The entire territory of southern Netherlands, northern Belgium, and western Germany, North Rhine-Westphalia, are in the stone throw of each other, forming an incredible melting pot with language and culture, a dynamic history of industrial development, war and friendship.
If you find yourself in this part of Western Europe, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium have different advantages over each other. In Belgium, this extraordinary talent for the production of beer, not to mention chocolate, waffles and fries. The Netherlands has excellent bicycle infrastructure, as well as attractive cities, including Maastricht and Amsterdam. West Germany also boasts major cities, such as Cologne and Düsseldorf, a well-preserved industrial heritage and a highly efficient public transport network.
Suppose you are in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, traveling through the autobahns in search of a great place to eat. Of course, we all know that most of the power points located on and around motorways are terrifying, so expand your search to quiet rural country roads. In every German village and city (and often between them), in every neighboring place there are gaststatten or guest houses. These places offer a room for the night and beautiful traditional cuisine. Here you can find delicious food - schnitzel, Worcester, sauerkraut, meatballs, flamchips, you name it. It tastes great and washed with cold local beer, it will be difficult for you to find quality food for the price elsewhere.
For Germany, this is a country with excellent restaurants. These are not only those Gaststätten as everywhere else. Of course, you can make a mistake, as you can make a mistake in each country. However, if you get to the tourist hot spots in Germany, you still get good quality food with excellent service, albeit at a higher price. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the culinary scene in the Netherlands and Belgium. If you are visiting these two countries, make sure that you conduct extensive research on the place of the restaurant in advance. The best strategies include interviewing local residents or reviewing Trip Advisor reviews in painful detail.
I lived in the southern Dutch city of Maastricht for a year. This is an amazing place, right from a fairy tale with cobbled streets, stone bridges, impressive cathedrals and medieval streets. However, if you asked me to recommend a good restaurant in the city, I could not do it. Maastricht is full of restaurants, but the quality is clearly absent. A friend of mine passed a few weeks ago and visited a seemingly attractive eatery on the main square of Vrykhtof. He drove in Italian, ordering a few spaghetti carbonara. He became suspicious when he noticed that it was made with mushroom sauce. What kind? Everybody knows that this dish is made with bacon cream sauce made from eggs ... How did you make mushroom sauce in the name of God? No one really knows ... but this is food in the Netherlands. Apparently, it was the worst food he had ever had in his entire life. Last year, I asked another friend about her dinner on a trip to Amsterdam. Her answer? Dear and sorrowful.
In fact, thinking deeply about it, I really recommend one good restaurant in Maastricht - an Argentine steak house, located near the train station. This place is exquisite, although expensive. Unfortunately, I don’t remember a single Dutch or other international place worth mentioning. Belgium is more or less similar. Having traveled through Brussels lately, I had delicious Indian food, but it was difficult for me to find good dishes in Belgian establishments. The best food I found came from small Turkish places — I was very interested in avoiding the usual overly expensive tourist traps with poor service.
Of course, you can find great restaurants in Belgium and the Netherlands, but I often visit both countries, and I had a much worse experience than a good experience. Last time I was on a double expedition to Ghent and Bruges - two beautiful medieval cities (not like Maastricht) located in northern Belgium. For the first time, the food was average and expensive. Attempting to pay for it was a different story, as the waiter did not seem to care about collecting the bill. We ended up missing our train to Bruges.
The restaurant we chose in Bruges was disastrous, to say the least. I decided to order lasagna, believing that cooks could not be mistaken. Unfortunately, they did it impressively. After branching out over 10 euros, this typical Italian dish was served without meat, it benefited dried cheese (by the way, it was not vegetarian lasagne). Honestly, it looked like a cardboard meal - you can find the best lasagna in the freezing compartments of Belarusian supermarkets (if you can even call what lasagna served me). At least, I could consider myself more fortunate than one of our wanderings. She paid 16 euros for a terrible omelet ... a higher price than advertised on the menu. You can make an omelet at € 2 at home!
