Monday, February 27, 2017

The Amsterdam Food Hotspot: The Breakfast Club


Eating in the morning is not my thing. I know skipping breakfast is a bad thing, but I don't take my time to properly eat it. If I quickly need to go to work I take a banana on the go and that's it. However if I have time I go all out. I think that in the morning you have the nicest options. Pancakes, French toast, waffles, can ya tell I love sweet things?
You can probably imagine my excitement when I went out for breakfast at The Breakfast Club in Amsterdam. No, it's not the same as the oh so popular Breakfast Club in London, but it's pretty good.

TBC, as I will now call it, have a few restaurants in Amsterdam. We went to the one on the Wibautstraat, mainly because it's close to uni. And strangely enough this is the first time I ever went there. I just never knew there was a Breakfast Club that close to uni. Maybe that's for the better though haha. 
It wasn't busy at all when we went in around 11:00 AM. I like that because I was not in the mood to queue up and it's nice to actually hear each other when you have a catch up with a friend. The interior is very stylish and Amsterdam-esque which totally helps with the chill vibe that was there.
I went for a city breakfast. They are served with fresh OJ, coffee or tea and food from your favourite city. I went for the New York breakfast, buttermilk pancakes with blueberries, raspberries, strawberries and banana. Thank god for the maple syrup jar on the table because I love my pancakes to bathe in maple syrup. 
The best thing was that you could choose any coffee or tea from the menu. Cappuccino, fresh ginger tea, you name it! I went for the ginger tea because that's all I drink at the moment. It has the right amount of spiciness and with a bit of honey it's the best combination.

Back to the pancakes. They were really tasty. So fluffy and in combination with the syrup and fresh fruit a dreamy breakfast for me. I will definitely come back for a stack of these babies!

What is your favourite breakfast?

Saturday, February 25, 2017

Snow in Amsterdam


A week ago the most insane thing happened: it snowed in Amsterdam. Now I have seen snow before, but that was a long long time ago. And I was kind of happy that it stayed as far away as possible from the Netherlands. 
Snow is lovely in December. The white fluff that falls from the sky makes me even more festive and is part of my hot chocolate and binge watching Christmas films routine. When you are inside with your hot drink and snuggly blanket and look outside to see snow falling down and children making a snowman. That's the true Christmas spirit. However I do not like it that much in February. Especially when I have to go outside. On my bike. And hope not to fall down and smash my head on the ice that will give me a huge bump and a seriously bad headache. -Told from my own experiences-

Luckily I didn't smash my head open. Instead I went to Amsterdam to meet up with a friend for a tour of Amsterdam. She had never been so I was the tour guide and showed her around. First we had breakfast at Corner Bakery -surprise surprise I had the pancakes- And then we walked to museum square to take a photo with the IAMsterdam sign and to visit the Rijksmuseum. When we left the museum there was a huge snow storm. We were both not able to see anything because of the snow and we did not fancy a 30 minute walk to central station, so we took the tram. 
When the tram took us to central station we walked over to the boats for a canal ride. -has to happen when you are in Amsterdam- Luckily the snow had stopped so you could actually see something. For lunch we went to De Drie Graefjes. If you ever visit Amsterdam please go here to eat red velvet cake, it's the best! After lunch we had even more food when we walked all the way to the Albert Cuyp market for a fresh stroopwafel. A stroopwafel are two thin crispy waffles with caramel in between. It's the most popular Dutch cookie and especially when you buy them fresh they taste so good.
After a break at Zoku -it's a hotel but there is a big lounge upstairs where you can come in for a drink and some nibbles- we walked through the Red Light District to our dinner location: Happyhappyjoyjoy. Well after that Asian food feast I was very happy and I enjoyed it a lot. So the name is definitely well suited. I will write some more in dept posts about Zoku and Happyhappyjoyjoy, so those will be on the blog soon.

Overall I had a lovely day strolling around Amsterdam -even with all the snow-. It's nice to sometimes be a tourist in your own city. I did one of those boat rides when I was really young so it was fun to do it again now that I'm older. I'm also going to write a few blogposts about Amsterdam. See them more as guides about what to do, where to shop and some Dutchie things that you have to do when you visit this little country!

Have you ever been to Amsterdam? What was your favourite thing about it?


Thursday, February 23, 2017

Korres Vanilla Cinnamon Shower Gel

Airports are where you come and go, and do a bit of shopping, obviously. I already spoke about my first purchase at Rhodes airport, but that perfume wasn't the only Korres item I bought. A shower gel that smells like Christmas in a bottle has to be something that I own in my life so I bought it.

