Food

Himalayan restaurant (Or: Waiting to pick up dinner)

Posted on March 3, 2021 by Niki

It has been a while, but Himalayan is open again! Himalayan is an Indian / Nepalese / Bhutanese restaurant in The Hague’s city centre. We admittedly don’t go there often enough, considering how tasty the samosas are. We noticed that there were on Thuisbezorgd (literally = “Home delivery”) so we picked some up late last year. Unfortunately right after that there was a small fire in the kitchen which meant they were closed for the last few months for remodeling (article at regio15.nl in Dutch). So no samosas for us for a few months…

Luckily I noticed last week that they were opening again, so I quickly told Roger and Marco that we were going to get that for our Saturday meal. And it did not disappoint! I don’t have any photos of the food (dal curry for me, lamb vindaloo for Marco, chicken tikka for Roger) because it was too delicious to wait and take photos. Or maybe I forgot in my excitement of digging into the samosas…

But I do have photos of the new interior:

And another photo:

The restaurant is a bit on the small side, which isn’t helpful in these corona times – they already had to get rid of some tables to adhere to the 1.5 meters rule. Also they are down to just the owner and the wife; the owner does all of the cooking at this point. So since they are open again I need to try and remember to order from them more often. The food is definitely worth it!

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Butter flavored…? (Or: Curious possibilities at the Asian store)

Posted on February 25, 2021 by Niki

Sometimes I like to go to a local toko, which I usually just call “the Asian store”, to see what odd things they have on the shelves. Next to the awesome things Marco and I can’t live without, of course. I’m back on my faja lobi peanut butter kick (orientalwebshop.nl), which is Surinamese peanut butter mixed with Madam Jeanette peppers. So awesomely spicy.

Anyway, today I spotted these crackers:

The yellow Magic creams product is apparently “butter flavored cream cracker sandwiches”. Who wants cream that tastes like butter? Probably a lot of people, but I can’t wrap my mind around it. The chocolate version on the right looks pretty decent, though.

And sticking with the subject of crackers, check out these Fita crackers:

Does the logo and packaging remind you of anything? They are definitely going for the same branding as Ritz crackers (English Wikipedia), down to the color scheme and the amount of holes on the crackers. I haven’t tried the Fita crackers but they will probably disappoint. Marco and I purchased similar crackers at Xenos (xenos.nl) last year but they weren’t that good. So we still get our Ritz crackers at Kelly’s expat store (kellys-expat-shopping.nl). And since I am on a spicy peanut butter kick, as mentioned above, we usually get two boxes at a time…

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Valentine’s Day box from FOAM (Or: Two roses)

Posted on February 15, 2021 by Niki

Marco ordered the Valentine’s Day box from FOAM for the two of us. How cute!

The two extra roses were a nice touch. The box contained fruit salad, an avocado and smoked almond sandwich and a beetroot wrap with black pepper cream cheese, tempeh bacon and cress. On the sweet side we had French toast, banana bread and a chocolate/coffee cupcake. Oh, and juice made of beet/apple/ginger/blueberry. Yum yum. The only thing that I personally didn’t like as much was the black pepper cream cheese, perhaps because I didn’t know the cream cheese had black pepper in it to begin with. It was an interesting flavor either way! The unexpected star of the dish was definitely the fresh toast.

Marco likes to take the artistic photos. I benefit from getting to post them on my blog!

After half a day of rain, the snow and ice has begun to melt. Tomorrow we’re looking at highs of 10C/50F and the weekend might (if we are lucky) get up to 16C/60F. Oh course I read my parents back in the US are facing another snowstorm today… brrr.

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Five Guys (Or: Time for a bit of fast food)

Posted on February 5, 2021 by Niki

Marco graciously allowed me to change our plans; we picked up Five Guys for dinner tonight. We haven’t been in there a year and a half, probably… definitely not since the corona crisis started. Which is a bit strange, since it is much quieter there these days. Unfortunately for them.

That’s technically where the line would be, if there was a line. And of course there are no free shelled peanuts at the moment.

But ignoring that – woo, Five Guys! Hamburger with jalapeños, grilled onions and mustard for me, with cajun fries. This time we were smart and ordered “cajun on the side”, so we could add the spices ourselves. That meant the spice was a bit more uneven, but at least they were not completely coated in cajun spices this time.

One of the two message boards at Five Guys, a staple by all of their locations I think.

350 snow plows ready to keep Dutch roads clear over snowy weekend from nltimes.nl. Snoooowww! And cold. With lots of wind. So we’ll just stay inside all week? (Of course some Dutchies will strap on their ice skates and rush outside.)

As frost and snow looms, the Dutch draw up rules for Covid-proof skating from dutchnews.nl. See what I mean?

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Falafel (Or: A tasty Sunday meal)

Posted on February 3, 2021 by Niki

On Sunday Marco and I had falafel for dinner. It is part of FOAM @ home, a pickup service offered every Friday.

It is one of those things – I am sure I have had falafel before (deep-fried balls made from ground chickpeas or lava beans, served in a pita). However I have no direct memory of it so it could indeed be the first time.

