This morning I was feeling pretty lazy. Partly it was because I forgot to take my allergy medicine last night. Nothing a few eye drops and a little coffee can't fix! Today's mission was shopping and walking. Yuzu is definitely away from the main drag, but chocolatier Nicolas Vanaise takes pride in infusing his chocolates with exotic and unconventional flavors. He travels extensively to Japan for inspiration and ingredients. He also operates his store as a small tea shop. He wasn't very chatty with us this morning because he was eager to start re-filling his inventory because a "large buyer" had cleaned him out yesterday. However, he was interested in my explanation of a southern American praline and said that caramel and nut confectionery used to be called "praline" in Belgium. Now, "praline" in Belgium is a ganache-filled chocolate. It is also known in France as a "bon-bon" and in the USA as a "truffle". Since I was buying pour moi this morning I chose six unique-sounding flavors: See the below photo!
Yummies in hand, we went for a walk past old St. Peter's Abbey and wandered through Citadel Park. It had rained earlier in the morning so it felt good to smell some trees. When we returned to the old city center St. Bavo's bell was busily banging away the noon hour - an event that seemed to last nearly ten minutes. I stopped in a souvenir store and then deposited our wares at the hotel room before walking to the local brewery, Gruut.
St. Peter's Abbey
Gruut's tasting room is cozy and after a small group of people left Hans and I were the only customers present. Hans got a pint of the brown beer and I ordered a flight of five samples (wit, blond, amber, brown, and special). The brewery employee seemed hesitant to give us the special beer because it sounded like an experiment that didn't go as well as they may have hoped. It was supposed to be a spicy beer made with chili peppers from Japan but it isn't spicy at all - instead all you get is a fairly normal beer with a mild almond flavor due to whatever Japanese herbs are in the recipe. When asked our opinion I said it was fine; not good or bad. The brewery employee chuckled and reported that we had the same opinion as everyone else. It's pretty funny that even experimental beers can turn out just fine - further proof that the Belgians really know what they are doing. The other samples were pretty good.
Our favorite was the amber, which was surprising. It had a nice caramel sweetness that I wasn't expecting. Probably because Belgian beers are normally unhopped and any amber I've tried in the states has been too bitter for me. We were informed that Gruut's amber was the result of two years worth of recipe development through study and correspondence with other brewers. It turns out that Gruut's brewmaster is a woman, one of four in the entire country of Belgium. Becoming a master brewer here is actually a serious business, too. You have to start with a degree in chemistry or biochemistry before you can take courses in beer making.
The lady on the left is their master brewer
The only beer we didn't try onsite was their hopped one. Belgian beers are only malted because historically that's what was done. Brewing with hops was not discovered until much later in the history of beer making and even then hops were expensive and hard to come by in Belgium.
I hadn't eaten much this morning so I was feeling pretty euphoric at this point. We went back to the hotel room and had a chocolate sampling.
When we ventured back out we each a had a waffle (not a good as the one I had on Monday but still tasty) and spent the rest of the afternoon re-exploring some of the old buildings we'd already seen.
St. Michaels has a beautiful pulpit, some nice paintings (though a little damaged and neglected), and they have polyphonic music playing over small speakers. We just really enjoyed visiting the old church.
The nave portion of St. Nicholas is divided from the flea market side by a wooden wall. It is in need of more restoration but the city has still preserved it fairly well. Instead of being on the original niches that run the entire length of the church, original statues of the apostles are on display at ground level. An organist was playing this afternoon so we sat and listened for a little while.
When we went back to St. Bavo it was quiet. All of the volunteers were apparently on a break so just like the day before we saw lots of people taking pictures. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and did the same.
At the end of the day Hans chose an restaurant for dinner that was just excellent. Pakhuis is in an old warehouse and serves up well-prepared Belgian fare. It doesn't have a star, but Michelin has granted it gourmand status. It has an airy space over the main dining room and is very prettily decorated. All of the support structures are painted green like a patina and the seats are all a warm copper color. The effect is like being in a rusted ship at the bottom of the ocean. It's hard to explain. The food was pretty great too.
Hans had the Flemish style asparagus to start and I had the pan-fried duck liver. For mains Hans had the chicken filet with couscous and salad. I had the north sea catch-of-the-day over fregola sarda pasta with spinach. Since Hans ordered the 3-course meal he had dessert - a very pretty and tasty tiramisu. My coffee was exactly what I needed after all that food. We think our server was new because the service took an extremely long time but other than that it was a great way to end our stay in Ghent.
Back at the hotel room in the evening our packing was interrupted by a short power outage but it was repaired quickly.
Other pictures from the day:
Tot ziens!
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