As the name of this shower gel suggests it smells like cinnamon and vanilla (€10,80/250ml). Now I love these spicy festive scents. Especially when it's that time of the year, but any day is an appropriate moment to get that bottle out of the cupboard and take a hot relaxing cinnamony bath or shower. 
For a bath I don't find the scent that strong. Maybe if you squeeze the entire bottle in the tub that it will actually smell like a cinnamon stick, but I think that's a bit of a waist. And as the product is meant for showers I am not that surprised that this product works way better for showers than for baths. It does give the most amazing bubbles though!

After showering with this gel my entire skin smells like cinnamon and I love it. As I said before, I just love the scent all year round and if you are the same you will definitely fall head over heels in love with this. Not a massive fan of festive ginger cinnamon scents? No worry because Korres have a lot of other fruity scent too that I can't wait to try.

Have your tried anything from Korres before? What is your favourite scent?


Sunday, February 19, 2017

Vegan Salted Caramel Blondies


Facebook is good for many things: staying in touch with friends, being up-to-date about basically everything and food, especially food. I follow so many food pages on Facebook that I lost count and every time a recipe video pops up in my timeline I have to give it a watch. If I really like it I'll give it a like or save it for whenever I have time to make this delicious recipe. 
The problem is that I never recreate the food in the videos. Not because they are not easy, because believe me they are all so easy to make, but I just don't do it. That was until a few weeks ago when I made these vegan salted caramel blondies that I spotted on The Tasty K. That page is probably my fave, together with Tasty, Buzzfeed Food and Sweeten.

These blondies are vegan, healthy and so easy to make. Will something with no butter and sugar actually taste good? My answer is yes! The dates give it the right amount of sweetness and make it into this lovely chocolaty baked good. I will not say goodbye to my Nutella cookies, but this is a good alternative if you want something healthy and yummy! I did change a few of the ingredients and probably the amounts too because I just don't get the cups system. Where are the grams at?

What do you need?
Dough:
325 gr self-raising flower
125 ml almond milk (more if dough is too crumbly)
2 flax eggs (1 tbsp flax meal + 3 tbsp water = 1 flax egg)
3 tbsp melted mixed nut butter
2 tbsp maple syrup
Dash of vanilla essence 
1 tsp baking powder
Dash of sea salt
50 gr dark chocolate chips

Caramel:
150 gr Medjool dates
120 ml almond milk

Oven: 180°C/ 355°F

First, make the flax eggs and set them aside for at least 10 minutes. Place the self-raising flower, almond milk, nut butter, maple syrup, vanilla essence, baking powder, sea salt and chocolate chips in a large mixing bowl. Add the flax eggs when they are ready and mix it together with a spatula and your hands. I found the dough a bit too dry so I added more almond milk to get nice non-sticky dough. Cut the dough into two equal parts with a knife and line a brownie tin with parchment paper.
Make the vegan salted caramel by adding the Medjool dates, almond milk and sea salt into a blender and mix it until everything is smooth and creamy.

Take a piece of dough and spread it out evenly in the baking tin. Take the dough layer out and repeat it with the second piece of dough. Only this time you leave the dough in the tin. Add the salted caramel on top and spread it out evenly. Then add the other dough layer. Don't push it down because then all the caramel will squeeze right out. -Yes this happened to me-.
Place the tin in the oven for about 25 minutes and then take it out. Let it cool down and take a piece when it's still warm. Nothing beats a bite out of something that just came out of the oven. Don't burn yourself though!

Easy peasy lemon squeezy. So easy to make and delicious too. Want to see this recipe in a video? Click here to see The Tasty K video that made me fall in love with this recipe.

What is your favourite Facebook food page?


Friday, February 17, 2017

Follow me around Brighton & London: OOTD

If you have seen my last travel vlog you know I went to Brighton and London. Whilst I was there I also shot a few clips of my outfit. Funnily enough it's almost the same outfit (I swear I wore something different on the Saturday). This was just the most comfy thing to wear and I did not have a lot of space in my suitcase #travelproblems. See it as like a follow me around kinda video where I show you a bit of me and the beautiful cities I visit.
I had a lot of fun editing it and it's hands down my favourite video that is on the channel right now. Something about travelling and filming a few clips of that experience makes me so happy. Especially when I look at the video now. It takes you back to that exact moment and makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. All the feels people!

As always give it a thumbs up and subscribe!

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

The Baker Boy Hat

Sometimes you get the feeling that your outfit is missing something. It can be a belt, some jewellery or in my case: a hat. I have a few fedoras lying around, but I wanted something different. After a big search on ASOS -love that website- I came across this black baker boy hat and it's one of the best purchases I made last year. 

