Dinner by Little V (Or: It always hits the spot)

Posted on February 23, 2026 by Niki

Over the weekend, Marco, his mother and I went to Little V here in The Hague. It’s a Vietnamese restaurant in the city centre which has been around since 2006. It started out pretty small, but over the years it expanded, swallowing up a few nearby restaurants for extra space. I’ve posted about the restaurant over the years – you can click the “Little V” tag at the bottom of this post to see other posts. It has been a while since we went, so it was nice to go again.

(Random ambiance picture below)

We started off with a few fish cakes:

They were definitely on the crunchy side, with a less fishy taste than one might expect. The sweet chili sauce paired well with them.

For dinner, Marco chose pho, a beef broth soup. (There are various kinds, but Little V only has beef broth). The best part is the beef comes out uncooked, as you can see on the right side. But you just dunk it in the broth for a few seconds and you’re good to go. It doesn’t need much time or heat.

Marco’s mom and I chose chicken curry with a side of white rice. Delicious! Subtler than I remember, in a good way.

At some point near the end Marco and I swapped dishes so that we could try a bit of the other one. Thanks again, Marco!

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Snowy bridges in The Hague (Or: A temporary white world)

Posted on February 15, 2026 by Niki

The Netherlands got to see a bit of snow today, although it won’t last much longer. It started snowing around 16:00 here in The Hague, but the temperature is expected to increase overnight to 6C/42F. A very quick white world!

Marco took some lovely photos of the snow before it began to melt, though. Check it out.

And here is one of the bridge:

The crunchiest snow was actually on the bridge. So we got to hear the pleasant Crunch! Crunch! Crunch! under our feet when we crossed over it.

There wasn’t too many negative effects from the brief storm. Of course, Schiphol Airport cancelled some flights (NOS.nl in Dutch) and a car here in The Hague hit a tram (omroepwest.nl in Dutch), but that’s about it.

There’s a few more photos of the snow over at the TheHague’s Reddit page.

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Homer Simpson’s graffiti (Or: One man’s trash)

Posted on February 9, 2026 by Niki

Marco and I recently came across some graffiti on a few underground trash containers in The Hague. I just had to stop and take a picture of the Homer Simpson on the side of the trash container:

A lot of places in The Hague use these underground trash containers these days. You lift up the lid, place your trash bag inside and close the lid. Closing the lid causes the trash to drop down automatically. There are sensors to let the city know when the trash container is almost full so that they come and empty them on time, using a lift system to pull the entire container out of the ground and then drop it into the garbage truck. Some streets seem like they have trash containers every 50 meters, although you will still see some folks who leave their trash next to a full container. This is illegal and can result in a fine.

Back on the topic of The Simpsons – I probably stopped watching that show regularly around season 15, but I have fond memories of “Animation domination!” on Sunday nights on FOX. Most of my cultural references come from that show.

Have a look at this Homer Simpson statue on a bench that Marco and I spotted in NYC back in 2012 (!). It must be gone by now, as it was already pretty battered then.

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Sojubar (Or: Coming soon to The Hague’s city centre)

Posted on February 3, 2026 by Niki

The Korean restaurant chain Sojubar is coming soon to The Hague. They already have locations throughout the Netherlands, including (but not limited to) Amsterdam, Eindhoven, Utrecht and Rotterdam. They are also present in a few other European countries.

The two things they are known for are soju (Korean alcohol, sort of like sake but sweeter) and fried chicken, as you can see from the picture above. They also have authentic Korean dishes like bibimbap, kimchi, fried dumplings, etc. Have a look at the menu for the Shojubar location at the Mall of the Netherlands.

Unfortunately restaurants don’t seem to last long in this building, so here’s hoping Sojubar does better. The previous restaurant was Wow Crab which was more of an all-you-can-eat crab place. The Italian restaurant Fratelli was also apparently there, although I don’t really remember that so I am not sure. It was also home to Jamie Oliver’s back in 2017-2020, which we did visit a few times when we went to the city centre. I liked their cheesy garlic bread and the fact that you could easily ask for half portions of their pasta dishes for lunch.

