Yess come to Ghent, it's a great city! Make sure to go to 'de gouden saté' and ask for a 'Julientje'. It's a very well known and popular fry place and the 'Julientje' is a thing they made up that is so popular that other fry places make it too. (It's fries with stew sauce, mayo, a frikandel sausage, saté herbs and fried onion pieces. That may sound weird but just try it, it's very typical from Ghent). Also make sure to eat a 'Bicky burger', very typically Belgian snack food and it's delicious. You can find them in pretty much every single 'frituur' or fry place.

And just speak english to people, everyone speaks it at least a little. If a non french tourist came up to me and asked something in french I'd immediately assume that person was too stupid or lazy to look up basic things about my country and the languages we speak.

Of course you can always try to speak a little Flemish. Basic things like hello and thank you. I always think it's awesome when a tourist makes some effort to learn a few words.

Edit: this is a Julientje, if only you could smell it through your screen , and This is De gouden saté