Belgium

Lockdown Rant: What I Don't Love About Belgium

I have been wondering for a long time if I should start mixing in some shorter, less complex posts that perhaps aren’t necessarily always on-topic but fill out my blog with a bit more regular and easily digestable material. One of those off-topic topics that has been rattling around in my skull since I began this blog back in 2016 is to rant about the things that really annoy me about living in Belgium. People who read my posts know how I lovingly gush on and on about the beer and all the travel perks of living in Belgium. But it is not all rosy. Believe me. So while in this coronavirus social distancing phase, perhaps now is a good time for a light-hearted poke at a beautiful but often frustrating country while it is outlawed for anybody to get within 1.5 meters of me. (Note to Belgians: I love Belgium.)

  1. Customer Service SUCKS

Need to take something back to the store? Something about your meal is not quite right? If you come from the USA, you are used to people in the service industries or at the customer service desk of your supermarket or electronics store bending over backward to make things right (usually). In Belgium, forget about it. If your food is late from the kitchen, at best you will get is an apology laced with attitude rather than contrition; whereas, in the States your bill will be greatly reduced and you are almost guaranteed at least one free drink. Oh, and if your new electronics purchase isn’t working, good luck going thru the hassle of explaining every step you took from the moment you left the store.

  1. RESTAURANT HYGIENE

Nothing disgusts me more than two restaurant hygiene facets that Belgium is notorious for violating. (1) Waiters/Food Preparers/Managers standing out front of the restaurant smoking cigarettes and (2) Preparing food with bare hands, particularly sandwiches, wraps, and kebabs. Sometimes both (1) and (2) are broken in consecutive order. Oh yes, I have a had a food preparer go and make a kebab right after smoking a cigarette without washing his hands, rolling that pita real nice and tight.

  1. FOOD VARIETY AND QUALITY

Unless you are in one of the major cities like Brussels, Antwerp, or Gent, you are really stuck with a pretty unexciting variety of food options. Stoofvlees, Vol au Vent, Spaghetti Bolognese, Croque Monsieur, tasteless Belgian steak,… and even food that tries to be ethnic is ruined by something I call Belgian Spice. I don’t know what it is, but it is a particular taste that seems to pervade the cooking here. I swear.

  1. BURGERS SUCK BIG TIME

All of my friends and colleagues know my passionate feelings about burgers made in Belgium. Even ones claiming to be 100% Rundvlees (i.e. Beef) have a mysterious compactness and flavor that is more akin to sausage and pork, then a juicy, melts-in-your-mouth, flavorful all-beef burger that you can get anywhere in the USA. Belgium has no idea what a good burger is.

  1. EMOTIONLESS WAITSTAFF & TOO FEW OF THEM

You notice already that restaurants make up a good portion of my dislikes. Forget about having a brief conversation with your waiter or waitress. Guys, don’t even bother trying to flirt with your waitress. Waitstaff in Belgium are about as cold and emotionless as an empty Sodastream canister, making the dining experience way too formal feeling. Not to mention Belgian restaurants never hire enough waitstaff. Belgium likes to pride itself in meals lasting for hours. It is not because of tradition or that dinner is an event, it is because it takes an hour before the short-handed waitress can make it back to your table.

  1. STINGY ON THE SODA & WATER

If you want to drink a soda or sparkling water with your meal, you will severely overpay for a wee 25cl bottle which is so small, it practically has evaporated before your eyes before your brain registers that you are fractionally less thirsty than you were a few seconds ago. Your only choice is to waste more of your hard earned money on another 25cl. If there is a such thing as Belgian gangsters, for sure they run the supply of 25cl Coca-Cola and sparkling water sold at restaurants.

  1. NO FREE PUBLIC RESTROOMS

One of the most frustrating experiences a foreigner will have while driving thru Belgium is finding himself at a rest stop without any pocket change. Not just a rest stop, but movie theaters, train stations, restaurants, public places, etc. One trick I have learned is to walk into a hotel acting like I am staying there and head right to the restroom without looking at the front desk and arousing suspicion. Belgian guys are well practiced and proficient at pissing outside in public, along a fence or bushes or highway. Why not? Otherwise you always have to have 50 cents on you.

  1. NO SOFT BREAD

Wanna have a sandwich in Belgium? Hopefully you have a good dental plan or don’t mind nursing sore gums for a few days afterwards. In Belgium, only hard baguettes seem to exist. Soft bread can be purchased at the supermarkets and is appropriately labelled “American sandwich” style. But if you go looking for soft hamburger-sized hamburger rolls for your weekend BBQ in the supermarket, don’t waste your time. There are so-called hamburger rolls, but they typically have a hard shell and are twice the diameter of a normal hamburger.

  1. THEY PUT ONION BITS IN EVERYTHING

Excited to dig into some steamed carrots or peas or green beans or whatever from a restaurant or cafeteria? I hope you don’t mind onions because Belgians put onions in everything. I freaking hate onions. I have spent way too much of my life in Belgium picking them out of my vegetables.

  1. SHOPPING HOURS

Belgium is a place that is a severe disadvantage to a single person. Normally as a couple, the chances of achieving your errands is exponentially higher than for a single person. The main reason is that stores (not including some supermarkets) close at 6pm. They say they close at 6pm, but the store employees will give you a look of death at 5:45pm. Post offices and banks can even be worse, some days closing at 4 or 5pm. There is no such thing as a 24-hour Walmart or CVS. About the only time a single working person with a little bit of a commute can get anything done is on Saturdays because stores are also closed on Sundays. But Saturdays are for fun, so some things just never seem to get done. A single guy has to have priorities.

Final Words

I love Belgium and I have loved my time living here and hope to continue for the foreseeable future. I hope Belgians reading this don’t mind me poking fun at some of their customs. I have a feeling that most Belgians know these things already and just tolerate them, because that is what Belgians do. Tolerate. (More poking fun at Belgians).

