how can one come to the netherlands and resist the omnipresent stroopwafle? it would be like going to belgium and not eating chocolate…
the sweet smell coming from a tent on the alkmaar fair was enough to stop us on our tracks and grab a couple of them. these thin slices of warm waffle, stuck together with syrup are a divine dutch treat. yum!
hagelslag (blowing hail?) are dutch chocolate sprinkles – invented in 1936 by mr. de vries, in reply to a child who wrote him asking for a chocolate topping to put on his bread. 
to use them, spread some butter on a piece of bread and sprinkle them on top. allow me to illustrate:
the butter is optional, but it helps them stick better. more than the different flavours, i think what makes hagelslag special is the texture – it’s just nice to bite the tiny crunchy pieces of chocolate, and let them slowly melt in your mouth…
they have a special kind of sprinkles called muisjes (little mice) that are spread on round rusks when a baby is born, and offered to friends or family. they’re either pink or blue, according to the sex of the newborn. isn’t that a nice tradition? :)
after four years away, our memories of vla had raised to the likes of magical elixir. i’m happy to say it did not disappoint: it’s still as good as we remember it, perhaps even better. my favourite flavours were always the seasonal ones, and this summer vla of raspberry & peach is just amazing. someone should seriously think of exporting this.
čajna hiša is a tea house, like the name says… but there’s a lot more to it than just tea.
sure, the tea selection is endless and quite tempting. but there’s also muffins, for instance, lovely chocolate/banana muffins that look and taste like they’ve just been taken from the oven. or banana/walnuts/bran flakes/raisin yogurt cups drizzled with honey. or delicate apricot strudel. or huge cups of coffee with milk that we savour till the last drop.
you can probably tell how much we love the place. :) it’s got top marks across the board: it’s cozy, the food is delicious and served in cute looking cups/plates and the waiters are always nice – something that is getting hard to find in ljubljana these days. must be the summer season: dealing with tons of tourists is probably taking its toll on the service around here.
anyway, we highly recommend it. it’s in stari trg, 3 – right in the middle of the old town. enjoy! :)
“it’s my party
and i’ll cry if i want to
cry if i want to
cry if i want to
you would cry too
if it happened to you!”
this song has been stuck in my head the whole day. it’s the same thing year after year: i only remember it on my birthday! :)
this sounds strange, but i’ve actually been telling people i’m 28 for a whole year already… my brain somehow didn’t get used to 27, and skipped ahead. i didn’t mind. 28 sounded better than 27, the way even numbers always seem to. very chinese, now that i think about it!
anyway, to do something different today, we drove to murska sobota and had gibanica, slovenia’s national cake, disguised as a birthday cake. it’s quite heavy, but i enjoy the mixture of flavours:
and as you can see, i got a drawing tablet from paulo as a bday present, and put it to good use already! :)