It was pretty tasty, a perfect light meal for a Sunday evening.

Eurovision planning live event in Rotterdam; In-person audience unknown from nltimes.nl. It seems like ages ago, but the Netherlands did win the Eurovision Song Contest back in 2019, which meant they were able to host the event in 2020. Only the 2020 event was cancelled due to the coronavirus, so they will be hosting the 2021 event instead.

Milder temps to give way for icy weekend from nltimes.nl. Brrr. Winter is coming back this weekend with temperatures around freezing and high winds. Also a chance of snow, but we will need to wait and see if that happens. Again, brrrrrr.

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Last day for oliebollen! (Or: The end of January awaits)

Posted on January 30, 2021 by Niki

Tomorrow (Sunday) is the last day you can buy oliebollen and krentebollen (=oliebollen with raisins) from the oliebollen stand at the end of the Grote Marktstraat next to the Blokker and Xenos stores.

This is our Marco, Roger and I’s favorite place to get oliebollen and apple beignets. Usually they close every year by 15 January, however this year the city granted them a permit extension through the end of January. They were also able to open a month earlier due to most carnivals not being able to open during 2020 (the same was true for all oliebollen stands in the area).

Check out their official website.

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Tasty snacks (Or: Caffeine and sugar, always a good combination)

Posted on January 28, 2021 by Niki

Last week Marco and I shared a giant cookie, with a cup of coffee on the side. The cookie was from FOAM over on Frederikstraat in The Hague. As you might have guessed ordering from FOAM has sort of become a weekly lockdown tradition these days.

Coffee and a chewy cherry chocolate cookie. Now that’s a dose of C’s (albeit not vitamin C).

Chewy, slightly gooey, thoroughly awesome.

In other news: Pandemic forces Artis to say goodbye to its lions from nltimes.nl. Artis, a zoo in Amsterdam, doesn’t have the funds currently to build a larger lion enclosure as planned. At least this way the three lions can stay together and have enough space to move about. It’s a sad but smart decision.

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Window shopping (Or: Anyone up for some stroopwafels?)

Posted on January 26, 2021 by Niki

Stroopwafels being the Dutch delicacy of two thin wafels with caramel syrup in the middle (English Wikipedia). They were originally made in Gouda in the 19th century. In my opinion, the best way to eat them is from a street vendor while they are still warm. There is a local company by the name of Van Schaik (official website) which makes them. Usually they have a street stand but recently they also opened a store in the same area on Venstraat.

Marco and I took a walk on Sunday and spotted a few cute heart-shaped stroopwafels in their shop window:

You can also get them in the tourist tins (which sell really well, I’m sure).

The sugar waffles above are what caught Marco’s eye in the first place.

But the coolest thing was definitely this bucket of stroopwafel pieces. Holy moly! That is a LOT of stroopwafel. My only fear with bringing that home is that I wouldn’t be able to stop eating them…

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Satay rempah (Or: Indonesian cooking with Marco and Roger)

Posted on January 18, 2021 by Niki

On Saturday Marco, Roger and I made satay rempah with jalapeño atjar. As mentioned last week, Marco received the recipe book “Indostok” from Roger for Christmas. Satay rempah is a satay made from minced meat. In this case “rempah” translates loosely to “spices”, with minced meat used for the satay. We made the spices first (including but not limited to star anise, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, ginger and lime zest because we couldn’t find lime leaves, etc…). Oh, and also candlenuts (English Wikipedia) which are mildly toxic when raw but perfectly fine if cooked. Who knew.

You then mix the spice with the minced meat and add some breadcrumbs and corn starch on the outside to give it a nice crunchy coating when fried.

The cool thing about this recipe is that the sticks that normally hold the satay were sticks of lemongrass.

You then fry them in a wok in a thin layer of oil. This was the only annoying part, since we ended up cutting the lemongrass in half to handle them better. Some of them also had a tendency to fall apart.

The finished meal: satay rempah, jalapeño atjar (sour/spicy vegetable pickle) and basmati rice. Yum yum yum!

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Nutella oliebol? (Or: So sweet you can’t eat it all)

Posted on January 16, 2021 by Niki

Roger brought me a gift today, from the oliebollen stand at the Grote Marktstraat, a Nutella oliebol:

As you can see the top is covered in Nutella (English Wikipedia) and chocolate shavings. The inside of the oliebol is also filled with Nutella, because it can never be sweet enough. And it was delicious! The dangerous kind of delicious that makes you want to buy one every week…

However, it was sweet enough that I decided to save half of it for tomorrow evening. Otherwise I’ll be bouncing off the walls in no time.

Random article of the day: Anger over NS plan to remove conductor whistle from nltimes.nl. It is not quite what it sounds like. Each train has a conductor who checks to make sure that all passengers have entered the train. When it is time to leave the conductor blows their whistle and passengers (in theory) do not try to enter or exit the train after that moment. The NS (the largest Dutch train company) plans to use cameras instead to watch the doors. They say this will make trains more punctual however the union sees that as an easy way to get rid of the conductor’s job altogether.

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