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Another round of Takumi Ramen (Or: A leisurely lunch)

Posted on June 9, 2025 by Niki

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!

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Lays chips (Or: Would you like a box with that?)

Posted on June 2, 2025 by Niki

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?

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Takumi Ramen (Or: A new location in the city centre)

Posted on May 27, 2025 by Niki

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.

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London trip, 2025 (Or: Good weather is always appreciated)

Posted on May 10, 2025 by Niki

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!

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Tompouce (Or: The yearly battle to not get messy)

Posted on April 27, 2025 by Niki

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).

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Croissant… pillow? (Or: Latest marketing by Albert Heijn)

Posted on April 20, 2025 by Niki

At the supermarket chain Albert Heijn, the focus for this year’s Easter is on croissants. Including a very large croissant pillow…

The Dutch underneath reads “Te lekker om op te eten”, or “To delicious to eat”.

Other croissant-related purchases this Easter include:

And that is your croissant news for the day. Happy Easter!

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Getting old (Or: Getting old, stylishly)

Posted on April 14, 2025 by Niki

Yesterday was my 42nd birthday.

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.

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Off in the distance (Or: Ferris wheel at Malieveld)

Posted on April 7, 2025 by Niki

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…

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Orange craziness (Or: King’s Day merchandise at HEMA)

Posted on April 2, 2025 by Niki

This year, King’s Day will be on Saturday, April 26. The holiday marks King Willem-Alexander’s birthday (April 27). Since it falls on a Sunday this year, it will be celebrated on Saturday instead.

You can already get appropriately orange apparel at HEMA:

This kid’s t-shirt is available for purchase online. As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, HEMA has a few characters that are associated with their brand.

  • Jip and Janneke, a boy and girl from the book series of the same name (see also English Wikipedia). They have been associated with HEMA since 1993.
  • Takkie and Siepie, the dog and cat of Jip and Janneke respectively. Takkie is Jip’s daschhond and Siepie is Janneke’s cat.

They also have some of the more normal merchandise available for purchase:

The Hague will also be host to “The Life I Live” festival on Friday, April 25. The full schedule of artists will be posted on their website on April 15.

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Behind the scenes look (Or: Documentary about Amsterdam Centraal airing on Disney+ NL)

Posted on March 24, 2025 by Niki

Disney+ has announced that a new documentary will air here in the Netherlands about Amsterdam Centraal, one of the largest train stations in the country. Around 200,000 people travel through the station on a daily basis. The documentary is called Amsterdam Centraal 24/7 and the first of six episodes will air on April 17. Read more at iamexpat.nl.

Photo by Martijn Stoof on Pexels.com

I think my favorite episode will be the one about Zandvoort (the F1 track) and all of the preparations that went into making sure 98% of the spectators arrive by public transportation or biking. Last year I had the web cam on for a while, watching the trains arrive every few minutes.

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