MyriamC

nytraveler, you don't always see the butter or the cream in a dish! Belgian chefs do use a lot of it. We can see it on the daily cooking shows on TV.

kfusto, if you like Italian cooking, Belgium has a lot of Italian restaurants.

kfusto

"Not liking frites and waffles is like coming to NY and saying you don't want to exist on street vendor hot dogs and ice cream cones. Ridiculous. Only a child wold do that."

I did not ask for your opinion on my food preferences.

Whether Belgian food is "heavily laced with butter or cream" is not the point. I do not eat either so how much is in a dish is irrelevant.

Thanks to those who posted helpful responses without the arrogant and judgmental attitude.

zeppole

I ate a nice light lunch at vegetarian restaurants in Brugge, and noticed several other vegetarian restaurants. So I think if you do a simple google search you will come up with lots of options. For what it is worth, I go to Belgium to eat mussels in cream, lamb shanks in cream mustard sauces, frites and waffles and chocolate -- but I can only eat so much of that. Hence my vegetarian lunches.

But I hear you, because most guidebooks focus on waffles, frites and chocolate (and beer). I also hear you about not liking butter, which I only like in baked goods. (Olive oil is one of the reasons I live in Italy.) However, I love Belgian cuisine and the Belgians really understand good food and drink, so I think you will get on very well there (even if you dont like cream as much as I do.)

Are you at all considering going to Antwerp? Lots of kosher restaurants there, plenty of food without dairy.

You will want to avoid a very traditional Belgian chicken stew called waterzooi, which is filled with egg yolks and cream. Also, there are probably a dozen different ways to make the belgian mashed potato dish, stoemp, but a great many traditional preparations include cream. butter and pork to boot!

zeppole

You might find these helpful

http://www.flanderstoday.eu/content/bite-38

http://www.flanderstoday.eu/content/bite-16

http://www.flanderstoday.eu/content/bite-67

http://www.flanderstoday.eu/content/bite-11

Also, just so you dont think you are crazy, while I was googling up those links for you, I also turned up a number of websites about belgian cuisine. Every single one of them described it as fundamentally using butter and cream as its distinctive trait, and noted that frites was one of the most important national dishes.

kfusto

zeppole, grazie per il post grazioso e consigli utili. L'olio di oliva è molto più delizioso per me che il burro pure.

"Every single one of them described it as fundamentally using butter and cream as its distinctive trait, and noted that frites was one of the most important national dishes." This is what I discovered as well and the reason for my initial post.

I have searched out vegetarian restaurants as they are always a good option. And the posters at Chowhound were also helpful to me.

Yes, we are planning to visit Antwerp. Did you have a recommendation there?

Thank you for the links - I will check them out.

MyriamC

I live near Antwerp. A very good Italian restaurant in the historical centre is Il Gallo Nero at Grote Pieter Potstraat 36. Unfortunately they don't have a website. It's a very small restaurant, and it's definitely not a 'pizza-pasta' place. Very fine north-italian cuisine, a little pricey though.

There are many more Italian restaurants but a lot of them do not serve original Italian cuisine.

nytraveler

Myrian -

I have no doubt there are a lot of chefs in TV that put a huge amount of butter and cream in dishes. But - there is no way I would eating a dish stuffed with both without my knowing it. We had no problem finding all sorts of dishes that were not heavily sauced.

kfusto - you seem very confused. I didn't say you should eat anything in particular - I just pointed out that your view of Belgian food isn't realistic - and that there are many other options. Is that so difficult to understand? *You were the one that mentioned frites and waffles so many times - not me.

JeffTWA

We had a nice Italian dinner at Carlito's in Brugges recently. Fort Rock had interesting, tasty food, too. One meal to remember was renting and riding bikes to Dammes, getting some great olives and a baguette at the Dammes Deli, then eating along the canal on the way home. If you have the inclination it is an easy, lovely, relaxing bike ride, about 5 km each way.

zeppole

Since I go to Antwerpen to enjoy cream in many forms, I can't be much help with restaurants, although I highly recommend a visit to Da Vagrant, 25 Reyndersstraat, which serves unusual artiginal gin (jenever) which can be found in few other places on the planet. They also serve food and have an ever-changing eclectic menu, but many people only go to sample a jenever.

If you go to the Flanders Today website and do a search for "Antwerp bite", you can come up with links to the restaurant section for the website (called "bite"), narrowed down to results for Antwerp. Although I have never eaten there, I have read more than one good review for the kosher restaurant Lamalo, which often also describes itself as mediterranean and moroccan.

http://www.lamalo.com/flashsite.htm

MyriamC

@ zeppole: The jeneverbar is called De Vagant! It's a good place to sample jenever but their food isn't very good (I'm trying to be polite). There are so many far better places in Antwerpen.

Hoffy's is a well-known kosher Jewish restaurant. http://www.hoffys.be/
Kosher doesn't mean that they don't use dairy products. It means that they cook in two kitchens, one for the dairy products and one for the meat/fish/veggies and use different ustensils in every kitchen.