Ultimate Belgian Tasting.. Do I need to explain more? Last Tuesday, I read in a local beer paper that there was going to be a Belgian tasting of beer and food (snacks, chocolates, waffles) at the Heartland Brewery in the Empire State Building. Because both items are part of my business interests, We decided to go and see (or should I say : taste?). Anyways, thanks to a couple of emails from my dad, we got ourselves 4 tickets to a night of fun!
Since we already had our car, we drove to NYC ourselves, (all dressed up) , parked at the ferry and enjoyed the view of the skyline while we were crossing the Hudson. It was quite a beautiful day actually, the first in weeks! Because we were way too early, we stopped at Macy’s to do some window shopping. By the way, isn’t Laurens looking like a Hugo Boss model the way he’s posing on the escalator?
Thanks too Merchant du Vin, the guy at the entrance treated us like real Belgian VIP’s. The guy from the paper even took our picture! Once inside the Heartland brewery, we received a little tasting glass, and we checked out all the importers and breweries that were showing off their beers. As real Belgians, we started by tasting the Belgian beers we already miss so much.. afterwards, we tried some American (but still Belgian style) beers, but I must say I still prefer our own beers. The chocolates were very yummy too, and the waffles.. well.. the ones Rudy sells will taste a lot better (I hope). We also met a magician/mind reader who could conjure up flames from his wallet, guess which numbers we were going to say, bend a fork in my hand without touching it and move the hands of Elke’s watch, also without touching it. Very Impressive!
After impressing a bunch of American guys (No, i refused to give them my phone number, my cell doesn’t work here anyway) with my knowledge of beer, Belgian breweries and their Flemish ancestor’s last names, we decided to call it a day, and head back to Long Valley. On the way back, we once again had a nice view on the skyline by night, and decided that this surely wasn’t the last time we visited this marvelous city…
