Lychee martinis and Belgian beer

Last night we went to a friend's birthday party in the now gentrified part of downtown Oakland. There, in an up and coming bar scene we were treated to a lychee martini. I have to admit that I do love a good martini and a lychee martini certainly sounded exotic, exciting, and novel so I was tempted to give it a try. Although the drink looked great -and smelled great too- I don't think it qualified as a martini. For some reason martini and sweet don't go together in my book.

Lychee martini

However I did discover that the bar sells Belgian beer and to my surprise they had Hoegaarden on tap. There are few drinks that can match a fresh Hoegaarden on tap and I was about to order one when we suddenly had to leave. Next time?

Oakland is suddenly becoming a haven for Belgian beer lovers. Nearby another bar, a bona fide bierkroeg, called The Trappist has 28 rotating taps and over 100 specialty bottles in stock. The Trappist serves all authentic trappist beers except of course WestVleteren. The menu reads  BIEREN VAN T VAT (beers on tap) in almost perfect Dutch. I have to point out that there is an apostrophe missing before the T, but hey this is the type of typo you may find in Belgium too.

For those who follow the Keisse situation, I am happy to report that Iljo is now in the officially-not-recognized lead in Rotterdam, and that he is safe for a few days. The reason is that the organizers won't pull him until UCI guarantees to pay the fines, and UCI is enjoying the weekend. So, until Monday at least Iljo is safe. In the meantime, Quickstep manager Patrick Lefevere has made some noise too, saying the Keisse-UCI affair has "damaged his trust."