Last week while in Brussels for work, I went to dinner with some colleagues at the infamous Belgian restaurant, Aux Armes de Bruxelles.
Most of us were offered the English menu that included standard items a tourist might want to experience at a traditional Belgian restaurant (ie mussels, croquettes, escargot, frites, etc). But one of my colleagues who is based in Brussels asked for the menu in French, which offered several items not on the English menu. One such item was the Choucroute Garnie…which basically translates into “a big freakin’ plate of pork and sauerkraut.” Obviously that is what I ordered.
It was impossible to capture the full pork experience in a photograph, so this is as close as we could get. This traditional Alsatian dish included 6 different pork items – two pieces of thick cut bacon, two slices of ham and two sausages. I’m not exactly sure what kind of sausages they were, but they along with everything else on the plate were absolutely de-lic-ious! I don’t even like sauerkraut (yes, I know this is disrespecting my German ancestors) but found it tolerable in this arrangement.
So if you’re ever in Brussels, I suggest 1) dining at Aux Armes de Bruxelles and 2) asking for the French menu, even if you don’t speak French!