I was by Albert Heijn recently and I spotted a crompouce. What is a crompouce, you ask? It’s a cross between a croissant and a tompouce (Wikipedia). The latter is a Dutch/Belgium treat that is horribly difficult to eat. I subscribe to the method where you eat the cream in the middle with your fork, and when the structural integrity starts failing you start eating the top of it as well.
And now we have crompouces…
It’s basically a croissant with cream in the middle and the tompouce icing on top. I haven’t had one yet. I might need to have my dentist on speed dial if I try it, though.
I recently spotted some pepernoten beer by the local Hema:
A pepernoot is a cookie-like confectionery (see more at Wikipedia). But the red hat symbol on top of the beer makes it clear that this should be consumed in the days leading up to and during Sinterklaas, a Dutch holiday similar to Christmas on 5 December. (Okay, okay, obviously Sinterklaas came first. See more at Sinterklaas vs. Santa Claus from The Hague International Centre.)
The thought of Dutch parents enjoying a beer or three while children unwrap presents during Sinterklaas reminds me of the scene during A Christmas Story when the parents relax with a glass of wine after the kids have unwrapped their presents on Christmas Day.
Oh, and unrelated: I have decided that I am (still) not a fan of setting the clocks back. I’d rather have a dark morning than a dark evening. You can have your hour back!
While taking a walk earlier I decided to photograph one of the canals in The Hague’s city centre.
The best part of this photo? The lovely blue skies. But after I took this photo I turned right and all I saw was grey, depressing sky. It looked like it would rain any minute, although it thankfully did not.
Are you also looking forward to Halloween? Check out Festival of frights: 13 ways to celebrate Halloween in NL from dutchnews.nl. Slowly but surely, Halloween is becoming a “thing” here, every year just a bit more. You can also get some Halloween candy at Kelly’s expat store. I bought a few bags of candy corn for Marco and Roger already. It reminds me of the time that Marco and I were visiting my parents in the States and Mom bought a huge tub of candy corn. It disappeared so quickly you would think a ghost ate it all…
The Hague’s official website also publishes a list of events happening in The Hague for Halloween over at their website. You can even attend a Halloween party at the Grote Kerk (“Big Church”) on 28 October.
The weather has definitely turned; the cold fingers of fall has arrived. If you’re lucky you’ll get a moment of sun but otherwise it is just wind and rain. Therefore I haven’t taken many photos for the blog of late. So here is one from a month or two ago which I never got around to posting:
It shows two sandwiches which are on sale at the Pathé movie theatre. The one on the right is named “Eggstra cheesy” which is a horrible pun. Good, but horrible.
The one on the right is Boerengezond. That one is less punny and simply translates to “Farmer’s healthy sandwich”.
Van Gogh museum stops Pikachu card promo due to “chaos” from dutchnews.nl. They are cute cards (you should check them out) but really, anyone could have known that these would have been snatched up immediately and re-sold by scalpers.
Here are two food related things I noticed in the last few weeks. Check out these bag of Doritos on sale at the local Albert Heijn supermarket:
In the US this flavor is known as “Cool ranch”. Frito-Lay thought that “Cool American” would be a better name for this flavor in Europe because ranch isn’t that well-known in this country. I don’t understand how “American” helps explain the flavor any better, but okay. I did end up buying a bag last week (the first bag in years) just to remember what the flavor was like. It isn’t one of my favorite chips but it was good enough.
And in other news… it is October! Which means the oliebollen stand (Wikipedia) magically appears on 1 October.
Admittedly they weren’t open on that day but they did open shortly thereafter. You know it is that time of the year when this stand appears!
Yesterday was our 10 year anniversary. Sometimes we go for a swanky hotel, like the executive suite in Amersfoort, or the awesome views from the nhow hotel in Rotterdam, or the Kurhaus hotel in nearby Scheveningen during corona. This time I went with a nice restaurant since we already have vacation plans later in the year.
