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.
One thing I haven’t mentioned yet on this blog – I started studying Japanese in December of last year. I’m still very much A1 level, especially in terms of speaking. A1 refers to the Common European Framework of Reference to Languages, or the CEFR for short. A1 is the most basic level. Here’s the description for A1:
Can understand and use familiar everyday expressions and very basic phrases aimed at the satisfaction of needs of a concrete type.
Can introduce themselves to others and can ask and answer questions about personal details such as where they live, people they know and things they have.
Can interact in a simple way provided the other person talks slowly and clearly and is prepared to help.
Sounds about right…
Anyway, a classmate’s partner went to Japan recently, and he brought back Tokyo bananas for us.
Here is it in its packaging, on top of one of my course books. Japan is well-known for individually wrapping everything, but in this case it comes in handy.
And here is it on its own, outside of the packaging:
As you can see it is quite cute, as most Japanese things are. The banana cream inside is quite subtle and not too sweet, which I appreciated. It didn’t wow me, but it was nice. And it was a nice gesture from my classmate for sure.
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!
Check out these pretty flowers along the Vondelstraat, a street not far from the city centre:
This street is on the way to Kelly’s Expat Shopping, a decent store for expat foods (British and American, with a bit of Mexican as well).
And the photo above was taken just outside of the Paleistuin (Palace gardens). The gardens are freely accessible during the day, and I’ve taken many pictures of it from the inside. This time I figured I would take a picture of the path that runs just outside of it. It’s actually a nice place to walk, except for the bits where the stones are coming up due to the trees pushing them up. You can’t really see that in the photo above, though.
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…
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:
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.
Life in the Hague 