Author Archives: Niki

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About Niki

I run the blog http://www.lifeinthehague.com

Time of day (Or: Sundial by the Kneuterdijk Palace)

Posted on February 9, 2024 by Niki

A few weeks ago I was wandering around in The Hague and I came across a piece of art. A sundial, to be exact. This was behind the Kneuterdijk palace.

Here is a close up:

Kneuterdijk palace was built in 1716. The garden where the artwork can be found is in the back of the palace. The gate was open when I walked past, so I assume it is usually open during the day. You can read more about the palace at denhaag.com (in English).

In public transportation news – random, I know – it has been a busy week in the Netherlands.

Hopefully HTM can bring back their full schedule later this year. But I’m aware of how good I have it, considering trams currently run every 10 minutes. But I remember when it was every 7 minutes…!

Categories: Culture, Transportation | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

A tasty lunch (Or: Amier restaurant in The Hague)

Posted on February 1, 2024 by Niki

Last weekend Marco and I decided to go for Lebanese at Amier restaurant in The Hague’s city centre, in the same street as the American Book Center. I’ve walked past the restaurant time and time again over the years, but we had never been.

Since it was lunch we decided to share some small plates. Here’s a look at what we had:

We ordered four things:

  • Batata harra (spicy baked potatoes with lemon)
  • Arnabeet (cauliflower with lemon, pomegranate and tahini sauce)
  • Falafel with tahini sauce
  • Samboesek djaj (pastry dough filled with marinated chicken, lemon and bell pepper)

It also came with a side dish of Lebanese bread. The meal was quite tasty, as expected. A bit more subtle than I was expecting, but definitely in a good way. Lots of lemon, but it was fine! It was also fun to have a lunch date with Marco.

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Hiding behind some houses (Or: Art in de Bogaard)

Posted on January 24, 2024 by Niki

In the nearby city of Rijswijk there’s a shopping area called Bogaard stadscentrum or “Bogaard city centre”. There’s a small indoor shopping area and lots of shops on the outside as well. The area had a bit of a downturn, especially when the Mall of the Netherlands opened, but there has been some work to restore it. Part of the plans including removing some of the shopping area to add more housing instead, which makes sense.

Here’s a look at an interesting piece of art on the way back to the tram stop:

Unfortunately I don’t have too many details about it. It is cute, though!

Categories: Culture, Rijswijk | Tags: | Leave a comment

Bagels (With: A Dutch flag in them)

Posted on January 21, 2024 by Niki

A few weeks ago Marco and I tried Netherlands Bagels for the first time. It’s in the city centre, a few minutes walk from the Grote Kerk. This bagel shop sells New York style bagels (the owner is originally from New York). Read more about the shop’s history.

First, our drinks arrived. Very tasty chai lattes that definitely hit the spot.

I can’t lie – we were amused when the bagels came out. Why, you ask?

I mean, it is in the name: Netherlands Bagels. So the flags make sense. It’s still funny, though.

I had an everything bagel with peanut butter on the side. A bit of a rare combination, I admit, mixing the salty menu with the sweet menu (I had to double check that I could mix it like that). My tongue also thought it was a weird choice, but it worked fairly well. For me. And as always I requested the peanut butter on the side.

Marco had a bodega bagel (eggs, bacon and cheese). It looked so good I even had a bite or three. That says a lot considering I am very much not a fan of eggs (if it looks or tastes like egg, anyway). I mean, I have a tiny bit of scrambled eggs about every 5 years or so. That’s good, but only in limited amounts. But this was nice – the salty bacon paired nicely with the egg and I could see why people liked it. Hence my having three bites! I think Marco got concerned that I might eat all of it, but nope, I gave it back.

These were some tasty bagels; we’ll definitely go back to try some of the other varieties.

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Homemade tentamen ramen (Or: Yumyumyum)

Posted on January 14, 2024 by Niki

Over the weekend, we made homemade tentamen ramen. That is, ramen with spicy ground beef. (Exceptions to “homemade” were the noodles, egg and chili oil.) The inspiration for making this broth came from Roger who gifted Marco a copy of Let’s Make Ramen!: A comic-book cookbook.

First we started with a yasai broth, which has among other ingredients shiitake mushrooms, carrots, green onions, onions, apples and ginger. After the flavors infuse into the water for an hour you take it off the heat and add a few sheets of kombu dried seaweed for 10 minutes to give it more of an umami flavor. They expanded to ridiculous levels after those 10 minutes. it was crazy!

Lots of mushrooms! But the most unexpected ingredient was the apples.

