No other country in the world enjoys mussels the way Belgium does. In fact 'moules frites' -mussels with fries - is like their national dish. So we made a trip to Brussels just to see what the big fuss was all about. An online search on Brussels' recommended restaurants led me to 'Chez Leon', a cute little place (but very busy though!) on rue de Bouchers, a small walk from the Grand Place.
Chez Leon was started way back in 1869 as a little fritture (a place that sells fries - not French fries though, but 'Flemish' fries) and has since grown to be the place to enjoy mussels in town! They claim to have been visited by many 'celebrities' (former American president Jimmy Carter, the Belgian royalty etc. etc.) who swear by their dishes. We had an awesome looking 'Moules Provencale' (mussels cooked in a garlic-butter-tomato sauce and topped with cheese) and 'Spaghetti Leon' (pasta with mussels and mushrooms in white sauce). The food was to die for and, in true Belgian tradition, was washed down generously with beer! The service in the restaurant was a little rude - Belgian tradition?? ;) - but we're getting used to that in Europe! :)
Most of the mussels being supplied to Belgium and elsewhere come from Zeeland - the seaside southern province of the Netherlands. So when we heard that Yerseke, a small fishing village in Zeeland (and the capital of the local mussels industry!) was hosting its annual "Mussels Festival", we knew we had to go!
The Yerseke Mosseldag with an estimated 40,000 visitors didn't exactly have the cute-seaside-village-romantic feel that we had expected! However there were mussels everywhere - from street-side vendors serving freshly cooked ones to restaurants doing special mussels' casseroles. The main highlight was the harbor where mussels were being served and consumed in heaps!
We chose (what seemed to be) a popular restaurant and ordered our big casserole - a big pot of mussels cooked in wine (the Brussels version uses dark beer!). A cute old man with a wrinkled face, sitting next to us, taught us that the 'right' way to eat them was to use an empty shell as a clamp to pull out the mussel from its shell!
Summer's now almost over and so is the mussels fever, but we're still hooked on...our fridge is still stocked up with a big pack of mussels and hopefully (Laxmi willing), we'll have mussels for dinner sometime soon! :)
Good going, jiju!
ReplyDelete