On a family budget, you sometimes have to choose between snacks and rides. Here are some ideas to keep the whole family happy without breaking the bank.
A useful point to note before we begin: the stallholders all charge the same price. A sugar waffle costs the same price from one end of the fairground to the other, and the same goes for most of the classics. So what varies from one stall to another isn’t the price, but the stall itself.
The Brussels waffle, the real thing
You’ll find it at Jean la Gaufre, but not at just any stall: there are three of them in the square, and you always end up back at the one on the corner of Allée Scheffer and Rue des Glacis. What they serve there is a Brussels waffle, not a Liège waffle. The difference isn’t just cosmetic: whilst the Liège waffle is dense, compact and topped with pearl sugar that caramelises, the Brussels waffle is made from a runnier, leavened batter that rises in the waffle iron and comes out with a honeycomb texture. However, the irons must be really hot; otherwise, the batter won’t rise and the waffle will come out soggy. Here, they certainly are. Crispy on the outside, light and airy on the inside, with icing sugar on top and nothing else. And that leaves plenty of room for what comes next.
Jean La Gaufre: sugar waffle, €4
The chocolate-covered apple, for want of a skewer
In front of the Chalet au Chocolat (on the left, just a stone’s throw from the main entrance), our first thought was to go for the chocolate-covered fruit skewers. Except that they cost €5 almost everywhere, and we’d said we’d stick to under that. So we went for the whole coated apple instead. The principle is the same: a piece of fruit, a layer of chocolate, a stick. The apple has the advantage of holding its shape; it still crunches beneath the chocolate coating where a banana would simply squish. And, incidentally, it’s the only time all evening that we’ll be eating any fruit.
Chalet au Chocolat: chocolate-covered apple, €4
A crêpe with sugar, to be eaten whilst seated
At the Crêperie Bretonne, the sugar crêpe costs the same as everywhere else, with one advantage that takeaway stalls don’t have: you can sit down there. It’s a restaurant, not a street stall, and at a fairground where everything is eaten standing up whilst walking around, that makes all the difference. As for the crêpe itself, there’s no mystery to it. Wheat, butter, sugar. It’s the simplest version in the Breton repertoire, and that’s precisely why it serves as a litmus test: if the batter’s too thick or the griddle’s not hot enough, you can tell straight away.
Crêperie Bretonne: crêpe with sugar, €4
The corn cob, the only savoury one
Maïs Man’s grilled maize cob, rolled in melted butter. It’s one of the oldest fairground traditions there is, and the snack needs nothing else: a cob, heat, fat, salt. The kernels pop, the butter drips down your fingers, and you get it all over yourself. No reinvention, no promises. And above all, it’s the only savoury snack still available for under €5 anywhere on the Glacis fairground.
Maïs Man: corn on the cob, €4
