This being Belgium, I did have mussels while we were there, of course.\u00a0 But it turns out Nivelles also has a local specialty, the \u201cTart Djote\u201d.\u00a0 \u201cDjote\u201d turns out to be the local word for \u201cChard\u201d, so this is a vegetable pie in a short crust, which consists of not much more than chard, cheese, and butter.\u00a0 (Why are the first syllables of \u201cchard\u201d and \u201ccheese\u201d so different?\u00a0 English is weird.)<\/p>\n Nivelles takes this dish so seriously that they have an annual competition, featuring a select panel of judges with detailed criteria for judging the perfect tart. Here’s the official tarte djote website<\/a>.<\/p>\n I had one \u2013 it was pretty good.\u00a0 Also AMAZINGLY filling \u2013 I couldn\u2019t eat more than half at one sitting.\u00a0 Neither could other Dan\u2019s mom.<\/p>\n The other thing I of course had plenty of in Belgium is beer.\u00a0 Highlights:<\/p>\n Wait, what the hell am I talking about.\u00a0 There was only one beer highlight, and it was this:<\/p>\n Some fraction of the readers\u2019 jaws are now dropping, and for everyone else, I will explain.\u00a0 Westvletteren 12 is one of the most difficult beers in the world to acquire.\u00a0 It is made at ONE monastery in Belgium, and they only make enough to pay their bills.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t get exported or distributed \u2013 if a restaurant wants to offer it, they have to send someone to the monastery to buy it, where they will be permitted to buy a single case, and that\u2019s all.<\/p>\n We had dinner on the hotel restaurant during the first week, and I was perusing the prices on the beer list, which were, of course, at hotel restaurant prices: 7 euros, 8 euros, 7 euros, 9 euros, 25 euros\u2026<\/p>\n Wait, what?<\/p>\n This hotel actually has Westvlettern on the menu?<\/em> I mean, sure, it\u2019s about $40 for a 375 cl bottle, but how many times in my life am I going to get to try this beer?<\/p>\n Unbelievably, this makes two.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t start drinking until I was 40 years old, for a variety of reasons, and for the first few months I was very cautious in my consumption \u2013 only one beer at a time, and only in public with friends.\u00a0 Which meant that for something like five months after I started, I had never actually had a bottled beer \u2013 just draft.<\/p>\n I was in grad school at this point, and at some point I went to a retirement party for someone from the lab where I was doing my PhD.\u00a0 My wife came along and ended up sitting next to the lab manager.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t know any more about accelerator physics than what I had inflicted on her, and he didn\u2019t know anything about music theory\u2026 so they talked about beer.<\/p>\n Apparently he asked if she had ever tried this incredibly rare Belgian beer, and she said, no, no one <\/em>has ever tried that beer. \u201cOh, I\u2019ve got some in my basement, I\u2019ll give you one.\u201d\u00a0 She did not, of course, believe this for a second.<\/p>\n And one appeared on my desk the next day.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s how the first beer I ever tried out of a bottle was Westvletteren 12.<\/p>\n Getting back to the main not-actually-linear narrative, the other place we visited were an evening in the nearby town of Namur, which has a very nice castle.\u00a0 You should go see it.<\/p>\n Finally, at the end of the trip I took the train back up to Brussels to continue on my way and had a few hours to spend near the train station, which is where I learned the difference between a Belgian Waffle and a Brussels Waffle.\u00a0 Belgian waffles are chewier and irregularly shaped.\u00a0 Brussels Waffles are thinner and lighter and square-er.<\/p>\n This one was also served in a very nice hipster coffee shop<\/a> with a Chemex of probably the best coffee I had all trip.\u00a0 And then it was off to Paris!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Before moving on to describe the rest of the trip, here\u2019s some other highlights of the two weeks I spent in Belgium.\u00a0 During the day, other Dan and I worked on installing two of our company\u2019s systems at a nuclear … Continue reading ![\"Nivelles](\"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/20250619_191452.jpg\")
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