I booked a reservation at Blue Blood in The Hague as a surprise for Marco (he didn’t know where we were going until we were there). The restaurant offers “a mash-up of the Peruvian and Japanese cuisine”. I had read good things about both the food and service at this restaurant and they did not disappoint. When booking the reservation I was asked if this was for a special occasion. I of course clicked on anniversary. When we arrived we saw they had given us a table in the corner next to the canal, with rose petals on the table and a glass of cava (on the house) to toast the occasion.
I knew in advance that I wanted the tasting menu. It started off with oysters. The first oyster I have had in my life. It did not disappoint!
The sauce was yuzu sauce, which gave it a lovely sour taste, with Peruvian corn and lots of other goodies inside.
Another plus point: as each course arrived the staff took the time to explain what each component was, what the ingredients were and why it was on the menu. Unfortunately my memory isn’t good enough to remember most of it, but it was lovely to hear what the inspiration was behind everything.
A few Fridays back, during that week when the weather was so warm, Marco and I met up in the city centre. We each had an idea about where we could eat that evening to celebrate the end of the work week. Great minds think alike, since we quickly found out we had the same idea: Kompaan Binnenhaven at the Torenstraat in the city centre. They had been open for a while now but we had never gone. With the weather so good it is hard to pass up the opportunity to sit outside in the sun for a while. (Although to be fair the sun was pretty mean, so a bit more shade wouldn’t have been a bad thing.)
Marco chose the pork tacos. Don’t they look awesome?
Whereas I had the Libanese flatbread veggie kebab. This one also had pickled cucumber and red cabbage kimchi which gave it a lovely slight sour note. It combined well with the other components of the dish which had me dancing in my seat a bit. (Marco knows if I really like something I start to do a tiny dance. I was dancing.)
We also shared some salted jalapeño peppers. They were delicious and not actually that spicy considering they weren’t deseeded. The salt was definitely at the forefront with this one (in a good way). Since the jalapeños were grilled there was also a lovely hint of smokiness.
Okay, now I sound like a restaurant connoisseur and I’m not. But it was a great way to end the work week for sure.
At the moment the weather here in The Netherlands is gorgeous. It has been about 30C/85F all week, although temperatures will drop back to normal tomorrow. But Marco and I have taken full advantage of the situation trying to soak up some rays (including a visit to the dunes in nearby Kijkduin, but that is for another blog post).
Last weekend Marco and I went to Umami to celebrate Roger’s birthday with his family. It is an Asian fusion restaurant with five locations in the Netherlands. We previously went to Umami for the lunch service. Our eyes were definitely bigger than our stomachs then, since we ended up asking for a doggie bag.
This time we did the shared dining experience over three courses. Each course meant two plates for each person, so with six people we had twelve plates each course. Here are some of the photos I took:
I don’t remember anymore what the plate above was. Probably salmon? But you can get the tone of this restaurant just with that photo.
You would think the above picture is chicken, but nope, it is cauliflower. It came with cauliflower purée, asparagus, coriander oil and olive crumble. And it was just as delicious as it looked.
For dessert Marco had the matcha yuzu cake, which came with matcha ice cream, matcha sauce and raisins. It was a great way to end the evening.
The newest guest in De Passage shopping area is Nijntje:
Nijntje is short in Dutch for Konijntje or “little rabbit”. Outside of the Netherlands you probably know her better as Miffy (Wikipedia). I took this picture on the first day, but if you walk past now you’ll see a sign that says if you take a photo with her and place it on social media you can win a package of Nijntje gifts worth around 150 euros. See also Instagram.
And, just as randomly, here is a photo of the lovely ramen soup I enjoyed earlier in August at Momiji Ramen:
This ramen featured a lovely spicy broth and minced meat. Delicious.
It’s been a while, so I figured I would share a new photo of De Passage. It is an indoor shopping area in the shape of a triangle which connects parts of The Hague with each other. Hence the name “De Passage”. You can even buy a keychain or miniature momento.
This photo is taken near the end of the De Passage closest to the Gravenstraat, not far from the Grote Kerk.
How are things for Marco and I? We’re enjoying the brief but sunny weather (one day of around 26C/79F, before it drops back down again for a few days). Luckily the rain has let up the last week or so.
Life in the Hague 