…better make it tasty!

you gotta eat, right?!

so better make it interesting every once in a while. and as friends know you well, mine spoiled me with a dinner at Smaak! where else?

and as you know your friends well, you take them with you. simple.

so we were at Smaak yet once again and you’d almost say we’d get a little tired of it. i think we would.

if Ronald wasn’t such an amazing cook, who loves what he does and if Debbie wasn’t such an amazing host, who loves to make her guests have an amazing time, we would. but now, we can’t get tired of it, even if we’d try… which we don’t. try, i mean…

so we were with 9 ‘nj0ying people and we had a blast. as they have a grand tastery of appetizers and a grand tastery of desserts and as we saw the most amazing main courses, we asked for a tastery of those as well. and again, it doesn’t matter how, but they go crazy in the kitchen and prepare a fantastic combination of courses!

now, i like wines, but my friend Marco is crazy about them and picked a fantastic Pasaje de Barrancas from Argentina, a deep, firm wine amazing with the various pieces of great meat we ‘njoyed… last time i was there, Debbie surprised me with a lovely dessert wine and she served this one on the house, just for us! u gotta love her…

and look at this: what better way to re-celebrate your birthday?!

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…dutch.

just last week, when I had my NMU-students over for some typical dutch dinner (no, not at 5 o’clock, but yes stews!), I love their questions about Holland. It forces you to think about dutch culture and tradition, our do’s and dont’s, our peculiarities, in short about yourself .

I always like to invite the (foreign) students of the DMS and the NMU at my place. I studied abroad myself and obviously it was hard work, but hard work can be done anywhere! The beauty is, that you are in a different country with different people. That is what made it amazing for me… So I want to enhance the experience, so to speak…

And yes, I know I have been bragging about my sushi lately, but this time I thought it would be much nicer to prepare them something dutch. So I made a couple of stews, one with potatoes and raw endive and the other one with cow cabbage (cooked) both with and without bacon bits… Meatwise, we had meatballs, smuthered meat and smoked sausage…

So as we had dinner, we talked about all of those dutch things, obviously I don’t escape the question “So what’s the deal with drugs in this country?” and I succeeded in avoiding the answer, that I actually don’t have a clue myself (which is more of a theoretical instead of a practical one)… Why do we eat these kind of stews traditionally? We talked about the positive and less positive things about Holland and I love all of these  discussions…

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Today, just going for some groceries, I saw something very dutch (at least I recognise as such)… We even have a proverb for this: “sweeping your own little street clean”… Funny to see it so very literally…

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…Antwerp

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…king Louis!

it’s good to be the king.

when we were at Lux a couple of months ago, we met this guy, who had been treating us beautifully the whole evening (by the way, i had the feeling i knew the guy, but…). i always feel dining out is a beautiful experience that combines company (that you usually influence yourself ;-P ), atmosphere, waiters (that make sure you can wait at exactly the right moments) and of course gastronomy. as far as I am concerned, at Lux all of it is very nice.

so when Richard, our host, told us to come to Louis, which as he put it, is Lux going french, we couldn’t resist.

but it wasn’t that easy.

apparently, the crisis hasn’t hit so hard, that restaurants who understand the holy quadranity Continue Reading…

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…colonial cooking

for ages, my mother (who has come a long way cooking, since she presented my father about 40 years ago with raw cow cabbage; she is an amazing cook?!) and I had agreed to do some colonial cooking, i.e. indonesian…

so Reina, Tonnie and me took a saturday and went absolutely crazy with my father as the ruthless judge. one of the things we were very excited about was the sambal (chilly paste). but we made so much more. for recipes, don’t hesitate to contact, but we had a blast and an amazing food orgy afterwards!

the girls and my father were doing what they do best (play games and relax) and we made babi pangang (sweet-and-sour-pork), chicken-sateh, tjap tjoy, daging smoor, loempia’s (spring-rolls) and of course some amazing sambal!! judge for yourself (we do take reservations)…

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…at the neighbours

we had heard very good stories about this place, and you know how i am when everyone tells me it is amazing ;-/…

but it was a friday and reina and i needed some relaxed dinner and nice food, so we went to brasserie buren (neighbours) in alphen aan den rijn. and it was simply amazing.

first of all, the owner recommended me a beautiful single malt, springbank, Continue Reading…

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…buddhas in Leiden

reina and i are feeling a lot like thai these last couple of weeks. in amsterdam we ate thai, which wasn’t bad, in leiden we had some before in a very simple setting but with good food, but we read about buddhas at the botermarkt in leiden. it was very good, with beautiful food in an amazing atmosphere! good service, good music, but most of all, great dishes with sophistication, not just repeating the standard thai stuff!

look here:

…beautiful atmosphere

…with… uhn… buddha’s

…Yam Woen Sen, transparent noodles, with pork meat, shrimps and squid

…po tek: spicy soup with shrimp, squid, crabsticks and mussels

…specialty buddhas with big prawns, crabsticks, mushrooms, broccoli, onions, oystersauce and transparent noodles

…mixed meats with vegetables, ginger and oystersauce

…king of siam: original thai coconut icecreams and thai fruits

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…Disgenoten, Leiden

my dear friends, Vincent and Martine are culinarily spoiled, just like us. i mean, that we all like to try as many restaurants as possible. and as Vincent is a “Leijunaaw” (a person from Leiden), he usually shows us the nice places in Leiden, just as we show them the nice places in Rotterdam.

so this time it was his turn and he decided to take us to Disgenoten, a beautiful place in the middle of Leiden. although we, meaning Martine and i, had some remarks about the desserts (together, we have 92 sweet teeth), the experience was amazing! beautiful and unusual combinations made by professionals with love.

judge for yourself:

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afterwards, we went for a couple of fine drinks to Olivier’s and walking through Leiden, you get the most beautiful views!!

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…Shabu shabu

after a hard day of art (see below), we did need some serious dining, but we were early. walking along the westblaak, we saw a restaurant shabu shabu and we felt like a little japanese snax, some sushi, some temaki, niiiicccce! the maitre d’ surprised us to say he had only one table left in an almost completely empty restaurant!

that explained itself in about 45 minutes, when the place was jam-packed!!

armed with a list and a pen, you indicate which types of bytes you’d like and have as many rounds as you want… this was the result:

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…dinner with Alfred…

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A creative and surprising cuisine in a small town. Alfred’s Diner is absolutely fabulous.

When we were there a year ago, it made such an impression on everyone on that dinner. Food was impecable, plates presentations were outstanding. As we were talking about unforgetable desserts, this restaurant came to our minds again, so we went to dinner last friday on their last table available.

What an atmosfere! Flowers, beautiful music, wonderful scents coming from the kitchen. The plates were marvelous one after the other. But again, the dessert will be remembered… almond panacotta with vanilla ice-cream and white chocolat brownie… well from the presentation on… you just eat with your eyes, but the minute you taste it… absolutely heavenly. Even the coffee and tea are so beautifully presented, with dishes, bonbons… and of course, high quality coffee and tea.

We’ll come back to this place, special dinners, special moments and unforgetable food.

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