In the meantime, if you’re waiting for Sojubar to open, you can also try some great Korean fried chicken at the nearby Five-K comfort food, although that is not their focus.

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Almost ready (Or: Leiden University’s Spui campus)

Posted on January 26, 2026 by Niki

Leiden University has facilities in both Leiden and The Hague, with approximately 25% of their students taking classes in The Hague. One of their newest locations, Spui campus, will open to students on 2 February.

The new location is in the building which used to house the V&D clothing store (1969-2015) and the Canadian store Hudson’s Bay (2017-2019). The main entrance on the side of the Grote Marktstraat is used by MediaMarkt (blog post), an electronics store similar to Best Buy in the US. But MediaMarkt only uses the lower two floors, so there is a lot of space left over in this six story building (20,000 square meters).

Here’s a look at the entrance for the Spui campus:

The entrance is across from the Centrum tram stop. (In fact, I stood on the platform while taking this picture.) The Queen’s Casino is to the left. Marco said this used to be the entrance for the V&D employees back in the day. The best part? Leiden University decided to keep the same font face that V&D used way back when, as you can see in the photo above.

Sneak preview: from department store to university building from universiteitleiden.nl.

To clarify, the new building will also house TU Delft, the Open Universiteit, Leiden University Medical Center and Universiteiten van Nederland, so there will be a lot of educational organizations under one roof. And then MediaMarkt, for all of your electronic needs…

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Audio lollipops (Or: Latest curiosity by Xenos)

Posted on January 18, 2026 by Niki

Xenos is a Dutch chain known for buying some interesting products and then reselling them in their stores. It is generally a fun store to visit just to see what they have in stock, as things change every few weeks.

The latest thing they are selling is audio lollipops from a brand called Amos Tasty Sounds (official website).

These lollipops feature K-pop songs. They come with a pair of bone connector headphones. You press a button on the device and then take a bite of the lollipop. It sends music through your teeth (!) and your skull to your inner ear. It’s not new technology – bone connector headphones have existed for a while, although I have never tried them. You can also read more about the lollipops at Amazon.

It definitely seems like a niche product (perfect for Xenos) which is great for kids at a birthday party, for instance. It isn’t something I am interested in, but I did end up taking a picture of it and writing a blog post about it, so there you go…

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Snowpocalypse (Or: An inch of snow in The Hague!)

Posted on January 12, 2026 by Niki

Here are some photos from the snow that covered The Hague last week Wednesday. The entire week was quite wintery. Yesterday the low (overnight) temperature was -5C/23F, but to be fair the northern and eastern sides of the Netherlands had it worse, with up to 6 inches of snow last week and -10C/14F elsewhere. But with The Hague being so close to the coast, we don’t see numbers like that.

‘Damage is piling up’: has the Netherlands forgotten how to cope with snow? from The Guardian

Wednesday was quite pretty to be out and about, though. If you went early enough, the snow was still fresh, with the gorgeous crunch under your boots. You also didn’t have to worry about ice, since the snow was still too fresh and not pressed down by everyone walking on it.

Here are some of the photos I took that day:

The red scooter reminds me of the photo I took of the red scooter at Haagse Bluf in 2017.

Above, by The Sting clothing store, not far from the Grote Kerk.

Looking left of the previous image, towards Venestraat, a shopping street (marked by the stork lights).

Cafe seats outside of ‘t Goude Hooft, a restaurant and hotel.

Looking towards the old city hall (the red door is part of it), where Marco and I got married back in September 2013.

By the restaurant By Ami, which coincidentally was advertising for their Burlesque night, which is probably much more mild than you might think, as this is a restaurant after all. But I thought it was a nice juxtaposition to have the snow-covered summery trees next to an advertisement with a woman dancing in what is basically a one piece swimsuit.

