Food

The local Asian store (Or: Saturdays are for sushi)

On Thursday night Marco and I went to the Asian store. It’s near the Pathe movie theater in the centrum – underneath it, in fact. It is a larger store, usually crowded on the weekends but not as much on Thursday nights. As I’ve said before, The Hague has “koopavond” on Thursday nights, which means a lot (though not all) stores stay open until 9pm.

Amazing Oriental in The Hague

Rice and soups

Amazing Oriental in The Hague 2

More one serving soups. I usually raid this section as one of the brands is “6 halen 5 betalen”, or “Get 6, pay for 5”.

And why were we in the Asian store? Because on Saturday we wanted to make sushi of course! Which we did, with Roger. Sushi with salmon, cucumber, tuna and even chicken. And a soy sauce dip, with a bit of wasabi paste to mix in. We’re still working on perfecting it – but it was pretty good. We also shared a bottle of sake between the three of us.

Amazing Oriental in The Hague 3

Note in the middle the McCormick logo (which started in Baltimore, Maryland, US). It is interesting to see how international the brand has become.

We also had some wasabi sauce (in addition to the paste mentioned above). Man oh man was that an unexpected experience. It had a kick! A little spicy for a few seconds, and then you inevitably breathe in and it rushes up your nose and into your brain. I suppose it’s good for cleaning out the sinuses…

All in all, good food.

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A Saturday night outing (Or: Sampling Indian food)

On Saturday Marco and I went to an Indian restaurant on Molenstraat here in The Hague, Ramna restaurant. This was part of Albert Heijn’s “restaurant actie“. Over the summer you had a chance to get a restaurant stamp with every 10 euros you spend. Ten stamps could be turned in for a free three course menu for the second diner. We managed to do this 10 times (2 of which came from Marco’s father and his wife). Some Albert Heijn staff were more than generous with how many stamps you received – sometimes 4 or 5 instead of 1 or 2.

At this restaurant you were able to choose anything on the menu (in comparison to a Thai restaurant last year where you received a limited menu to choose from for the action). Here are some of the photos of what we ate:

Appetizers at Ramna restaurant in The Hague
Above: First up, appetizers. Specifically, papadom – it is a thin sort of crunchy wafer which in this case was served with onions, a sweet and sour sauce, and two types of spicy chutneys.

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C’s (Or: Coffee, cheesecake and countryside)

A few weeks ago Marco and I went back to the Cheesecake Company by the Grote Kerk. I’ve posted about this place many times – they even served the cheesecake at our wedding! It isn’t quite our two year anniversary yet but this time they did have the same flavor as our heart-shaped wedding cheesecake, white chocolate cappuccino… So of course we ended up choosing that one.

White chocolate cappuccino cheesecake
And on Saturday Marco, his mother and I had dinner over at De Gezelligheid (near Amersfoort) with the family. The food at De Gezelligheid was pretty good. We started off with “de spiegel” (the mirror) which was a sampling of all of their starter items served on a platter. My favorite item was the fried mushroom, of all things. For the main dish I had a hamburger with thick cut fries. Yum.

Of course we had to stop at the Starbucks at Centraal Station, so I decided to take a photo of the wall (doesn’t everyone want to take a photo of a wall?):

Wall at Starbucks - Last 10 feet
Love or hate Starbucks – I just like the cool font and presentation!

Here is a photo of the lake by Marco’s uncle, with a Buddha statue on the other side (in the shadows):

Countryside in the Netherlands
Quite peaceful.

Categories: Daily Dutch living, Food, Friends&Family | Tags: , , | 1 Comment

Spanish ham (Or: Lunch at Ibericus in The Hague)

Recently I had lunch at a new restaurant in The Hague: Ibericus. It is on Frederik Hendriklaan, close to Scheveningen and best reached with tram 17. Ibericus is a Spanish restaurant and ham bar which serves tapas as well as many different kinds of sandwiches. I had a ham focaccia and it was delicious.

Their ham is imported from Spain and comes from the native Iberian pig. Some of the ham shoulders are sold for over €400 euros.

Ham choices at Ibericus

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Huge pans (Or: Would you like paella with that?)

A while ago Marco and I were at DOK, a cooking store in The Hague. I could not resist taking a picture of this…

Four foot paella pan

The tag read 120cm (about four feet). Yeesh!

Categories: Food, The Hague | Tags: | 2 Comments

And now for Vietnamese food (Or: Little V in The Hague)

Marco and I went with his mom to Little V, a Vietnamese restaurant just off the Centrum area in the Rabbijnmaarsenplein. The plaza also has a noodle bar, an Asian restaurant and a sushi restaurant. It’s right next to Chinatown. But until WWII, Jews lived there. Rabbijnmaarsenplein is named after rabbi Isaac Maarsen (1892-1943). There’s a wiki article about the neighborhood in Dutch.

