Places Around Maastricht: Babbe Malle

Type of Place: Restaurant
Location: Markt 68; 6211 CL Maastricht. Right on Markt Square
Website

Maastricht is home to many great restaurants, including 8 Michelin stars worth that I’ll probably never be able to afford to review. Still, it is notorious for the high cost to eat out both for lunch & dinner, especially if you want to in the center of town. And why wouldn’t you what to?

Enter Malle Babbe, a restaurant/pub on the Markt Square with an excellent dinner deal on Monday & Tuesdays. After 5 pm on those days, they offer a spareribs special and a chicken sate special, each for a mere 7,50. Add a beer or two, they are a Heineken bar, and you can get out of there with a full belly for around 12 euros per person. When we ate there, I had the spare ribs, which were served as a large rack with a salad and lots of thick fries on the side. They were very tasty and really more food than I could handle. Dan ordered the chicken sate, which came with a salad and puffy rice chips. He didn’t find it to his taste, but I thought it was alright. The chicken was a bit bland for us.

The rest of Malle Babbe’s menus looks tasty and is priced comparable to other Maastricht restaurants, around 13-18 euros per plate with some exceptions. The food is primarily Dutch. The bar had a larger than usual selection of beers, and the interior design of dark wood and large paints, gives the place a comfortable and fun feel. According to the website, some of the painting are also for sale. While you won’t find yourself eating on the more trendy Vrijhof, the Markt square is also an open space and prime for people watching. Eet smakelijk!

Episode 13 of Maastricht Minutiae

Welcome the the 13th episode of Maastricht Minutiae. Listen Here.
 
This week we spent a lot of time chatting about just a few things:

Getting a NL Driver’s License as Knowledge Worker (and spouse)

The Aftermath of Klik! Animation Festival in Amsterdam

24 Hours of Beer Festival in Maastricht

And we announce that we’re attending Expatica’s I’m Not a Tourist expo this October 25th. Drop us an email as we’d love to meet up with some folks there.

 
Plus the cat disrupts by trying to eat our printer. Go Figure.
 
Have questions or comments? Send us a note via the form on the Contact Me page or talk about the podcast in the Comments.

Weekend Beer Festival in Maastricht

Last Saturday Dan & I had the chance to try some regional beers at the at the 24 Hours of Beer Festival (Dutch website) in Maastricht. Now in its third year, the beer festival highlights Limburg-region beers from the Netherlands and Belgium, and included 20 breweries, 70 different beers, and a variety of local cheeses and other snacks.

The event was very relaxed while we were there in the afternoon, although I expect it was more active in the evening since it ran until 2 am. It was held at the Maastricht StayOkay and had live music of the decent, local variety. Tables were set up around the room, so after paying a deposit for a glass you could go around a get it filled up for a single token (1,50 per token). The porch was also open and since the weather was great on Saturday, we sat outside for most of our stay.

I’ve been a be fan of microbrews (in the States) for a while now, so it is always great to try the beer made locally wherever we go. True, this festival wasn’t really all about microbrewies, but it was about regional beer so that’s close enough for me. Since arriving in the Netherlands, we’ve been drinking a lot of ‘house’ beers, which are typically pilsners. While many types have grown on me, I think I’ll always prefer wheat/white beers.

Fortunately, there were a number of ‘wit’ (usually means a white or wheat beer) and other unique options available at the festival to give my palate a workout. Based on this experience, I’d say that Dutch beers tend to be light in color and strong in alcohol content. The wheat beers we’ve tried are mostly very light in flavor, although a few have a more full flavor (Dan says banana-y) without being hoppy. The dubbels and tripels seem to have a higher hops content, but not necessarily a darker color than a regular pilsner or white beer. Bruin, or brown, beers are sometimes sweet, but even when they are not there is something molasses-like about them.
 
And the beers we tried? I enjoyed them all, although the Reuzenbieren varieties were a little too hoppy for me. Here’s the breakdown:

Steen Brugge Wit: A bit on the light side, but pleasant.

Steen Brugge Tripel: Robust flavor without being too bitter. Very drinkable.

Reuzenbieren Tripel: Strong flavor. Hoppy. Medium-light color.

Reuzenbieren Blonde: Strong flavor. Hoppier than I typically expect a blonde to be.

Jopen Wit: Medium strong flavor with a pretty distinct banana finish.

Jopen Tripel: A true dark beer. Very tasty with little hops. Very strong. This one nearly knocked me out of my chair.

Jessenhofke Maya: Medium strong flavor with middling hops. Fresh tasting. Organic.

Jessenhofke Tripel(?): Medium strong flavor with middling hops. An almost garlicky finish. Organic. Jessenhofke brewery also has a B&B and offers “Brewer for a Day” workshops which have me very intrigued.

Dutch-Themed Twitter Backgrounds

Lately I’ve been getting involved in web design activities and decided to make up a couple Dutch themed backgrounds for Twitter. Since there are not many things one can change on Twitter, backgrounds are fun and easy to make. Here are the first two I made. Feel free to use them on your own Twitter account if you want. Just click through to my Flickr account to download the full size version.

Orange Windmill

Stroopwafels

These backgrounds are protected under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. This means you may use and remix these backgrounds for free so long as you do the same with anything new you create from them.

Stroopwafels: Breakfast is now an Awesome Cookie

Ah, Stroopwafels. The Dutch snack that until now I’ve always had to beg Dan to buy because he thought the store bought ones were stale and bland. Well look at him tucking into that huge, warm, fresh stroopwafel now. Yum.

A stroopwafel is two thin waffle-like cookies with a thin layer of syrup or honey between them. According to wikipedia they oriented in Gouda during the 18th century. They come in all sizes, but are usually round. In the stores you can get them in packages under all sorts of brand names. I recommend getting the honey ones for a sweeter experience.

If you have the chance to eat a fresh stoopwafel, go for it. Like most things, fresh and warm is a recipe for a really wonderful treat. I’ve never seen a booth in Maastricht, but have seen them in Delft and Arnhem in the North.

And here’s a video I found at random in the internet wilds (FYI: he swears once). It wouldn’t work with the monster stroopwafels we ate in Delft, but this could definitely improve the quality of your store bought experience.

Enjoy!

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