Trip Madurodam

I had not heard about 'Madurodam' untill someone told us about it the last week, we were told that it's an  interesting place to be and we sure will enjoy the visit....as suggested we found the place quite amazing, the miniature version of famous monuments  and places in Netherlands were really cute, it was like seeing the whole of Netherlands in one area....only it were hundreds of times smaller. To reach there we took Tram no 9, from Holland Spoor Station, the stop is called 'Madurodam' . We really enjoyed our visit and also we happen to be there on the right day, as1st october was a bright, sunny n lovely day, infact it was the hottest 1st october ever recorded in many, many years.  I will recommend it to everybody visiting Den Haag to visit 'Maduradam' atleast once. 

Mini replicate of various places in Netherlands

St. John's Basilica

One of the cities in Netherlands

Leiden University

The Peace Palace- International Court of Justice

How can this post be complete without the famous windmills of Netherlands!!!!

Discovering Hague....

Before coming to Hague, I tried and read as much as possible about the city esp. about the supermarkets, restaurants, transport etc etc but after living here for almost a month I realize that read up about the city did help me to some extent, so all the wikitravel and google did help me to make this new city home till the time I am here. One of my most important agenda now is to travel around Netherlands and Europe....till now I've been to Delft (twice), Rotterdam, Kinderdijk, the beach at Scheveningen (10 mins by tram) and Haarlem. We are planning a trip to others cities and esp to Amsterdam but not before buying our Museum card, the card is really awesome for 45 Euro I can visit all the Museum anywhere in Netherlands for the whole year....I really think its an awesome deal, in Hague itself their are I don't know how many Museums....their is one right next to where I live and have seen couple of them on my way to the HS station. 

We discovered some really cool places here...like the "illys Cafe" at Oude Molstraat, they serve the best Cheese fingers in the city I think...at the Scheveningen Beach we had gone to one restaurant called "zinzabar" the food was very reasonably priced compared to few other restaurants we checked.  The open market is another place I really like...and I like it more because I get to my chillies from there I bought something which is similar to "O-morok" it tastes the same but a little less hot...the Open market is one huge market selling the freshest possible vegetables, meat and sea food and also their is one Indian Store there called "India Gate" which sells all the possible Indian food....dal, rice, masala, veggies etc etc

I will try and explore Hague as much as possible while I am here and I hope anybody wanting more info about the city will find it useful. 

The Dutch Experience....in pics

Kinderdijk- UNESCO world heritage site

View from the boat...

Wooden clogs

@ Rotterdam port

Erasmus University, Rotterdam

Hagued....

Three days of living in The Hague and I must say me and my fren "CD" and "SS" are trying our level best to make it as homely as possible...the first day CD and me had "Ready to eat' packed Rajma Chawal...which was not bad but good either and I felt really bad thinking what the hell am I eating...Day 2 we had Rice, dal and scrambled eggs which made me a lil happy and Day 3 we had fish and chips for lunch and for dinner we had  my fav. mixed vegetable and Rajma curry with rice. The best part about all our kitchens is its equipped with all the item we need for cooking esp. the electronic items, pots,pans, plates etc etc. 

Food and travel wise its sure going to be one of the best years of our lives....Rome tops the list in "Must Visit Places" but a trip to IKEA store@ Delft  is what I am really lookin fwd to nxt week. Happy staying in The Hague to me .... enjoy and keep the blog alive n make it as informative as possible. 

This months and the month before- a Foodventurous Month....

I haven't written anything since a long time...I was busy settling down n setting the house. The previous month and this month I have had some of the best food one can ever eat...here in Bangalore I had "Thai Red Curry Chicken"- twice...Andhra Thali at Nando's which was really yum...lunch platter at UB city...Crab curry  at Coconut Grove all in Bangalore...Tender roasted duck at Nanking, Delhi...celebration for submission of Phd theses of my dear fren "AN"  she loves to have duck curry and this one was sure the yummest she ever had. 

The best vada-pav in Pune...all thanks to my husband and Pune is his city  n thankfully he knows all the awesome food joints...my husband very recently realized  that just like me he's a total foodie and along with me he's discovering the love/art of cooking. During my last trip to Pune....we had invited few people for dinner and I discovered that I can sure make really good Manipuri chicken curry...I invented it all by chance..the trick was to cook it on low flame and the only masala I used was the "Kangla- Machal Apouba" (I'll upload the recipe in another post).

Even if m from home I still got to eat my fav. Manipuri seasonal vegetables....all thanks to my mom, she sent Ou-soi, O-morok, Maroi-Nakuppi & Napakpi, Yendem, Loklei and Se-bott....for foodies like me..I know I'll always manage to have my fav. food...anywhere in the world...with my stock I made Ou-soi ooti, Ou-soi-kangsu, Yendem eromba, Maroi nakuppi kanghou, Ou-morok metpa with chicken liver....which m sure most manipuri's can die for...

This month and the month before....its been an foodventurous month for me....chicken has been specialty and I'll make sure my foodventurous continues.... 

Thai Style- Red Chicken Curry with Coconut Milk

I am on a cooking spree these days, and m really into Thai Cuisine, yesterday I made Thai style Mango & Onion salad with fish sauce...me and my husband had it with Deep Fried Red snippier fish... it was not as good as we expected it to be. Just two days back we saw this programme in TLC- Planet Food  the programme was about Thailand cuisine  hosted by Merriless Parker and were totally hooked on to it till the end of the show...it was a late nite show so the next morning  me and my husband decided to make some of the dishes...we went to the Spar supermarket and bought all the ingredients to make Thai Style- Red Chicken Curry with Coconut Milk...after google searching for the correct recipe and after tweaking it to suit our taste  we made it for lunch today and it was  really...really  yumm....the rating according to my husband is 8/10 which is not at all bad for a first amateuresh attempt. Try it if you love Thai food.

Ingredients

• 500 gm chicken (curry pieces)
• 3-4 tbsp red curry paste
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 1 Onion (finely chopped)
• 100 ml coconut cream
• 200 ml coconut milk
• 200 ml/1 cup chicken stock
• 2 tbsp fish sauce.
• 10-12 cubes of brinjal (optional)
• 3-4 spring onions( finely chopped.)

Method:

• Take a Kadhai (non stick kadhai) and heat it ,add coconut cream to the hot kadhai. Add the red curry paste and mix it well with the coconut cream cook for 2-3 mins.
•  Add the chicken & cook for 15-20 mins on low flame till the chicken is tender.
• Add the coconut milk, chicken stock  & bring to the boil, cook on low flame and simmer.
• Add fish sauce, spring onion & salt to taste.
• Serve hot with plain rice. (  We had it Manipuri Rice yum yum...)

Red Chicken Curry with Coconut Milk

 Serve hot with Manipuri Rice