: works hard and doesn't have time to spend fretting over precise temperature cooling when his kids are also busy helping out in the kitchen or at the counter.

On my first visit I requisition a spare hot chocolate that a departing tour group have carelessly left behind.  I try to explain myself, but the owner says "vous avez raison!"  I ask him what he is most proud of in here.  "My children", he says mischievously.  This is a chocolatier not chasing prizes and not taking it all too seriously.

You can (and I do) spend a lot of money in here.  Last weekend I came for the chocolate counter, intending to choose and prepared to wait.  Alive to the importance of letting his customers choose every chocolate that goes into their 1 or 2 or 5 layered boxes, Frederic doesn't rush us.  Instead he brings out small cups of hot chocolate to thank us for being patient.

Recipients of my Blondeel ballotins understand why this is my favourite.  Sophisticated combinations: caramel and fleur de sel, basil, thyme, oranges and lemons, rose, truffles.  Plenty of choice for those of us less keen on nutty ganaches and spirit-soaked centres (though he has these as well).  This week there's a new addition on the counter: "Would you like to try?" asks Frederic.  I pop a chocolate with melting rose caramel in my mouth.  It's divine; words tumble out in praise.  Frederic seems warmed by this.  He's here in his shop and he cares what we think.  And he's certainly working hard.  You know, next time I'm going to buy some of those caramels just for me.

Quai aux Briques 24,

1000 Brussels

+32 (0)2 502 21 31

http://www.frederic-blondeel.com/

Open Sunday to Friday 13:00 to 18:45
Saturday 10:30 to 18:45
The tea room closes slightly earlier.

Maxburg

So far in Brussels I must have eaten Italian, Vietnamese, French, Thai, Japanese, Spanish, Belgian, American, Portuguese - and probably trendy fusions of all of the above.  But what to eat on a freezing February day, when I'm meeting my new conversation partner for dinner?  Well, German of course.


It surprised me to learn that there are very few German restaurants in Brussels.  The one in my neighbourhood seems to have closed down.  The German restaurant that people know of, the one that Colin Powell and Joshua Fischer visited, is the Maxburg, in Schuman.  Understandably the German owners are still rather proud of that.

From the outside the bar is white-washed and looks German enough.  Inside there are roughly painted white walls, and people (Commission folk, probably) are even speaking German.  I take my place at the bar next to a guy with a pony tail and a leather waistcoat.  He looks like he's been parachuted in from a bar in deepest Bavaria.  But he is the only one.  The others have had any national appearance traits morphed into a generic style: the Eurocrat!  How many Germans are there here really?  I cannot tell.  Anyway, ponytail man looks me up and down approvingly and raises his glass.  Perhaps he thinks I'm German too? 

I order a Bitburger (on tap), but the server doesn't understand my German, and answers in English.  My German conversation partner arrives and we take our place upstairs to look down over assorted people watching Stuttgart play Bayern Munich.  It takes a long time for the server to remember us, and we try and summon him using the languages at our disposal.  Finally we discover that he prefers French.


And so, the Maxburg turns out to be a not-so-German German bar!  This probably makes it a really typical Brussels restaurant experience, because whatever cuisine you are eating, you can get by with speaking English or French.   There really was no need for me to dust off my German and inflict it on anybody.  What a truly international city this is!

Still, there is plenty of time to talk while the servers forget us again.  I'm happy to find a German friend who doesn't speak English so perfectly that I am ashamed to utter a single word of his mother tongue in his presence.  And he is from near Dresden, a city I visited on a solo inter-railing trip in 2004.  Our conversation covers football vocabulary, the German for red and white cabbage (rot und weiß Kraut, predictably!), German political parties and fairy tales, and the fact that Nigel Farage memorably called Herman Van Rompuy a nasser Waschlappen (a damp facecloth).....

Despite the indifferent, lazy service, the food when it arrives is just what we needed: meat in a rich sauce with bratkartoffeln and kraut.  I have Rinderroulade and my friend has hausgemachter Rindergullasch; the former being a beef roll and the latter a German version of the carbonnade.  Both are apparently eaten in the Dresden area.  I'm interested enough to know I'll return another cold day for Thuringer sausages or to try one of the long list of Schnitzel on the menu.  And did I say that there is a shop next door selling German products?

Bitte ein Bit.

 

rue Stevin 108
1000 Brussels
http://www.maxburgbrussels.be/Willkommen.html