No blog post is complete or Dutch enough without a bicycle, and in this case a fully snow-covered one.

Since The Hague is so close to the sea the snow was gone by Thursday. Yesterday was the coldest day of the week, as I mentioned, but today is already back up to 6C/43F, a more normal temperature for a Dutch winter.

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Fireworks in The Hague (Or: The final edition?)

Posted on January 4, 2026 by Niki

In theory this was the last year that fireworks could be purchased for New Year’s Eve in the Netherlands. I say in theory because the government said they were banning it, but they still need to work out compensation for the companies who sell fireworks. But I do expect it will be the last year.

Here’s a look at the aftermath in just one corner of The Hague the day after:

A lot of people don’t clean up after themselves as they expect the city will do it for them…

You can also check out a short 3 minute video of fireworks over The Hague just after midnight on New Year’s Eve.

And, just because I’ll forget to post otherwise, here’s a final picture of the holiday displays by Bijenkorf from a few weeks back:

In other news, we got some snow this weekend! The people setting off fireworks got really lucky because the weather turned on January 1, after the festivities were over. Of course, it is mostly slush here in The Hague. But there are some good pictures out there – check out Reddit for some beautiful pictures someone took today in The Hague.

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Candy time (Or: Christmas box within Christmas box within…)

Posted on December 28, 2025 by Niki

Check out this crazy cool Christmas gift Marco and I received from a relative! Handmade.

If you have diabetes you might want to look away now…

I warned you.

First layer is Bounty and chocolate Santas, but I suggest checking out the lovely decorations on this box as well. A cat and a tree (the maker of this gift has two Ragdoll cats).

Second layer, Knoppers (wafers stacked with hazelnut and milk creme) and MilkyWay. I’m definitely eyeing the Knoppers…

A reindeer on this box.

Third layer is Koetjesreep, of which there is only a Dutch Wikipedia page. It’s a candy bar of Dutch origin, very popular with kids. Technically it has less than 35% cocoa bean inside, so it can’t officially be labeled as chocolate. It is instead labeled as cacaofantasie, or chocolate fantasy, which I find more amusing than I probably should.

The last layer, with various small chocolates inside. There’s a sleigh on this smallest box. The lids are stacked up (mostly) neatly behind.

We have enough chocolate to last us for 2026! Okay, probably not, but enough for the coming period for sure. It was a great gift to receive, too beautiful to tear apart (but someone has to eat the chocolate!).

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Decemberzegels (Or: Efteling inspiration)

Posted on December 22, 2025 by Niki

Every year, PostNL (the Dutch post office) releases new decemberzegels, or December stamps, for use during the holiday period. This year they can be used from 10 November to 3 January for letters. They are like America’s “forever stamps”, as you can keep using them every December. Currently you can use stamps from 2010 and newer.

The theme this year is fairy tales from the Efteling, a Dutch theme park. Some of the themes are the Princess and the pea, Cinderella and Hansel and Gretel. Each sheet has 10 unique stamps (PostNL decemberzegels page in Dutch).

Here’s a close up:

This year I used my last 2021 stamp, actually, so I had to buy more. Earlier this month I went to one of the PostNL pakketpunten, a place to pick up and send packages in random stores like flower shops or dry cleaners. They make a bit of money (not a lot!) for each package that goes through their hands.

Mind you, I have lived in the Netherlands since late 2012. I recently celebrated my 13th anniversary here (December 18, 2012). The conversation I had with the shopkeeper was in Dutch, with no issues on my side. But I was reminded that I still have an American accent, because at some point the shopkeeper asked, in Dutch, “You know you can use these to send mail internationally, right? Just add two stamps instead of one, provided it doesn’t weigh more than 50 grams”. I said something “Oh, cool, I didn’t know”, since I didn’t. After I left I realized he probably mentioned that because of my accent…

Heh. Oh well!

Categories: Daily Dutch living, Everyday purchases, Holidays | Tags: , | Leave a comment

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