Skipping ahead, here is a look at the end product:

To make the final product we added “tare” which was a homemade mixture which gave the broth its depth of flavor, plus bok chow, an egg for Marco and Roger, spicy ground beef and dried nori seaweed. Yumyumyum!

Marco and I are already looking forward to the next recipe. We think we’ll tackle a 4 hour broth next, but this time putting it into our pressure cooker (which has way more capacity than our normal pans anyway).

Here’s to Marco, the awesome chef and Roger for the great inspiration!

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Jawbreaker candy (Or: …on a stick?)

Posted on January 4, 2024 by Niki

Here is a look at how “American” candy is packaged in Europe:

If you see a lot of American flags or the words “USA” on the packaging, I am going to guess it wasn’t actually produced in the US. I took this photo at the Plumule expat store in the Mall of the Netherlands earlier in December. Jawbreakers themselves are a really, really hard candy in the shape of a ball. It’s almost impossible to bite into at the start. Instead you are forced to suck on it for a while until it softens a bit, although that is when they are almost gone. They are also known as gobstoppers in the UK where they originated.

I liked therm a lot as a kid, although it can be annoying trying to get to the point where you can actually bite into them. Maybe that is what the stick is for? Either way, I prefer Warheads candy (Wikipedia). And now I am going down the rabbit hole looking at the Wikipedia page for Dum Dum lollipops…

Categories: Everyday purchases | Tags: | Leave a comment

Polar bear photo moment (Or: The Hague Royal Christmas Fair, 2023)

Posted on December 27, 2023 by Niki

Unfortunately the weather hasn’t been that great the last few weeks. I do think the yearly Christmas fair has suffered because of it. It is always held outside at Lange Voorhout, but that part is all sand and stones so it gets waterlogged pretty fast whenever it rains.

I did take a photo of a cute, oversized polar bear which can be used as a photo opportunity to make some good memories. They had a few options like this but the polar bear was definitely the cutest in my opinion.

Luckily I was able to grab a quick shot while it was still empty! Everyone wanted to get their photo taken there.

Categories: Holidays | Tags: | Leave a comment

Yummy (Or: Dark chocolate Christmas goodness at Albert Heijn)

Posted on December 26, 2023 by Niki

Luckily Albert Heijn still sells my favorite Christmas cookies ever. These are dark chocolate butter cookies with red and green sprinkles on top. Plus they are nice and big, as the name suggests (Kerst kransen = Christmas wreaths). This year I think I bought 3 packages. A few years back I think I bought 5 or 6 in the end and was still eating them in May.

And here is a photo of some other Christmas cookies because I thought the idea was pretty smart. It is cookies of all difference sizes which you can stack to make it look like a Christmas tree. And then someone starts eating them 2 minutes later.

Looking at the picture on the right, I am not sure that I believe that the smallest cookie can be placed on its side to form a star. I feel like it would fall over right away. Maybe I should buy the cookies to test that theory… Hmmm.

Categories: Food, Holidays | Tags: , | Leave a comment

More Christmas trees (Or: City hall and Bijenkorf)

Posted on December 25, 2023 by Niki

Here are a few more Christmas trees for you. While at city hall Marco was able to snag this photo for me:

The Hague’s city hall is a really interesting building. It is nicknamed the ice palace because it is all white. Over on the official denhaag.com website there are a few pictures of the atrium if you want to see more.

And here is a photo of this year’s Christmas tree by Bijenkorf. Normally I take the photo from one of the higher levels, but this time I took the photo from the ground floor looking up. Note: the Christmas tree is hanging in the air, starting from the first floor – or the second floor for my American readers – so it is a bit tinier than the photo’s perspective may make you think. But it is fun to have a look each year and see what design they went with.

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Christmas trees (Or: Crowds at the Mall of the Netherlands)

Posted on December 24, 2023 by Niki

I decided to go to the Mall of the Netherlands yesterday (the Saturday right before Christmas), but at least I was smart enough to go right when they opened at 10:00. I also left around 13:00, around the time it was really starting to get busy.

Here are some of the Christmas-y photos I took. First, a photo of the Disney Christmas tree for my parents (although we don’t actually have a Disney store in the Netherlands):

Here was a photo of another Christmas tree, with less theming this time:

And here was a pretty cool decoration of a reindeer hanging in the air:

It was pretty festive all and all. And did I mention it was busy? The photos don’t do it justice, but I took those right after the mall opened. But I consider it a successful trip as I was able to get a few more small gifts.

Categories: Holidays, Shopping | Tags: , | Leave a comment

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