Ask the Belgians about this experience, and they will always stand up to the line: “but this is Brugge! This is a tourist town, and you should expect bad food. ” I do not think so. I can find exceptional food in the old city of Cologne or along the Düsseldorf Rhine promenade. Claiming that you can serve anything, regardless of quality, at ridiculous prices just because your city is full of tourists, is completely ridiculous.
Occasionally, visitors will see this and run their business elsewhere, which is a shame, given the friendship of people throughout Belgium and the Netherlands. This began to occur in the latter, where the decline in the number of visitors in restaurants was blamed for poor quality food and overly assiduous prices. This is the time for these countries to unite, learn something from their German neighbors and start serving something not just like lasagne, but also tasting like lasagna.
First, I avoid sampling in Bruges and Ghent on my next trip - renting an apartment with a kitchen will be a cheaper and much more satisfying strategy. Unlike restaurants, the quality of food in both Belgian and Dutch supermarkets is exceptional, with a wide selection of products at affordable prices. Check out the net sales statistics of the Belgian Delhaize supermarket or head to the well-organized Albert Hain in the Netherlands. Cooking your own food saves money and tastes than anything that is served in the neighboring restaurants. Best of all, however, it will be much less stressful than dealing with arrogant and inexperienced waiters who want to serve you terrible dishes before robbing the contents of your wallet.
You can not discuss restaurants in Belgium, without mentioning the country's most famous culinary mile with a list of bad impressions, until the Trans-Siberian Railway. Rue de Bouchers is located near Brussels. Grand Place is probably the most magnificent square in all of Europe. This is a winding street with a Parisian style, filled with seemingly charming restaurants located under multi-colored canopies. Of course, when men in leather jackets fight for your customs, you know that you are passing through a deadly tourist trap. Avoid him like a plague; most visitors reported dinner at nightmarish proportions on this street!
I never ate there, but a group of ignorant friends stopped at a random restaurant on rue de Bowser about a year ago. After waiting two hours, the food arrived, and it was cold. Adding insult to injury, the bill was wrong when he finally arrived. One of my friends (known for his fits of anger) rightly shouted to the state and told them where to go, before storming, and then the rest of the group. Humorously, he forgot his car keys and returned to collect them, telling the staff that he would no longer enter this restaurant.
However, the story is not entirely bad. If you are faced with terrible experiences in both countries, why not stop at friterike (French) or Frituur (Dutch). One of the areas where Dutch and Belgian cuisine is excellent is the food that is fried from both countries, reflected throughout the world. Freshly cut, fried twice and served in a paper cone, they have an extensive list of sauces and taste fantastic. Maison Antoine in Brussels is a great friterium - you can take food to one of the nearby pubs and enjoy traditional french fries with some delicious Trappist beer. Waffles are also a great choice if you feel cool. They were recently made throughout Belgium and the Netherlands, among others, with ice cream, powdered sugar and chocolate sauce.
To keep up, the Germans are also world leaders when it comes to food on the go. Countless bratwurst stands can be found throughout the country, offering freshly brewed sausage on the grill, an excellent hungerman for starving tourists. Currywurst sliced bratwurst served in curry-ketchup sauce, and this became a German phenomenon - the main product in the diet of Berliners. He was also very fond of Germany and developed the immigration Turkish population of the country, is a doner kebab. These days, it is also very popular, and annual sales of 2.5 billion euros.
Therefore, if you find yourself in this corner of Western Europe, you will understand that Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium have different advantages over each other in many ways. All three countries have good sides and bad sides, but they seem to cancel each other when it comes to food on the go. Delicious french fries, waffles, curry wool and doner kebab combine to make this part of the world a haven for visitors. However, Germany is in the first place at a very large distance in terms of sedentary restaurants. Quality, price and service are far superior to everything across the border in Belgium and the Netherlands. I hope that someday this standard will improve, but until then beware of rue de Bouchers in Brussels, this charming pizzeria in Amsterdam and almost everywhere where there is lasagna in Bruges.