You have these hats in a lot of different varieties. Mine is a mixture of fake leather and a cotton fabric. I also like the wool ones, but you can see every piece of fluff on that and also the fact that I have long hair -that I find everywhere-, it has put me off from buying the wool baker boy hat.
Now I don't wear hats all the time. Usually when my hair becomes a bit greasy and it can't be saved with dry shampoo I pop on a hat. I hear you thinking ''Why don't you wash your hair then?'' Well the thing is I don't like washing my hair. It takes forever and it's just a big job that I don't like to do. I do was it though, usually after 4-5 days. But anyways, whenever I'm lazy with my hair I have been wearing this hat and it's been the biggest lifesaver for me. Not only does it cover up the mess that's on my head, it looks stylish af. 

When I was in London I brought my hat too. I saved it till the last day of the trip to wear it because by that time the freshly washed hair mood was long gone. It really added something to my outfit and together with my faux fur coat, fringe hem jeans and Stan Smith trainers it looked pretty good. If I may say so myself. And that's what it's all about in the end isn't it? That you wear something you feel comfortable in and makes you feel extra good about yourself. 

Do you like the baker boy hat or are you more a fedora girl?

Wednesday, February 8, 2017

The London Vlog 2017

I didn't only take lots of photos on my trip to London and Brighton. I also vlogged! Now you may know that I normally suck at vlogging. The looks and awkwardness still get to me but honestly I feel like I did an okay job this time. Besides missing an entire Saturday of filming, oooops! I hope you like these little snippets of my trip, because when I look at this video it makes me so incredibly happy to see all the things I experienced there.



Saturday, February 4, 2017

The London Trip 2017

On to the next part of my trip to the UK! A week ago I showed you my day in Brighton, but that wasn't all, because after an eventful day at the shore we took the train back to London and spent the entire weekend there.
First, we dropped our suitcases at the hotel and then we immediately went to Oxford Street for a bit of shopping. After going to Primark, New Look, Boots and Whole Foods it was already late so we picked up some burgers and fries from Five Guys and went back to the hotel. The hamburger was really good; I only was not the biggest fan of the fries. I still ate it all though haha!
The next day we were ready for some pancakes from The Breakfast Club. When we spotted a queue we decided to go to Farm Girl instead. Another place on our London food list. We also had to wait there, but since we travelled all the way to Nothing Hill and really wanted to cross it off our list we thought it was worth the wait. After about 30 minutes there was a free table and we went inside for some gluten free berry pancakes. I liked it but I do think there is a big hype about this place. 
When the pancakes were all in our tummies we strolled around Notting Hill and came across a street with the prettiest houses. It was actually on the list too so it was funny to accidentally stumble across it. We walked some more and then took the tube to Oxford Street to go and have a look at Aubaine in Selfridges. It's a French restaurant and has the most gorgeous purple flowers all over the ceiling. Unfortunately for us it was busy so we weren't seated near the pretty flowers. The raspberry tarte I had was very good so I have to come back for that someday, and for an Insta worthy pic with the purple flowers, of course.
Again we walked a lot, did a bit more shopping in Covent Garden and were heading to this pizza place called Homeslice. But yet again there was a large queue and we were not up for the wait. After a carrot/ginger juice at Joe & the Juice we headed to Zizzi's and ate some lovely pizza. Mine was with pumpkin, goat cheese and pesto. I never had pizza with pumpkin before but I thought the combination was so good! After the pizza we shopped some more. I was a bit tired though so as my friend shopped I dropped myself on the seats in the shoe department and waited for her to return.
We then had the idea to see a film, but when we found out that you pay the most ridiculous amount of money here to go to the cinema we dropped out and went back to the hotel.

Sunday was the last day of our trip. This time we had to go to The Breakfast Club and waited for around 30 minutes before we were given a seat. I have had their berry pancakes before and I wasn't wrong for ordering them again. They are SO TASTY! After breakfast we strolled a bit through Shoreditch on the hunt for some graffiti walls we spotted on Instagram. Luckily we found one and we actually weren't the only once with the idea to take some photos there. That street was full of creative people shooting photos and videos. Makes it a bit less awkward too. We then went into a few vintage stores and headed our way to the Big Ben. I just really wanted a touristy picture okay?
And full of tourists it was. I like this because then I look less like a crazy person who takes a lot of photos. We then walked across the Thames but halfway we decided to go back to the hotel, eat some food and head to the airport. We both had a salad at Wahaca. A bit of health after all those pastries and pancakes is never a bad idea. They did serve it in a fried tortilla bowl though so it wasn’t that healthy in the end haha. 
Sadly it was time to head back to the hotel and pick up our suitcases. I squished everything in there -which required a lot of effort- and went on the tube and train to Gatwick Airport. Of course it wouldn't be me if I didn't lose my boarding pass at WH Smith. I did find it though and I was so happy it wasn't my passport because that would have been an even bigger disaster. 
I'm so sad to be home now, but also very excited about my next trips. I leave for Copenhagen and Sweden in about a month time so before you know it I will be back in the sky again!

What are your favourite places in London?










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