Little getaway to Rotterdam

Last weekend we took a little getaway to Holland to celebrate Easter and to get some fresh air.  First stop was Rotterdam, about 150km from home, I'd always heard it was cool …and it was, even though the weather wasn't all sunshiny.  Rotterdam has this edgy, a little raw, big city feel with lots of skyscrapers with brownstones. I always like the vibe in a city with water, specially port cities, they feel airy & breathable or something...

We stayed at hotel New York that has got the most comfortable bedding and softest sheets ever. I read the architecture is Jugendstil and the interior felt a bit like on an old cruiseship sometimes. It used to be the main office of the "Holland-Amerika" line.

Happe Me at the hotel.

A must do there, is take a water taxi.

City views.

The Sonneveld House was recommended by a friend and was worth the trip. It is a modernist villa built from 1932-1933 by architects Brinkman and Van der Vlugt.  It is so very avant-garde for that time, with lots of elements that you'd also find in a fifties home.

Two streets worth the check out for shopping & food : Witte de Withstraat & Pannekoekstraat.

We had breakfast at Pierre's, a French bistro, but I would recommend it for an apero or maybe dinner.

And last but not least, we had a delicious Italian meal at Oliva, didn't hear of it, just saw it and booked a table.

MMMM I still remember the taste of the sweet red onions with the proscuito bruchetta, the freshness of the fish with the lobster risotto, the tasty gnocchi and the ooh so delicious home-made ice-cream (lemon cacti, pear pistachio, white chocolate). Oh and did I say that the bread, the olive oil, the glasses of white wine and red wine were also good. Ok i'm hungry now!  To be continued...

Sunday Brunch with friends

Easter is already gone but here are the pictures of our little Sunday brunch we organized at home with a few friends.

We started with a festive drink : bubbles + elderflower syrup + lemon + raspberry, mnjam!

Lisa's famous pancakes, check out her cool blog (mainly about food, travel and being pregnant for the moment)

Fresh apple mango raspberry smoothie

Home-made cinnamon rolls!

French toast with Paul's brioche mmm!

Asparagus rolled in Italian ham, soo perfect with soft-boiled eggs, green salad with apple and walnuts, potato salad  with lots of herbs, yoghurt and big capers...

It was a nice time and I got spoiled by my friends with chocolates (a blog on those will follow) and some nice herbs and plants.

Chives, curry (smells niiice) and strawberries

Happy Easter holidays x

Il Ramo D'Oliva (Italian perfection in Woluwé Saint-Lambert)

Saturday night we had a delicious meal at Il Ramo D'Oliva for my mum's birthday. Guiseppe opened his small restaurant (only 8 seats) about 2 years ago with lots of sense for details. He decorated the place himself in a weird modern spacy interior. Fresh out of the oven bread with perfect olive oil, affordable wines and champagnes (38€, 50€), to die for sauces, nice presentation...  Can't think of anything bad to say about this place. There is only one menu (55€), changing every 3 weeks. It's was deliciously refined. Here's what we had :

A nice Italian champagne  to start

"Jambon" served on a little chauffe-plat, to enhance the aromas

Nice cutlery

First course : a hand cut beef filet tartar (mmm) topped with caviar and a slightly sautéed blue crayfish.

Second course : pane carasau (very thin bread with pecorino), duck magret and caramelized red onions with a mango coulis, mmmmm..... Could be an ultra refined version of the hamburger.

Main Course : Veal filet with carrots, beans & peas in a chicken stock and tuscan spices sauce, mmmm again!

Dessert (based on clementines) : airy clementine mousse, a clementine sorbet, fresh lemony clementines, a slightly salted cookie underneath and some pistachios on top, divine!

Got something to celebrate or a bit of cash left at the end of the month, go there :-)

Hello Nature!

Last Sunday we made a little trip to Botrange in the East of Belgium, some 150km from our house.  Peaceful open spaces, fresh pine-scented air, and luckily we had some sun, as in that region, one out of every 3 days has rain and/or fog, as was written in the weather station we came across on our walk. We walked some 10km and of course we took a little picknick with us.

I love this one...

The picknick = fresh peeled North Sea shrimps with an avocado dill sauercream sauce, a nice little salad (cucumber radish raisins feta fresh herbs) and some artichoke & avocado spread on bread.

The weather station kind of looks like a crazy modern piece of art, don't you think?

The loop we walked...

On the way back we crossed a dam.

Of course, a little treat was waiting for us in the car, at our arrival spot... home-made apple crumble pie.
It's just so nice to explore your own country sometimes ...