LL-L "Travels" 2009.05.03 (01) [E]

Sun May 3 17:19:38 UTC 2009

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L O W L A N D S - L - 03 May 2009 - Volume 01
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From: Roger Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc. <roger.thijs at euro-support.be>
Subject: LL-L Travels

Cf. the discussions about behaviour in restaurants.
I agree cultures and meanings of words locally differ.

My first trips to the US were for Monsanto in the early 80s.
I felt quite uneasy when people in New-England restaurants said "*Take it
easy*".
I was not overdoing, so why should I take it easier.

My eternal problem is *when to tip* and how much.
In little Springfield MA restaurants one doesn't tip when one is serviced by
the owner,
but how to find out whether a waiter gets its living from the tips or not.

Waiters in the US have to earn their tip.
We from Europe are not so very much interested in knowing their names,
nor for getting the glass with icewater constantly kept full to the border.

My advices for tourists coming to Belgium (and especially the Brussels
area):

1 - Avoid surprises at the beginning, start with the big chains

http://www.panos.be, sandwiches, pastry
http://www.subway.com/, sandwiches
http://www.quick.be/, hamburgers
http://www.macdonalds.be/, hamburgers
http://www.pizzahut.be, pizzas
http://www.lunchgarden.com/, self service, Belgian food
http://www.colmar.be/, buffet formukas, you will spend 2 to 3x more than in
a Lunch Garden
http://www.hector.be, chicken
http://www.chichis.be/, texmex, they have a buffet formula for about 10 euro
for lunch on weekdays
http://www.exki.be/, healty food as e.g. spinach pie and other ugly things

2 - food courts in shopping centers generally offer a little variety of
choices, without surprises

3 - Try every man's snack eateries in smaller municipalities, you will not
spend much money
some times they offer only food_to_go / takeaway
some times they combine takeway service with a little restaurant
incidentally (e.g. some chineserestaurants) they combine with buffet
formulas.
Types:
- *fritkot*, frituur, friture, friterie (you hardly can drive a couple of
minutes before finding one)
  Belgian fries with sauce and a snack (sausage type, brochette type etc.)
  some offer also sandwiches
- *waffle booths* (more in towns)
  Most of then sell gaufres de LiÃ¨ge, *Luikse Wafels*, suikerwafels,
eventually warmed up; eventually with some topping
  Real *Brussels waffles* are rather served in restaurants, they are hollow,
mostly served with cream (crÃ¨me fraiche) topping
- *pizzerias*
- *kebab* restaurants
- *chinese (*chinese-indonesian: bami-goreng, nasi-goreng: much less
use less of pinda sauce than in the Netherlands)
- *patisseries:* offer pastry with coffee & ice cream

4 - Just have a drink with some food in a *cafÃ©, (e)staminet, pub, tavern,
bistrot, brasserie, bar, ..*
Things one often can get:
 sandwiches
 soupes
 croque-monsieur
 uitsmijter: egg sunshine with ham on a slice of bread, with some green
stuff around
Smaller cafÃ©s: one may just have some dry food as e.g. chips (crips)
For Brussels, see: http://www.ebru.be/Cafes/CafePage.html

Attention: "bar" is not only used for "pub",
the service-houses with girls at the window often call themselves also
"bar".

5 - medium price restaurants

get advice first

avoid tourist area's (or take just a coffee on a nice terras, take no food,
pay with exact coins, they cheat like hell when returning change)
Quality of food in tourist restaurants is low to really bad.
You may not realize this when you cover everything with ketchup.

6 - business restaurants

Ofter quite expensive.
While in the US they already put the second dish on the table before you are
done with the first, in Belgian business restaurants the waiting time betwee
dishes is often about 15 minutes. To more to the South, the more time one
takes for lunch. Business is often tentatively realized during a good long
meal.

7 - general

7.1 have coins for the washrooms

Since Belgian law made washrooms in restaurants accessible for all, many
charge for use.
Rates vary: 0, 30, 35, 40, 50 eurocent
There is incidentally coin-controlled automatic access as e.g. in some
railway stations (e.g. Brussels South, free though in the Eurostar checked
area, but I guess it is Brittish zone since one passed UK border controll).
Many of these machines give no return coins.
In some chains you get a voucher in return, allowing you to deduct the
pi-money from your next meal (This is also current practice in some motorway
restaurants in the Netherlands)
*So always have sufficient 5, 10, 20, 50 ct coins, it is essential for
survival,*
Self service in the wild ("wildplassen") is a crime

7.2 Service and tax (TVA) are *always included* (by law), whether it is
mentioned or not on the card.

Some restaurants in tourist areas illegally add things (as "*couvert*"
cutlery in the Brussels' Rue des Bouchers)
In some restaurants you do not realize ahead that you will have to pay for
add-ons: e.g. in some Indian retaurants in Brussels the price for the dish
only covers the sauce, you will pay a supplement for the rice

7.3 Anglo-Saxons often like their food well-done.

They often dislike "*filet amÃ©rican":* prepared raw ground beef meat
or the same as "*steak tartare",* often left for yourself to mix, with on
top a raw egg in half its shell.

A steak qualified as *rare, saignant,* may be much more rare than
usually found in Anglo-Saxon countries,
and have quite some bloody juice still comming out of the meat.

Other typical things include *escargots* or the *cheaper caricols* (snails),
frog legs...

I had some bad experiences in some African and Vietnamese restaurants in
Brussels, that the *meat *was virtually nothing more than *bones*, even a
dog would have problems for scratching off some meat.

8 My preferred guide for the Brussels area:

about 6 adresses per page with 5 to 10 lines each
+ publicity pages
It does NOT include ALL eateries

*Restaurants & Bars*
*pages from-to*
011-018 fondues & pierrades
*Salles*
019-040 banquets et seminaires
*Restaurants & Bars
*041-043 *Allemagne-Autriche* (only 2 adresses !!!!!!!!)
045-075 Belgique
077-082 Espagne
085-120 France
121-124 *Gr-Bretagne & Irlande* (11 adresses)
125-137 GrÃ¨ce & Chypre
139-190 Italie
191-195 Pays de l'Est et Balkan
197-199 Pays nordiques (only 3 adresses !!!)
200-205 Portugal
207-210 Suisse
211-218 Maghreb
219-223 Afrique
224-230 Proche et Moyen-Orient Egypte - Iran - IsraÃ«l - Liban - Turquie
231-246 Chine
247-253 Inde Pakistan
255-256 IndonÃ©sie
259-267 Japon
267 CorÃ©e (2 adresses)
269-282 Thailande
283-293 Vietnam & Cambodge
285 *AmÃ©rique du Nord* (2 adresses, one "La Pomme" with fajitas etc, the
other "Villa Wotaland" with "bison d'AmÃ©rique" etc.)
297-306 Pays Latinos Argentine-BrÃ©sil-Chili-Cuba-Mexique-PÃ©rou
307-309 Iles (Martinique, Guadeloupe, Rep Dominicaine, Jamaique, Maurice,
RÃ©union)
311-326 Monde [fusion]
327-338 Possons & crustacÃ©s
339-342 Bio & VÃ©gÃ©rtarien
343-347 Vins
348-354 Buffet Ã  volontÃ©
355-363 Animation
364-371 Nuit

Regards,
Roger

•

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