The food and cocktails were great. The service was fast. We were given the option of receiving appetizers and the main course at once or apart, and we also had the option to get the main course as soon as we were done with the appetizers or to wait a bit. Paying was also hassle free- I am used to the Dutch culture where no one can be found when you want to pay because everyone thinks you want to converse for four hours…

Here are some of the photos from the restaurant:

appetizers at Little V in The Hague

appetizers – in the foreground at right is chicken spring rolls. In the back is shrimp spring rolls. And at left are rice rolls with chicken and vegetables inside.

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Irodion, Greek restaurant in The Hague (Or: Desserts and city views)

A few weeks ago Marco and I went to a Greek restaurant with my father-in-law and his wife. We went to Irodion, a restaurant which has recently re-opened on the Grote Marktstraat (it used to be at another nearby corner, but construction forced it to move so it was closed for a time). They have a snackbar on the ground floor and a restaurant on the first floor.

The best thing about the restaurant is the view of the Grote Markt plein. (It looked like most of the tables next to the window were four seaters, so keep that in mind.)

view from Irodion Greek restaurant

And here is a look at the bar:

Bar at Irodion, Greek restaurant in The Hague

The food was comparable to the Greek restaurant we usually go to, Athene. In both places you generally have the option of a salad bar to go with your meal, plus the typical Greek choices. If anything this menu was a bit easier to get through, as they had less combinations listed (though the same food on offer). Athene does give you a complementary chilled shot of ouzo, a licorice alcohol served as aperitif.

The desserts were pretty nice. First the dame blanche:

Dame Blanche dessert at Irodion in The Hague

There is so much whipped cream you can’t even see the vanilla ice cream! And of course it comes with a rather generous serving of chocolate sauce to pour on top.

Here is the baklava dessert:

Bak lava dessert at Irodion in The Hague

The cool thing about the presentation is the orange slice, although it is hard to tell why from this angle. It is a full orange slice cut in half so that one half is draped on one side and the other on the other side, with the peel connecting the two sides.

Categories: Food, The Hague | Tags: | 1 Comment

Cakes and other baking goodness (Or: By the Asian store?)

If you are looking to make American-style cakes and desserts and happen to be in the center of The Hague, I would actually recommend visiting the Asian store underneath C&A (to the left of the C&A entrance you will see stairs leading downwards – see also this blog post with a photo).

Here is just a small sampling of the various Duncan Hines recipes they offer:

Duncan Hines cakes at Amazing Oriental Den Haag

In total there are probably about 15-20 different types on offer at any point. German chocolate cake, red velvet cake, blue velvet cake, coconut surprise… Unfortunately the selection isn’t available in the webshop on their website linked above. Of course if you are desperate for American food there is also usfoodz.nl though it is definitely import prices.

As there is a large Asian population in the area (it is not far from Chinatown) the store is almost always crowded. But it is a staple if you’re looking for Asian food. There’s also a smaller store by the same name in the Markthof, across from the Hema entrance and close by Simonis, a fresh fish store, and “Flowers for you” (a flower shop, of course).

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In search of baking soda (Or: Zuiveringszout)

Yesterday Marco made soft baked pretzels. The recipe called for baking soda; you dip the pretzels in it before they are put in to bake. We knew that you could get baking soda at the local expat store (Kelly’s) but I was curious to see if it was available at any Dutch stores. While doing some Google searches I came across this article from Kiwidutch. I found out that baking soda is zuiveringszout in Dutch and it is more likely to be found at drug stores rather than the local grocery store. Oddly it is cheaper as an import item than at the local Dutch store…

On the way to the expat store we came across an interesting metal sculpture depicting two bicyclists in the rain (note the umbrellas).

Dutch metal sculpture of bikers with umbrellas

click for a larger size

 

I just noticed the bicycle shop across the street (Top bikes), too. How Dutch!

Categories: Culture, Food | Tags: , | 4 Comments

Wafflemania (Or: Valentine’s Day 2015)

Marco surprised me with another Valentine’s Day themed breakfast. It is becoming a sort of tradition. 😉

This time he used the waffle maker!

Valentine's Day waffles

Whar can I say, I am a sucker for his chocolate waffles (which is just the normal mix with cocoa powder thrown in). Another was dusted with sugar, and the last was “regular”. It also came with coffee (which we usually drink after dinner so that is a lovely novelty) and a large glass of milk. Yum.

And then halfway through I decided to get creative:

Valentine's Day waggled with candy hearts

Another use for the candy hearts! 🙂

Happy Valentine’s Day, all.

Categories: Food, Holidays, Marco&Niki | Tags: , | 2 Comments

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