Dinner At Neeza's

I had a lovely evening last night being fed delicious food with friends at Neeza's. First off, the house—wow. Neeza and Pierre have put a bit of work into this place, and it has paid off. The place was stunning.

You'll see in the below photos a wall that they decided to chip the plaster off of to expose the brick. While chipping off the plaster they discovered a door in the wall that had been covered. The door doesn't work, but it sure is beautiful.

So, for dinner, Neeza cooked up a delightful Malaysian Prawn Laksa. It tasted so good! I wish I was more of a creative writer to be able to describe the meal beyond words like "good," and "delicious," but you get the point. And then there was the cake. Oh the cake. The lightest, fluffiest cake I've ever had, topped with fresh hot toffee. Wow. I may have had 3 pieces. It was impossible to resist.

Thank you Neeza!

Another Food Post — Tacos!

It's been a couple months since my last failed attempt to make the prime taco. Taught by Miss Cari, I was determined to give it another shot. I think it worked this time. I'm also fairly easy to please when it comes to food, so even though it seemed passable, and downright delicious to me, it may be considered poorly made by more discerning tastes. I guess we'll never know.

Started by making some form of mango salsa. It had mango in it...but after that ingredient I had to improvise. I added red bell pepper, tomato, parsley, coriander, basil, and crushed cayenne. It was pretty good.

For the taco's, this time I added more water to the mix, allowing me to get them thinner and not crack on the edges quite so much.

I cooked up some brown rice, as well as some beans and shallots. Piled it all on with some lettuce, and bon appetit!

Zonnige Oktober

It was a very lovely, sunny weekend here in Holland. I've discovered my phone does not like to take pictures of the canals when it's sunny. It just doesn't do it justice. I still try.

Quick overview of the weekend: Friday night I had dinner at Palladio with some Portland ladies that were in town visiting Rachel. Dinner was great. They agreed to seat us rather late in the evening, and so by the time we'd finished our meal the place was fairly cleared out, and the staff was beginning to clean. A waiter turned on some tunes, and soon the whole restaurant was dancing in their seats and singing. Someone from a table near us came over to ask if I was married to the French president, to which I of course responded 'yes.' It was a good evening.

Saturday Rachel came over and dominated my apartment with laundry. I'm impressed she was able to carry so much laundry across town, and up my four flights of stairs. Determination!

Saturday night was Neeza's birthday party. We celebrated well into the evening/morning.

Sunday I grabbed brunch with a friend, did some laying in the park, made sushi for dinner, and went to bed really early. I'm looking forward to doing some more sleeping tonight.

Some fall colors:

Dinner with Rachel, Andrea, Beth, and Jesse

Laundry day:

Trimming the dead stalks from my basil plant:

Neeza's big 4-0

Heart-shaped vinyl—legit.

Some shots on Sunday and Monday:

London in October

Last Friday Rachel was up in London for work, and I decided to join her for a quick weekend of exploring the streets of East London.

We stayed with Paul, from the W+K London office, at his home in Hackney. He was a great host and took very good care of us. Here is a brief summary of the weekend:

I took a half-day off from work on Friday to begin my journey over to London to meet up with Rachel. I arrived at the house around 6 and we went out to meet up with some of her friends at the pub. This group of friends then took us to a gallery show. After that we met up with Paul, had some dinner, and went to a birthday to do some boogie-ing on the dance floor.

Saturday morning Paul made us an amazing breakfast, and then we strolled over to the Broadway Market. A lovely market overflowing with delicious food stands. After the market we wandered over to Last Tuesday Society—a curiosity shop filled with interesting taxidermy techniques. We then caught the tube over to Notting Hill and checked out Portobello Market. Rachel bought a couple of keys from the 1800s. There was a price discrepancy between the two keys she purchased, and the shop owner said this was because one was from the 1830's and the other from the 1860's (or some such years), how he was confident in this...I have no idea. We took a short wine break in the afternoon sun and then headed over to Hyde Park to enjoy the sunset. After the sunset we attempted finding a place for dinner in Soho, but decided it wasn't really our scene, so we headed back towards home and had dinner at Pizza East—a very delicious and vibrant place.

Sunday we did a bit more wandering around. Started out the morning checking out Columbia Road Flower Market. Rachel got an oyster from a little alley stand. This market led us over to Brick Lane Market. Brick Lane was insane. And huge. We didn't quite have the energy for it, being a little marketed-out, so we hopped the tube to Paddington, and enjoyed a last brunch before I caught the train back to the airport.

Favorite things: The weather (super sunny, and fairly warm), Commercial Tavern, Pizza East, and The flower market.

~ Some Photos ~

Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam:

Gallery show Friday night:

Commercial Tavern:

4-way power converter for my phone. Oh electricity, you so silly:

Just a little something Paul whipped up:

Our host:

Broadway Market:

Last Tuesday Society:

Notting Hill Portobello Market:

Trying to work this one out in my mind. Colville Indians in Northeast Washington... 

Colville Road in Chelsea...hmmmm:

Hyde Park. Photo tribute to 2008 trip (the grass wasn't very tall this time): 

Heidi in 2008:

Pizza East:

On the way to the flower market:

Brunch in Paddington before taking off. Proper English meal. Got to hear a New Yorker one table over tell us how miserable she was and wanted to catch an early flight home. "I'm soooo cooooold!" Well, you did decide to travel in October. We were eating outside because we found it quite pleasant out. Even though it had clouded over. Oh well, too bad for her I suppose. Pass me the pepper!