NYC Tastes

Our final morning in Brussels, we packed our bags and headed out for one last beer-centric stop to In De Verzekering tegen de Grote Dorst, which translates to The Insurance of Great Thirst.  This cozy little pub is the last remaining cafe in the town of Eizeringen and only open on Sunday's. The little building looks like something from a fairy tale, with exposed wooden ceilings, tiled floors and a delightful mix of church goers and beer geeks, all chatting over bottles of lambic.  Grote Dorst has one of the largest selections of kriek and gueuze in the entire world with fantastic bottles like Bokkereyder Wijngaard brewed with Muscat and Riesling grapes and the Toots Tribute a dry, funky gueuze I absolutely fell in love with that Sunday morning. It's hard to just order one bottle when faced with such an incredible  list, so we stayed for a few vintage 3 Fontenien's. A super dusty bottle of 50 Degrees North- 4 Degrees East. And another round of wonderf...

Day 3 in Brussels we woke up bright and early for a trip to my favorite place in the entire world, 3 Fonteinen's Lambik-O-droom.   This beautiful brewery located in the town of Beersel creates the most exceptional gueze in all of Brussels (in my humble opinion). We arrived right at 10:30 AM for the Saturday morning tour which takes guests through the history of the brewery, barrel room and bottling facilities. Since I had already been to Lambic-O-droom before, I hung out in the tasting room while my friends explored, and enjoyed a solitary bottle of Oude Geuze Vintage 2012, one of my favorite geuze's of all time. Followed by an Oude Geuze Vintage 2008 and 3 Fonteinen's incredible geuze cheese paired with mustard and apricot preserves.  I was really hoping to bring some of this fabulous cheese back to NYC, but it was already sold out by mid-day.  We spent the rest of the afternoon making our way through the extensive bottle list, sharin...

Friday morning we kicked off our day with a delicious Belgian waffle, then headed back to Cantillon where we had spent most of the prior day.  We just had to get one more bottle of that delicious Lambic D'Anuis.   Of course that one bottle turned into about five more wonderful delights, but finally we hopped on a train to Denderleeuw for lunch at De Heeren van Liedeckercke. De Heeren opened its doors as a specialty beer cafe back in 1991 by owner Joost de Four.  He had always wanted to sell lambic and reached out to various local brewers to stock his bar.  However one brewer, Armand Debelder from 3 Fonteinen, refused.  He would not allow Joost to sell any of his bottles without first being trained on how the beer were made.  So Joost was trained by the great Armand himself and today De Heeren is known as one of the best lambic bars in the entire world. In fact many brewers have created special lambics just for Joost and De Heeren like the el...

After lambick-O-droom we hopped back on the train to Brussels and headed back to Cantillon brewery for one last time.  There we met up with a few more New York friends (we NYers like our lambic) and actually had about 3 hours to relax and share the entire list of bottles together. I was more than happy to have that Carignan and 2007 Cantillon Gueuze again... ...not to mention the gorgeous Cabernet franc driven Saint Lamnivus and possibly my favorite Cantillon in the world Lou Pepe Kriek.   We picked up some more bottles to go and stopped at our place to drop them off, pausing for a moment in our small but gorgeous courtyard for a glass of Tilquin Mure. Then it was back to Nuetnigenough for dinner and this rich, hearty steak doused in a thick Cuvee Renee sauce.  I was so sick earlier in the week I could barely look at Mr. T as he devoured this dish so it was incredibly satisfying to enjoy myself in all its glory. Nuetnigenough...

Our last trip to Brussels we ubered out to the countryside of Beersel to Drie Fonteinen , my favorite geuze producer of all time. It was just a small blendery back then starting to brew their own beer on site for the very first time.  Fast forward to 2017 and owner Armand has opened up a brand new spot called lambik-O-droom which is much closer to Brussels center and boasts a massive space for bottling, blending and barrel aging along with a beautiful tasting room. Since we had done the full tour of the old facility last time we decided to devote all of our time this trip to relaxing and enjoying his delicious geuzes.  We met up with a friend who also happened to be visiting from NYC and sat down to share some bottles. Oude Geuze Vintage 2012- one of my favorites of the Drie Fonteinen geuzes.   So bright and lemony with that fantastic lingering toasted sesame funk.  This was so perfect we ordered a second bottle right away along with the delicious house geuze ch...

Our third evening in Brussels we reserved for our fine dining portion of the trip with a reservation at Le Rabassier, a small 18 seat spot by Chef and Owner Christophe Durieux.  Chef Durieux cooks and preps all of the food for the restaurant while his wife Eve Renaud acts as front of the house, waitress and sommelier.  Rabassier loosely translates in French to 'a man with a passion for truffles' which is quite fitting as a meal at this restaurant felt like an homage to the great fungi. Le Rabassier offers three different tasting menus; three course, four course, or five course with extra black truffles and an a la carte.  We decided upon the four course menu and a lovely bottle of Sancerre, then settled in for three and a half hours of an absolutely exquisite evening of food. Amuse Bouche- Parmesan Foam with shaved black truffle Amuse Bouche- Black Olive & Foie Gras 1st Course- Roasted Scallop with daikon, ...