Yesterday, Marco, Roger and I went to see Fantastic Four at Pathé, a large movie chain here in the Netherlands. After that, we went to Five K Comfort Food, a Korean restaurant. I had katsu chicken tenders, Marco had a katsu chicken burger and Roger had garlic chicken wings. It was all very tasty (although we were definitely stuffed after).
After we were done eating and Marco went up to pay, I noticed some Gundam statues throughout the restaurant:
Here’s another one. In the background you can see even more hanging on the wall…
Definitely a colorful and cool end to the evening!
Last week Marco, Roger and I went to Amsterdam to see the play Hadestown at Royal Theatre Carré.
We had front row balcony seats (thanks Roger!).
Here’s a closer look at the stage before the play started:
Here’s the description from Carré’s website:
“Two ancient love stories are woven into one bold and modern retelling: that of the young dreamers Orpheus and Eurydice, and that of King Hades and his wife Persephone. When Eurydice makes an irreversible choice, Orpheus sets out to save not only her, but the entire world—with a song that brings spring back to life and a stirring dose of hope.”
I thought it was a pretty good musical. It’s not at the top of the list of musicals I’ve seen, but it is always fun to go to the Carré. The musical was also in English. Certain shows had English subtitles for Dutch speakers (if you look at the first photo, you’ll see black boxes to the left and right of the stage where the subtitles show up). And it was definitely a fun night out with the boys!
Marco and I were out shopping in the city centre when we decided to completely upend our dinner plan and go back to Takumi Ramen on the Gedempte Gracht. Silly Niki and Marco…
Even though we went around 14:00 it was still quite full. Luckily the location is pretty big. They even have an outdoor terrace on the Rabbijn Maarsenplein.
This time I went for the Japanese curry meal with karaage (Japanese fried chicken), miso soup and a seaweed & lettuce salad.
And here is a look at a cool poster behind Marco. I thought the purple color went well with the blue wall.
(This is fairly typical. Here’s a look at some wall decorations at the other location in The Hague.)
The lowkey highlight of the weekend was a storm that passed through late last night. We got treated to some thunder and lightning for about 10-15 minutes, which is fairly rare around here. Summer weather is on its way, with temperatures around 80-85F expected this Thursday, with a chance of rain here and there due to that. Bring on the sun!
Last week, a controversy arrived in the Netherlands: Lay’s chips now come in a box. Why is that a problem, you ask?
Because normal sized bags of chips are 185 gram, and the new boxes are 125 gram. For the same price.
Chips van Lays in een doosje, kiloprijs schiet omhoog from nos.nl (Lay’s chips now in a box, price per kilogram skyrockets). The company says the price increase was due to the improved package, as the boxes don’t make as much noise and you can re-seal them so the chips stay fresher longer.
I for one won’t be buying a box (although that is also because there are healthier options available if you want to snack on chips). I’ll miss the Doritos, though.
Has this phenomenon started appearing in other parts of the world yet?
On Saturday, Marco, Roger and I went to a newly opened branch of Takumi Ramen on Gedempte Gracht (behind Bijenkorf, give or take). We’ve been to their location on the Herengracht many times. However, we were really looking forward to this one opening because they have tonkotsu broth-based ramen here (broth made by boiling pork bones for hours – read more at their website). The one on Herengracht does not have that.
It’s definitely the greatest quality photo, but here’s a look at my black garlic butatama tonkotsu ramen:
Although it doesn’t look like it, this was thinly sliced pork. It was unbelievably tender.
You can still see a bit of a divide between the black garlic and the pork broth in the upper left, as I hadn’t mixed it yet. Marco also received the usual “husband tax” and took my half egg for me, since I am most definitely not an egg fan. Weird, I know. The chopsticks also aren’t pictured. These days I can use chopsticks fairly well, although I still have trouble picking up rice with them.
In the upper left you can just barely see our kara-age (Japanese fried chicken) and in the upper right is my alcohol-free Kirin beer. It was for lunch after all! Not pictured was the korokke, or fried pumpkin croquettes. Perhaps it sounds a bit weird, but the pumpkin version is tasty and something I always try to order if I see it on a menu. The pumpkin inside is at more of a mushy consistency with a bit of Japanese mayonnaise on top. it is served quite hot which I like.
It goes without saying, but the ramen was delicious.
