Brussels: Marche du Parvis, Brasserie Egalite, Friterie de la Barriere, and Moeder Lambic (Saint Gilles)

On our return trip to Brussels I booked an apartment in the Saint-Gilles neighborhood. Part artsy, part somewhat run down, quite diverse, urban, we really enjoyed staying in this part of town....it seemed quite "real".

Our flat was quite large as well.

Since we had arrived too early for check-in, we dropped our stuff off and headed out....not quite sure what to do. I had a farmer's market, Marché du Parvis (Parvis Market) de Saint Gilles, marked on my map so we headed off in that direction.

Where there was indeed a farmer's market.

We decided to take advantage of the huge kitchen in the apartment and self cater. Picking up some eggs; charcuterie, vegetables.....and a nice amount of cheese from the fromage-mobile.

Marché du Parvis de Saint Gilles
Sint-Gillisvoorplein
Hours:
Tues - Wed 730am - 1pm
Thurs 12pm - 10pm
Fri 730am - 1pm
Sat - Sun 730am - 2pm

We took a look around for something to eat, but decided to duck into this "brasserie"

I liked the looks of the place......

There was a huge cold case with beer that you could just select yourself and a rather large listing.....

  Wanting to just have fun, we selected two beers we'd never heard of before. The Missus a blonde ale; "Den Tseut" from Huisbrouwerij Den Tseut, which was pretty disappointing; very light and "Pilsner" like. I decided to "go big" and went with a Goliath (Gouyasse) Tripel from Brasserie Des Légendes, a nice straight up tripel; very yeasty-bready, slight hops, only 6% ABV, so it really wasn't Goliath like in my book.

I'm not sure the place even serves food....but there was none on this morning. The woman working here was a hoot; she spoke not a word of English.

We opened up the cheese and charcuterie and made eating motions and she nodded in agreement. We then asked for a knife making a sawing motion....in a moment she figured out what we needed and replied to our pantomime with the knife across the throat gesture with sound effects! It was hilarious; and yes, we got our knife. You gotta love it!

Brasserie Egalite
Parvis de Saint-Gilles 47
Brussels, Belgium

Instead of heading back to the apartment which I don't think was ready yet, we strolled around and actually found a friterie that I had on my list; Friterie de la Barriere, which is a little frietkot on Avenue du Parc.

It was just past 11am and there was a line. So I took a peek and one of the guys in front of me who was chatting with his friends in Flemish, turned to me and said, "no worries. this place makes the best frites in the area....." Say no more......

So I got the frites, with aioli. I thought these were pretty good, not greasy, crisp exterior, fluffy exterior, but nothing special overall. After having several versions of frites in Belgium; the Missus claimed to not get what the love of frites was all about....and then she'd proceed to attack it.......

Friterie de la Barriere
5 Avenue du Parc
Brussels, Belgium

By now it was time to check-in and a nap......

We awoke made a simple dinner with what we had......

And headed out to the one destination that I had planned out for the day. We had enjoyed our visit to the Fontainas location of the legendary beer bar Moeder Lambic, but I had wanted to visit the original location, which was one of the two reasons I choose to stay in Saint-Gilles. And we weren't disappointed. Things in Brussels always seems relaxed and chill to us, but it was even more laid back here.

Of course the Missus had something from Cantillon, Cuvee Saintt Gilloise, which She loved. The sour-tart tones were balanced out with what I can only describe as an earthy flavor. Very nice and refreshing.

I tend to enjoy tripels, so I went with the Val-Dieu tripel. I really enjoyed this; there seemed to have an apple-honey background, while not being too "bready" or boozy. Man, his was a nice beer. I need to find a bottle of this here in San Diego....though I've found that versions of the Belgian's I've had here don't taste quite the same.

And while I really enjoyed that Val-Dieu, it was the next beer I had that really made my day. I decided to try something named "Hop-Ruiter". Man, this was really good....just enough hops for me; that would be south of an IPA; yet quite floral to the nose. The flavor doesn't quite go into dubbel-tripel territory, yet the honey flavors and some citrus tones are there. We'd return to Moeder Lambic the next night so I could have this again. I did find bottles of this here in San Diego, but the overall aroma and flavor was totally different.

The Missus tried the Caulier 28.

We really enjoyed Moeder Lambic; the folks here were very nice and it seemed less touristy than the Fontainas location.

Moeder Lambic
Rue de Savoie 68
Brussels, Belgium

While the Saint-Gilles area seemed a bit more "gritty" than Central Brussels or St Catherine, it seemed to have much more of the local color which we enjoyed.

We got to sleep early, tomorrow was going to be a full day.....

Thanks for reading!

Comments

[kat]

what a great day!

[nhbilly]

Looks like ya'll had a blast at the bar.
The fried egg yolk is so golfen.

[Kirk]

Most days while traveling are Kat!

Eggs in Europe, Japan, and Korea are sooo much better Billy! And we did have a blast at Moeder Lambic. So much so, that we returned!

[ken]

Nice write up! LMAO over the 6% trippel. In San Diego, that's just a session beer.

[Soo @ hungryones]

Lucky! I wanna go to Europe on a quest for the best frites now...

[Kirk]

Hi Ken - And I had to laugh at the name "Goliath"....more like David. Moeder Lambic is so worth visiting.

And so you should Soo!A Belgian frites quest....

[Junichi]

So jealous of all those beers. You can never find them over here on tap.

[Kirk]

Hey Junichi - Especially the Cantillon stuff.....totally beer nerd heaven.