Dutch food alert

Den Haag (ND) 17-22/11/12: A chronologocally oblique post to cover some of our foody experiences around The Netherlands.

Erwbten (pea and sausage soup) from a Den Haag soup cafe. Just the thing for a cold, foggy saturday.

Hot chocolate and coffee from another nice little Den Haag cafe as we waited to meet John and Zoe. We could sit here and watch Zwarte Piet direct traffic in the street outside.

Chips with mayo, the dutch condiment of choice outside a Den Haag pub with Zoe, Marie and John on Sunday. Tastes better than you’d think.

Burger (patty sans bun) and chips (with mayo of course) at Efteling on Monday.

Kebabs in Leiden on Tuesday. Turkish food has possibly overtaken chips in a paper cone with mayo as the ubiquitous Dutch fast food of choice.

Entrée of paté and a raw meat dip (whose name I forget but all tasty) plus €2 supermarket glühwein at Kyl and Vikki’s in Leiden. The glühwein (warmed) was more delicious than the price-tag and point of origin might suggest.

Kyl prepared a traditional Dutch meal of sausage, potato, broccoli and onion mash plus bread. He has his game face on here. Apparently home cooking is not such a popular pass-time here, so we were told, making Kyl & Vikki anomolous in this respect.

Dim Sum, a la carte, Den Haag style. Actually pretty good, though no fried squid tentacles.

If I haven’t mentioned already – and I will surely raise this again – booze here is cheap. Wine from around €1, beer is cheaper than water and a good whiskey is maybe €20-30. I seem to recall seeing a Laphraoig Quarter Cask for around this price. That’s Christmas taken care of then, eh?