Marco and I took a short trip to London last week with the Eurostar train, from Thursday morning through Sunday evening. I’m a big fan of the Eurostar train (formerly Thalys) as it only takes about 3 and a half hours and you arrive in the city centre at the St. Pancras station. Of course, we had to get to Rotterdam first and if you are traveling to London you have to be at the station an hour before your train departs so you can clear security and immigration. So it is more like 4 and a half or 5 hours in total in the end. However, if you’re staying in the EU, like Paris, you only need to arrive about 15-20 minutes before your train leaves.
We lucked out – the weather was definitely on our side. It was about 26C/78F on the day we arrived, with the weather slowly getting colder each day we were there. We only wore a jacket on our last day. The only rain we had was a meager drizzle for two seconds while we exited the hotel and entered the cafe next door for coffee.
One of the days we went to the Design museum to see the Tim Burton exhibition:
The exhibition takes about an hour and is five large rooms. There’s plenty to see in those rooms, though. Note that it is only around until May 26, though it will probably move to a different city later in the year. You can read more about it at the official website.
After the Design museum we took a stroll through Holland Park. Inside the park you have the Dutch gardens:
It was full of absolutely gorgeous flowers. The proof is above!
And also a few statues, strategically placed.
After that we visited the Kyoto garden, also in Holland Park. It was created for the 1992 Japan festival in London.
There was a marble slab of a bridge going across part of the pond which you could walk across, allowing you to get pictures up close.
It was a peaceful place, and gorgeous in the beautiful weather we had.
All in all it was a lovely long weekend, although it is definitely nice to be lazier this weekend!
Yesterday was the King’s Day holiday in the Netherlands, celebrating the birthday of King Willem-Alexander. His birthday is on April 27, but since that falls on a Sunday it was celebrated yesterday instead.
The company I work for through a King’s Day party this week, complete with orange tompouce, cheese blocks with Dutch flags sticking out of them, and borrelnootjes (Wikipedia). The last is a peanut or similar nut with a crispy coating around it. The flavor of the crispy coating can differ. Think of things like cheese & mustard, bacon & cheese, oriental, provencal, paprika (bell pepper), etc. They are a typical snack to eat at a bar, or you can buy them at your local grocery store.
HEMA is a big seller of tompouce, although you can also get it at Albert Heijn and probably other grocery stores. But for King’s Day the typically pink frosting is replaced with orange frosting:
I’ve mentioned before how impossible it is to eat these things with just your hands. The middle layer is cream, so if you bite down it will of course squirt out on the other side. My usual method of attack is to use a small fork to eat most of the cream, damaging the structural integrity of the top layer like I am playing a mad game of Jenga. Eventually I pull off the top layer before it collapses, alternating between eating the top layer, the remaining cream in the middle, and the bottom layer.
Tompouce is tasty, but very sweet. Once a year is good enough for me. Luckily a coworker was willing to “halfsies” so we each had half. You can read more about the history of tompouce at HEMA at their website (you’ll need to use Google Translate).
“Cretzel” pretzel croissants (the link is to the frozen version, although I found them fresh in the bakery section. they were decent, sort of like a salty croissant, unfortunately not that pretzel-y)
Flipped pistachio cream croissants (the flipped just signifying that the cream was on top. It is clear AH is just trying to get on the Dubai trend. though they have a similar one with strawberry creme)
Stol croissants (“stol” is generally a sweet bread with almond paste inside, raisins and powdered sugar on top, a staple during Christmas and Easter. I’ve never seen this croissant variant, though).
Marshmallow croissants (I showed a picture of this one in an earlier blog post. I don’t like marshmallow so I won’t be trying this one!)
Oddly enough I have a lot more peace with that than 40 or 41. And now I get to be the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything (aka 42, a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy joke).
But one plus of getting old is more opportunities to buy stylish things. Today I went to the opticiens and bought myself a nice pair of prescription reading glasses, although I will have to be patient as they won’t be ready for a few weeks.
I grew up with a distinct preference for blue, although purple (and green) have started to pique my interest the last few years. So I was thrilled to see these reading glasses, which are mostly blue with a hint of purple here and there.
Note: technically I’m already old, because I bought a pair of bifocal glasses last summer.
Every year in April, Malieveld is host to the King’s Fair (Konings kermis), a fair leading up to the King’s Day holiday on April 27. Last weekend I was walking past and took a picture of the ferris wheel in a distance.
As with every photo taken in the Netherlands, you need to have the obligatory bicycle somewhere in it. The grass is actually greener than I would have expected, considering we haven’t received much rain lately…
Life in the Hague 