Tamales and Nopales

Tamales Plate

Nopales Plate Close up

This is one of the most delicious plates for me in the Mexican cuisine.

Tamales are based upon corn with a Corn Dough and a Corn Skill, like almost 75% of the Mexican kitchen.

Furthermore they’re stiffed with various ingredients, like peppers, chicken or anything else you would like. After stiffing the Corn you should cook the tamales for at least 1 hour before the Tamale is ready.

Nopales are vegetables picked from a Cactus with for me a small comparisation with beans.
Only they are slightly more sour then these. Normally you can prepare them with cooking for a little time and mix them together with a few ingredients, for example peppers, tomatoes and Tamales …

If you are in Mexico you really should try it, if you’re somewhere else, good luck with finding one in a very mexican restaurant or shop.

These photos of Tamales and Nopales are edited within the Adobe Lightroom program and I’ve used only the adjustments sliders.

Red Strawberries, originally uploaded by Jaap Willem.

In this picture I’ve tried to keep the red color while making the other colors a bit pale. As a result in my opinion I was able to  to create a vintage look in the photo, while keeping the most important thing, the strawberries in focus.

This Red Strawberry picture have been edited purely in Lightroom, while I’m playing around with the color sliders the generate the different kinds of colors.

Please let me know what you think of this one and stay tuned for some more pictures this week on Jaap Willem Flickr Photostream.

Orange Donuts, originally uploaded by Jaap Willem.

The dessert today are Orange Donuts, this is for the celebration of the Dutch Football squad.

I know, I’m not into football, but when it’s a gift, I won’t reject it

Bonne appetit

Luxembourg, the city…

Where is the city located and why should you go there?

Luxembourg always have been more known for their banking system then the tourism sector. Still if you go to Luxembourg everyone is asking you: Can you take some money with you for me? or Are you earning that much money?

But look at Luxembourg beyond that.. Look at the buildings left by the Romans and still standing. Look at the vast Green parks with stunning views over the Valley’s.
Then you know you got in the right corner for a holiday, a quite holiday.

The People

Furthermore the people are very friendly and very service minded. For us the moment we arrived we have had excellent service, from the moment we got off the train until the moment we hopped on.

It was only a pity that the weather was really not up to par with other days before and after our weekend. It was very cloudy and grey, with just a few ray’s off sunshine in the Saturday Afternoon..

Luxembourg Photography

But I did take the opportunity to take many landscape photographs with the intention of converting them later into beautiful panoramic photos.

So what is the point of these blog post series? It’s basically a story about the various parts of the city, both modern and historic, landscape views and urban details.

Please let me guide you through one of the most forgotten pearls from Western Europe, Luxembourg.

The Armor of Luxembourg

Armor of Luxembourg City

Waiting for the Train

Waiting for Train to Luxembourg

Photographic Impressions from Sans Cravate in Bruges.

We went to Sans Cravate for a special occasion and as well to enjoy a special night out.

The restaurant

Sans Cravate is a Michelin star restaurant in Bruges, Belgium.

It’s fairly centric located in the city, still present in the old part of the city but not in the mere city centre.

Furthermore it’s located in an old house but the interior decoration is a nice mix between old and modern style, with a slight preference to modern.

The staff is professional but in normal Belgian fashion don’t expect them to be overly friendly.

The dinner

We had a special Menu because we used a gift ticket. The menu on itself was fairly extended but many people used the special menu’s, which have a good value.

The design and organisation of the plates and food was simple with a slight touch towards asian influences.

As you can see on the pictures, many different ingredients where used, but all in small quantities. I suppose this is a point what is normal for this kind of restaurants.

Conclusion.

It was a great experience to enjoy our dinner at the Sans Cravate restaurant in Bruges. The food at the restaurant was great although with limited quantities.
That is why, my advise is the following : If you have something to celebrate it’s a good place to go, specially with the menu offers.

And in case you’re wondering, you don’t need to wear a tie.

Let me know what your experience was at this restaurant in the comments.

Cheers