Category Archives: Restaurants and Cafés

Otomat (My Brother’s in Antwerp!)

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Grayson and me with the hand of Antwerp

My brother was in Europe traveling through a few countries for work and was able to plan in one day to visit me in Antwerp! We visited De Koninck Brewery and finished the evening at one of my favorite pizza places – Otomat. From their site:

Otomat is the first completely Belgian pizza concept. Typically Belgian is the “beer'” character, with more than 20 Belgian beers and the pizza dough is made with Duvel beer yeast – heavenly pizza with the Duvel inside.

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Hof Van Cleve

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Dinner at Hof Van Cleve!

Koen and I decided we really wanted to try eating at the best restaurants in Belgium, so of course Hof Van Cleve was at the top of our list – Number 50 Best Restaurant in the World 2017 and it has 3 Michelin stars.

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Orso Pizzeria

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Mom and Dad in front of Orso Pizzeria

For my parents’ last night in Belgium we headed to one of our favorite places, Orso Pizzeria. Orso is located in Berchem, a small city in the province of Antwerp – but only 15 minutes away by tram, so not too far! It’s a small place where you definitely need to reserve ahead of time for a table. The pizza is super delicious and they serve their own naturally fermented wines!

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London with Mom

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Brunch with Mom

To celebrate my mom’s birthday early, we headed to London for the day! London may seem far away from Antwerp, but by train it’s actually only a 2 hour ride! This was my mom’s first time in London, so we did a full day of sight-seeing, ending on a high note with afternoon tea at Claridge’s.

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De Koninck Brewery with the Family

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Entrance to De Koninck

My parents are in town! I really love the De Koninck Brewery, so I thought this would be a fun family outing for both my parents and my in-laws to do together!

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Geneva, Switzerland

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Jet d’Eau

Geneva is so beautiful in the sunshine! I was only here for one day, but I tried to fit in as much as possible – visiting Lake Geneva & the Vieille Ville (Old Town), all the while trying to eat as much cheese as possible!

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Beijing: Exploring the Hutongs and Hua’s Restaurant

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Exploring the hutongs

After visiting the Summer Palace, we headed back to the hutongs in search of lunch. We figured we’d wonder around and try to find somewhere that looks good. Along the way we sampled some Old Beijing Yoghurt and shaobing filled with red bean paste before stumbling upon Hua’s Restaurant. This had to be fate. I had researched best traditional Beijing restaurants and had really wanted to visit Hua’s but there wasn’t any time. But then we discovered it by accident! We had a HUGE feast, trying as much traditional food as possible! Hua’s is quite famous because they serve imperial-style food, using recipes from “Notes of Imperial Court Food” written during the reign of Emperor Yongzheng of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

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Beijing: Great Wall of China

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Fresh faced before the climb!

Mao Zedong once said “He who has not climbed the Great Wall is not a true man”. No trip to Beijing is complete with a visit to the Great Wall of China, one of the New7Wonders of the World! Such beautiful views!

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Beijing: Peking Duck

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A hanging Peking Duck

Peking Duck is the dish of Beijing (formerly Peking), and has been around since the imperial era. I love Peking Duck so much and could not wait to try it in Beijing. Koen and I weren’t in Beijing so long, so we had to decide how many times we’d eat it and where. In the end we decided to try Peking Duck 2 ways: more modern and lean at Da Dong and more rustic and traditional at Siji Minfu.

*At the end of the post I’ll show you step by step how to prepare a Peking duck pancake in the correct way!

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Beijing: Hot Pot

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Our hot pot

After we checked into our hotel we first ventured out for lunch because we were starving. But what to eat first? You should know that Beijing is in Northern China, so the most famous dishes are with wheat rather than rice. So that means lots of buns, noodles, and dumplings! We decided to just venture out and stop somewhere that looked good. That brought us to a delicious hot pot restaurant!

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