Bonjour Belgium: Day 9- Brussels

Bonjour is what locals used in Brussels, so I shall stick to that. 

Grand Place, Mannekin Pis, Jeanneke Pis and Atomium. That’s all that’s really in my list for Brussels.

On Day 9, ZE was back to her normal self, and she was bubbly and a ray of sunshine on a rainy day. Yes, it was raining in Belgium too, just like back in Holland.

We made use of cooking facility at our Airbnb rental. I fried spaghetti for her snack, which later turned into her dinner.

 We then took a tram to Bouers station for Grand Place. The tram in Brussels is like an underground train .. but it’s called tram.

 We saw Church of St. Nicholas, a beautiful church and went in. It’s a very beautiful church.

As it was already closed to lunch time, we decided to look for lunch place, before sightseeing.

We kept our eyes open for Chez Leon, a mussels place highly recomnended on internet. 

 But, whiff of waffle smell at The Waffle Factory caught our sense if smell. There were few different types of waffles. 

ZE chose liege waffle with belgian chocolate topping. Knowing her, she would have chosen that because of its cheaper price. So, I ordered Brussels waffle, also with belgian chocolate topping, so that she gets to try.

I preferred ZE’s liege waffle: thicker  and richer than the Brussels waffle. The latter was so much lighter.

Food posed to be a slight problem. We  ended up with Japanese food again. My tonkatsu was good, but I was kinda sick with Asian food.

After lunch, we went to Exki to take a shelter from rain, and it has free wifi! We also loved their food, and we went back to Exki many times in Belgium. Oh, and we call this ‘The carrot place”.

And helluva. Chocolates. Chocolates everywhere. It was raining chocolates in Belgium!

There was one chocolate shop that particularly caught our attention from many others, and at least they do not have anything showing the peeing Mannekin boy.

 Mathilde. We bought our first Belgian chocolates there. Heavenly. We also fell in love with their hot chocolate! Hot chocolate spoon, dipped in hot milk, and it was a real hot chocolate drink. Hot chocolate drink is never the same again after this one.

 We then went to look for Mannekin Pis and Jeanekke Pis. 

Mussels at Brussels, and I had it. Thanks to ZE for encouraging me to go for it. My travel companion sat silently eating side frites and penning down her thoughts in her travel journal.

Looking for direction, I asked few locals about Chez Leon, and they told us that it was not good. So,  decided to abandon the plan. Passing by the place, it was packed and I thought that the food looked  amazing.

 Against my better judgement, I walked in to L’Arlequin. I thought they were rather pushy, and perhaps desperate for business. I was in a ‘charity’ mood, I guess. Mussels and frites at €10. I thought mussels was so-so.

After I paid my bill with another staff, the first staff came to me and ask for a ‘mandatory €2 tip.” I paid up as didn’t want to create a fuss.

ZE said, “She cannot demand for tip. Tip is only if we think that service is good, and is is up to us.”

And I told her, “I will blog about this.”

After my mussels-snack, we were contemplating whether to go to Atomium or not. ZE was amazing, and was all up to go.

Worrying about her being hungry, she said that she can eat the fried macaroni I prepared in the morning, if we can’t find any food.

Letting her to find our ways to Atomium, we had some misses, and it took us longer than I thought. When we arrived at Heizel station for Atomium, she had her dinner inside the station. 

We felt that our tummies were a bit ‘off’, so we wondered whether it was because of L’Arlequin.

 Atomium was worth the journey. It was so peaceful, after closing hours. Yet, we nanges to get up close and personal with this iconic landmark of Brusses. I also took many photos of ZE.