Our first stop in our Belgium Formula One weekend was the small town of Waimes, Belgium, to drop off my buddy’s luggage at their hotel. I couldn’t wait to see this place, a 4-star resort in this remote forest area of Belgium? We drive through Malmedy, a town infamous for the 1944 massacre of 84 American soldiers by their German captors. But we drive through Malmedy, and reach Waimes, a small European town of 6,400 people. We arrive at Hotel Cyrano, and I realize, European back country 4-star is a little different than big city 4-star. We park across the street, yes, across the street and bring the luggage over. Stepping inside the hotel, its small, even tiny. We carry the bags upstairs to their room on the 3rd floor via a tiny narrow, twisting stair case. The room was spacious enough, but we were hungry and headed downstairs to eat. Upon walking down and finding the dining area, wow, what a surprise. The main restaurant area was designed in a soft raspbeey theme. Cool!  Very modern, classic European. don’t judge the book by the cover.

I walk through the dining area, and I see a bar. OK, cool, I’m happy now. Then we see the large community tables of the bar side bar area. OK, this is nice. Classic Germany bruhaus style layout, large table where everyone congregates and shares the stories of the day over a cold beer and brats. And fries, don’t forget the Belgian fries. Belgian, not French.

So nice area, large and spacious, I step back to the bathroom, uh, water closet, And notice there’s an outdoor patio area for dining as well. Oh, that’s nice. OK, so there is more room to this little spot than I reckoned. Then I turn and notice, more community tables along a side patio. Cool, this place has a plethora of seating choices. And if you know me, you know how much I love dining and drinking al fresco, so this spot is right up my alley.

So anyway, we sit inside at one of the large tables, get our menus, and start practicing our French for ordering. After all, we are in back country Belgium. Ron and Terri speak German, so we have that covered as backup, but whatever they throw at us, we’re ready.

“Hey guys, what’s up?” We look up in astonishment. We thought we were in a foreign country? These guys all spoke English as clear as anyone from LA. OK, so Ron speaks to her in German, no dice. I try French, and she laughs at me. Oh well, welcome to the new World Order: America is King! The music, the B-52’s. Everyone wears Levis. The t-shirts from Nike, Guns and Roses, or some other Americana marketing slogan campaign.

So on to the food. The menu is…uh…Nuevo Belgian Americana. We order the burger, The Maxi-Burger Chez Gerty. Any burger named after the restaurant, with a hyphen, has to be good. I get a side of Buffalo Wings. Oh come on, I gotta try it to see how funny it’s going to taste. Terri also adds to the order a delicious little side dish of thinly sliced green Apples layered with goat cheese and cold baby shrimp. Reading the description from the menu, it sounds like it ought to be good. It has all the key components of a good dish: Apples, Shrimp, Goat cheese. All favorites of mine, please don’t mess this up.

Oh my! The food was so good, we forgot about heading to the track for an hour. That apple shrimp feta thing was sooooo good. The burger was one of the juiciest, tastiest I’ve had in a while. The bun was some sort of crusty, sour-doughy, crunchy tasty yummy bread. Crunchy enough to hold it all together, light enough to be a flavor supporter of a great beef burger. Add 2 types of cheese, tomato, red onions, pickles and a tasty Chez Gerty sauce, the burger exceeded expectations. Then the B-Wings come out, plump, juicy, dang me! This was not expected at a Belgian brasserie… in Belgium. And those fries! I caused a bit of confusion when I asked for ketchup and mustard. OK, ketchup they understood, typical Americans. But mustard, they were perplexed, but brought out their version, which turned out to be a spicy Dijon mustard. Good enough, the fries were my style: Big, fat and tasty. I even tried the mayonnaise. OK… I tried the mayonnaise, let’s just leave it at that. The food was awesome. Loved the servers, so friendly, loved the layout, fun and open and it was the perfect first meal in a new country after getting off a 24-hour flight. And now, off to the races!