Kuminda krioyo, the local creole food, is always one of the first things we look for when coming to Curaçao. These meals consist of hearty and filling dishes, often featuring stews, fried fish, and local starches such as funchi, aros moro, and tutu. This time around we decided to sample the food at three different restaurants: Dokterstuin, Zus di Plaza, and Pop’s Place. (more…)
I just returned from lunch at Bij Loes in the old historic part of Delfshaven, and I must say, it was delightful. We took the subway to Delfshaven and walked towards the restaurant, passing several antique and art shops on the right, and old boats in the water on the left. We found Bij Loes and at first thought it may be closed as it was very quiet, but turns out we were early (noon) and the place filled up around one.
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My friend and I were looking for a quick dinner on a Monday night, and decided on Tai Wu – a Cantonese dim sum restaurant in downtown Rotterdam. M had lived in Rotterdam for many years and to my surprise, had never been to Tai Wu. It’s a shame we weren’t with more people as there are many dishes here that I enjoy, and the more people you eat with, the more you can order. I managed to restrain myself, settling on a few favorites, and our doggy bag after dinner was of very modest size.
Umami by Han is a chain of restaurants in several cities in the Netherlands, and is part of the Han Group which has a Michelin star restaurant, HanTing, in the Hague. It is a trendy social dining restaurant that does Asian-French fusion. The concept works this way: everyone gets to order about 6 dishes on the menu (2 per course), and the dishes are then shared with everyone at the table. To be honest, just sounds like tapas to me, but I guess if we call it ‘social dining’ it’s fancier. Also, isn’t dining usually social? Anyway, for the relatively low price of €21.95, you can have a three course meal. The place had been getting good reviews, and their restaurant in Eindhoven even made the Bib Gourmand list, so we were eager to try it.
Taberna Dushi is another restaurant on the ever-popular Pannekoekstraat in Rotterdam. It serves up a unique mix of Caribbean and Mediterranean cuisine and is run by a couple – the husband is in the kitchen and the wife provides the service with a smile. They have a small menu with 14-16 small dishes or so and it is a tapas concept, so you order a bunch of things and share. This makes it a great place for casual dining with groups of people. The prices and the service are very friendly and the food is tasty, so we’ve been here many times in the past years. This time around I went with 5 friends and, as I frequently do, ordered too much food. (more…)
Where do I even begin? I’ve never found it so difficult to start an article, but the overwhelming amount of information to share has caused a bit of writer’s block. Do I split it up into several articles, do I just write one really long one? Having put this off for a few days I’ve decided to just get started, we’ll see where we end up at the end of all this.
Hanoi is an amazing, beautiful, and very lively city. You can find food at every street corner and it is all delicious – we didn’t have a single bad meal. We spent 5 days in Hanoi and ate our way around town, sitting on plastic chairs on the side of the street most of the time. Our strategy was twofold, first of all we googled a bit and found some recommendations online, and when we had gone through all of those we simply went to the places that were crowded with locals. So let’s get started… (more…)
On our way back to Holland we had an 8 hour layover from 6pm to 2am. Too long to stay at the airport, and more than enough time to get into downtown Bangkok and back. We took the Airport Rail Link, which is a cheap (99 baht = 2.5 euros) and fast option to get into downtown Bangkok. If you don’t have a lot of bags this is definitely a good option as it took only 30 minutes, whereas with a taxi it takes at least 45 minutes, though usually longer thanks to traffic. We got out at Phaya Thai station and took the skytrain (BTS) to Thong Lo station. We were heading for Sukhumvit Soi 38, the famous and very popular street food street in Bangkok, frequented by both locals and tourists. (more…)
We had one night and morning in Bangkok before going to Phuket, and made the most of it by wandering around the Siam Square area and trying everything we came across. I hate to admit, but we actually screwed up to begin with. We were in the malls looking for cufflinks and decided to eat at the food court in the mall. Now usually food courts are quite good in malls in Asia so we had high expectations. Unfortunately, the flavors were bland and a pork dish we ordered was even smothered in some sort of crazy palm sugar sauce, so we quickly left and hit the streets… (more…)
Sorry for not posting anything the past few weeks, we were on vacation! And though we thought about writing while away, and even brought the laptop, sunshine, cocktails, relaxing and exploring new cities got in the way. But we’re back and ready to share our stories from Bangkok and Hanoi with you. We threw ourselves at the street food in both places with reckless abandon and survived without any major problems. I suppose years of training in Jakarta has hardened both our stomachs, but to be honest, the street food was extremely fresh and the streetside stalls clean (enough). So stay tuned for more!
DiningCity, an online restaurant guide, organizes “Dining with the Stars” – a two week special event where you can eat at Michelin star restaurants for a reasonable price. You pay €59,50 for five courses at a 1 star restaurant, and add a €15 supplement per extra star at other restaurants. I think they organize this twice a year and we usually try to go at least once during those two weeks. This time we chose Fred, where we had been last year when it had only 1 star, but it now has 2 stars, so we were curious what the difference (read: improvement) would be. (more…)
