Slaughtering the Fat Ox.

Seems like I was working on some kind of list here. I had it scribbled down on a long skinny piece of paper ripped from a reporter's notebook. It was hanging right. there. Now it's gone. I reckon some toddler snatched it down and put it somewhere, a waystation en route to the trash, long gone.

I don't remember the rest of the list. But I do remember this: the Fat Ox.

The Vette Os is a steak restaurant in Veurne, West Flanders. Give me a moment to put my visit there in context.

I was two-and-a-half weeks into a fairly intense Belgian beer café research tour. That means, however fun it was: Lots of beer and lots of coffee and lots of snacks. You can't drink beer in all those places, especially if driving to the four corners. And you can't eat full-on meals in all those places, even if you wanted to. So you end up nibbling. And drinking lighter beers. And coffee. And water.

This was the day of the coastal swing. I took the train from Brussels to Knokke-Heist and then, stopping several places along the way, took the coastal tram all the way down to De Panne. Northeast coast to southwest coast. Lots of vacation, lots of sandy-people-watching, and good cheap fun. (Look for an article about the Belgian coast in an upcoming issue of Draft.)

From De Panne in the evening I jogged in on the train just a bit to reach Veurne. Despite having lived in Belgium for a while, this was my first visit to Veurne, last summer. Every bit as quaint and cobbled as they say. And there was a party on. Hence the photo above. A local fest, and oddly for Veurne and this part of the country, it had nothing to do with penitence. They love penitence down there. They feel really sorry about some old stuff that was not really their fault, and then they party. It works.

I checked in at a B&B-ish hotel called the Old House. Smallish rooms, but they took an old administrative building and somehow made it feel like a stately manor. It was nice. And its bistro, with a top-rate breakfast,* stocked St. Bernardus ales and other goodies. It was just a block or two off the main square.

There were a few cafés on and off the Grote Markt I needed to check out. I wasn't especially excited about eating in any of them. So I asked the B&B owner where to eat. And he sent me to the Vette Os. I'm glad I listened.

Candlelit and cozy, it was full of couples and families and groups of friends. I gathered that I was lucky to get a little table to myself. I don't think they even had beer, probably a token pils if I had asked for one. Meanwhile they also ran a wine shop next door, specializing in bottles from unusual places. I drank a bottle of something with my Irish ribeye. Not a glass, but a bottle, because whatever it was I wanted wasn't available by the glass. I don't remember what it was. I don't remember if I finished it. I didn't take notes. I wasn't working.

I do remember that the ribeye was the best, most flavorful cut of meat I've had in Belgium. Thank you, Ireland. No need for a rich sauce to ladle over it (although I wouldn't have turned it away). There were no mediocre beers I felt the need to try. No little bowls of nuts or crackers or gouda. No espresso watered down to coffee-cup-size. Just a great meal, good wine, and good company (myself).

That was a highlight.

And while I am slightly buzzed and thinking about this, let me say: What a wonderful job I have. It is so wonderful that I am taking a second job, just so I can afford to keep doing it.

It's important to remember those moments as I embark on a different sort of trip tomorrow. The highlights will be different. My better half and our two kids are coming.

My four-year-old son says he wants to come on a brewery tour. He wants to take pictures for me. I am very much inclined to let him. I promise to post the results here. Unless he throws them away.

* In much of Western Europe, "top-rate breakfast" means to an American not just bread and jam and cold ham, but also an egg or two made to order. Bacon is nice, if you can get it.

I Take the Long Way to Veurne, and There Is a Party On.

Two things I always said I'd do in Belgium, and never did when I lived there: Take the coastal tram from end to end, and visit Veurne. Knocked both off the bucket list on the same day, two weeks ago.

You can have a day pass on the Kusttram for a measly five euro-bucks. I start up in Knokke and ride down from there, popping off now and then to walk the seaside and look into certain cafés that need looking-into. I skip Oostende altogether to focus on the smaller towns along the way. If you can call them towns. At times the Belgian coast looks more like one long, skinny metroplex of high rises, blacklight mini-golf, cocktail bars, and trampolines. I'm there at the beginning of August, smack in the middle of high season. Tots are popping like corn on those trampolines while their guardians throng the beach bars and theoretically look on.

The whole area is ripe for specialist beer bars that know what they're doing. There are surprisingly few. Among those worth mentioning:

Toogoloog in Middelkerke is getting buzz among the geeks, and rightfully so. It keeps a smart list of 120 beers at last count. Recently being the only café in Belgium, as far as I know, to have Dupont Speciale Belge on draft gives you the idea. Naturally, the day I make my coastal swing is the one day a week that Toogoloog is shut. May you have better luck.

In Blankenberge, a block inward from the beach, next to the Casino, is the Royal and its wraparound corner terrace. You are watching crowds rather than waves, but it keeps 150 beers these days, including a couple of saisons and the odd curiosity, such as Seefbier. I make due with a St. Feuillien Saison, again noticing that the brewery has started listing Vitamin C as an ingredient. What's that about? Clever way to say "orange peel"?

In De Haan, a.k.a. the Cock-by-the-Sea, the great advantage of Torre is its location bang next to the tram stop. From my terrace table I can see the schedule of upcoming southward trams. Its card has 52 beers including Drie Fonteinen, hypothetically. My first couple of choices are out of stock so I enjoy an Oerbier and notice that Moinette is on draft.

Middelkerke has the ever-reliable Iceberg, with nearly 100 beers and seaside views. Like many in this region it is a Palm-Rodenbach-heavy list, but this one includes the stable from Gouden Carolus. I go with coffee. The day is long, and so is the Kusttram.

For now I'll leave out another handful of worthy cafés, because I said "specialist beer bars that know what they're doing." I'm not even sure that applies to all the ones I mention above.

The tram ends (and starts again) in De Panne. Now, many geeks will immediately think "Pannepot!" And they will hope that surely someone in De Panne is smart enough to stock it for the odd beery traveler. Well, they'd be... right, as it turns out. The Verloren Garnoare -- yes, the "Forlorn Shrimp" -- is where you drink while waiting for the train. It has Pannepot among its 50-plus beers, which also include Verhaeghe, St. Bernardus and Boon.

My train ride is a short one to Veurne, where a carnival is on in the Grote Markt. It seems I have just missed the town's procession of the penitents by a few days. (If there is anything the Flemish love more than beer, a friend once said to me, it is penance.) A sign says the party also marks an international kayak polo tournament. Initially I worry that I misread the Dutch, and that the reality is surely less weird than an international kayak polo tournament. I needn't have worried.

I check in at the Old House, which I can now recommend (classy and spotless former government building, converted to B&B, with a solid breakfast). It is now evening. Hunger pangs demand that I dispense with a scheme to rent or steal a bike and make for the Kunstemaecker. Instead I go with a local's recommendation: the Vette Os, a candlelit grillhouse attached to a shop specializing in unconventional world wines.

A well-marbled Irish ribeye and a not-so-unconventional bottle of Côtes du Rhône are my guilty pleasures on this night. It is easily the best steak I've eaten in Belgium, and I can recommend it as heartily as any coastal beer café. It's all a bit self-indulgent, but hell... I can celebrate penance and international water polo tournaments with the best of them.