I would love anybody who has some things they can’t stand about Belgium to add them in the Comments.

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24 thoughts on “Lockdown Rant: What I Don't Love About Belgium”

  1. I used to hate showers in Belgium (10 years ago, hotels in Antwerpen), as you could only get a small drips of water. But now they are more or less ok 😄

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    1. I agree with most of your fun poking with Belgium, but I live in a country where opening hours (i e closing hours) are mostly disrespected by customers so I wish we could adopt Belgian habits.
      Concerning Belgian Spice: I grew up with it, it’s called the taste of the main ingredients. No excuse, just an explanation.
      About onions? Try asking for “no onions, no cucumbers please” works for me. But than this is Sweden. Never lived in Belgium.
      Really loved your blogg and had to giggle a few times. Will surely follow you even here! Lots of love, and regards to my fellow countrymen!

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  3. Coming from the Netherlands, I can still relate to a fair few of these customs. Such as the emotionless staff, whose smiles beam “politeness” rather than the warming welcomes I had abroad. And I can agree on the burgers as well. We have a different type here, but to get a proper “USA-type”, I don’t even bother attempting the search. But don’t get me started on the outrageous overcharging of minuscule glasses of water or soda and the restrooms. It’s ridiculous.

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  4. I’ve never been to Belgium. But I feel your (funny and fun-loving) pain. Keep up the good work (except on those precious Saturdays). NB: Some of these cultural idiosyncrasies(?) are shared by areas in France, where I have traveled.

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  5. We’re in the Netherlands, and I can definitely relate to some of your annoyances – similar situations here too. Except the bread… Plenty of variety! 😆 And I will say I’ve come to not mind paying 0.50 cents for the restroom, since they tend (here) to be super clean and nice… unlike your average public restroom in America. 🤷‍♀️

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  6. As someone who is rather fond of spicy food, I did find the lack of variety of food to be quite a shock. While I do like Belgian food (especially Steppegras), there are a lot of restaurants that do limit themselves to steak and stoofvlees.

    I’ve given up trying to find a decent curry. There are a few Indian restaurants in Antwerp but what they serve is so mild that it really isn’t worth the effort.

    That said, we have found a pretty good restaurant nearby now, which serves a reasonably international menu — they even do a reasonably tasty interpretation of chili.

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  7. Your post made me laugh today! Thank you! I’ve never been to Belgium, but I was shocked in Germany when I had to pay for toilet paper. I didn’t have change when I went into the stall and was shocked that the toilet paper was in a locked dispenser! So I feel you there.
    As for the burgers, that must be terrible! I will eat a nice juicy American burger for you today! 😁

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  10. Thanks for putting the right words on this mess of a country I’ve been living in since I was born. Maybe people are a little more easy going and humble in French speaking part of the country… I guess it won’t make a big difference in the end, your conclusions remaining valid also down here. Belgium is a country with five parliaments and three national languages (for just 10M people) so we’re basically living a life of perpetual compromises…

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  11. I agree with you on soft drinks and also the fries with mayonnaise thing I don’t get. On service, I have the opposite gripe with America. I’ve been 2 bites into a starter when the main course arrives and is left on the table to get cold until you’re ready for it. It’s as if they want to get rid of you as soon as possible!

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  12. Good to know things about Belgium before I travel there, only things that scares me is of washroom. In India, you can use any hotel or restaurants washroom without any hesitation, even if they are dirty !!! I will be surely careful if I plant to travel 😊😊😊

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  13. One place in the USA where you cannot get a good beef burger is Tucson. I spent three years eating tasteless beef. I moved to the East Coast and gushed about how amazing a pub burger was again!

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  14. I got a good one for you Matt, when my wife and I lived there grocery stores used to drive her crazy. Let’s say she found a unique product that she liked. She’d make a purchase then find it impossible to find it again once the stock was depleted from the shelf. She asked a store clerk one day about why they don’t stock such and such any longer. The clerk replied “we don’t carry that any longer, because we kept selling out of it”.

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  15. “Belgium are about as cold and emotionless” is true for all Belgians.

    I have lived here since 2000 and dislike the people. They are rude arrogant ignorant and cold. Most see others as opportunities instead of people. Foreigners are short term cash cows, and tourists more so . Most are homophobic sexist and racist.

    I did not believe this until I married a Belgian, learnt French and lived outside Brussels. Finally I knew I did not want to integrate because assimilation was impossible because our vales were too far apart. Instead I got divorced.

    Regards.

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    1. Hello So, thank you for reading. I am very sorry for your experiences. My post was meant to be light-hearted and not evoke the emotions you describe. I hope you find peace and see the good in Belgium and its people.

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  16. Hi!
    I really enjoyed your posts about Belgium (both the hate and the love one)
    I am italian and I live in belgium since 2017, but I have also lived in the USA (Boston) for a year so I can see both sides of the story.
    I can tell you that in the US I HATED the waitstaff so much because they were all cheery and smiley…ugh, just leave me alone! I felt like it was fake and I didn’t feel comfortable making small talk with the waiter just because he wanted 25% tips. I like it in Belgium where they smile occasionally and just do their job, I feel like it’s more human not to smile all the time no?

    Regarding the paying toilets that’s crazy, I never understood how can it even be legal, and they don’t even have toilets in parks or train stations often!! honestly it doesn’t make any sense and they’re not even that clean..

    Shopping hours…. the deathly look at 5.45 is SO true.. and the saturday, I always think throughout the week about some errands I need to run on saturday and every time on saturday either I forget half of them either something more fun comes up and I just don’t do it. It’s very annoying

    Anyway it was nice reading you
    Have a good day

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