What to eat in Brussels
Brussels eats mussels with fries and drinks trappists: carbonnade flamande, waterzooi, shrimp croquettes, two kinds of waffle, chocolate and lambic.

[ ] Eat moules-frites
    A pot of mussels cooked in white wine with leek and celery, with a separate portion of fries. You use an empty shell as tongs for the rest.
[ ] Get fries from a fritkot
    Thick-cut potatoes fried twice in beef fat, served in a paper cone with a spoon of sauce on top. The first fry cooks the inside, the second builds the crust.
[ ] Try carbonnade flamande
    Beef braised in dark beer with onion, mustard and a slice of spice bread that dissolves and thickens the sauce. The sweet-bitter note comes from the beer rather than sugar.
[ ] Try waterzooi
    A chicken or fish stew in broth enriched with cream and egg yolk, with julienned vegetables. A Ghent dish, gentle and without a single sharp note.
[ ] Try grey shrimp croquettes
    Crisp croquettes filled with a thick mixture of North Sea grey shrimp, served with fried parsley and lemon. The shrimp are tiny and peeled by hand, hence the price.
[ ] Try stoemp
    Mashed potato beaten together with vegetables — carrot, leek, cabbage — and served with a sausage or bacon. Brussels home food from the old cafés.
[ ] Try boulets à la liégeoise
    Large meatballs in a sweet-and-sour sauce built on pear and apple syrup with onion. A Walloon dish served with fries, and unexpectedly sweet.
[ ] Try chicons au gratin
    Chicory heads wrapped in ham and baked under cheese and béchamel. The bitterness of the chicory against the sweet sauce is the entire point.
[ ] Try filet américain
    Raw beef chopped and mixed with mayonnaise, capers, onion and seasoning, served with fries and toast. The Belgian tartare, and it is everywhere here.
[ ] Try abbey cheeses
    Semi-hard washed-rind cheeses from monastery dairies: Chimay, Maredsous, Herve. They smell stronger than they taste, and come with sirop de Liège.
[ ] Try both kinds of waffle
    The Liège waffle is dense and oval with caramelised pearl sugar inside, eaten with your hands. The Brussels waffle is light and rectangular, dusted with sugar and eaten with a fork.
[ ] Buy pralines
    Filled chocolates, invented in Brussels at the start of the twentieth century. Bought by weight at a chocolatier, who assembles the box in front of you.
[ ] Try speculoos
    A crisp spiced biscuit with cinnamon and brown sugar, served automatically with coffee. The same biscuit is ground into a spread for bread.
[ ] Drink hot chocolate
    Hot milk with real chocolate stirred into it rather than powder: thick and not cloying. Good places serve the chocolate as a block on a stick.
[ ] Try lambic and gueuze
    Beer fermented spontaneously on the wild yeasts of the Senne valley: sour, dry and nothing like ordinary beer. Gueuze blends young and aged lambic; kriek uses cherries.
[ ] Try a trappist beer
    Beer brewed inside a working monastery under the monks' control: full-bodied, strong and fruity from the yeast. Fewer than a dozen such breweries exist worldwide.

Checklist from Unload: https://unloads.me/c/food-brussels