Posts Tagged With: Centrum

Last weekend Marco and I decided to go for Lebanese at Amier restaurant in The Hague’s city centre, in the same street as the American Book Center. I’ve walked past the restaurant time and time again over the years, but we had never been.

Since it was lunch we decided to share some small plates. Here’s a look at what we had:

We ordered four things:

• Batata harra (spicy baked potatoes with lemon)
• Arnabeet (cauliflower with lemon, pomegranate and tahini sauce)
• Falafel with tahini sauce
• Samboesek djaj (pastry dough filled with marinated chicken, lemon and bell pepper)

It also came with a side dish of Lebanese bread. The meal was quite tasty, as expected. A bit more subtle than I was expecting, but definitely in a good way. Lots of lemon, but it was fine! It was also fun to have a lunch date with Marco.

A few weeks ago Marco and I tried Netherlands Bagels for the first time. It’s in the city centre, a few minutes walk from the Grote Kerk. This bagel shop sells New York style bagels (the owner is originally from New York). Read more about the shop’s history.

First, our drinks arrived. Very tasty chai lattes that definitely hit the spot.

I can’t lie – we were amused when the bagels came out. Why, you ask?

I mean, it is in the name: Netherlands Bagels. So the flags make sense. It’s still funny, though.

I had an everything bagel with peanut butter on the side. A bit of a rare combination, I admit, mixing the salty menu with the sweet menu (I had to double check that I could mix it like that). My tongue also thought it was a weird choice, but it worked fairly well. For me. And as always I requested the peanut butter on the side.

Marco had a bodega bagel (eggs, bacon and cheese). It looked so good I even had a bite or three. That says a lot considering I am very much not a fan of eggs (if it looks or tastes like egg, anyway). I mean, I have a tiny bit of scrambled eggs about every 5 years or so. That’s good, but only in limited amounts. But this was nice – the salty bacon paired nicely with the egg and I could see why people liked it. Hence my having three bites! I think Marco got concerned that I might eat all of it, but nope, I gave it back.

These were some tasty bagels; we’ll definitely go back to try some of the other varieties.

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.