The Laurentians, a region in Quebec, the French speaking province of Canada, is a perfect place to witness this Indian summer (in fact, the term Indian summer probably comes from here). The many maple trees, which are of course the symbol of Canada, are known to turn into a beautiful red, coloring the entire forests. The exciting thing about this period is that you never know when it will come. For us, it came early October, when we could suddenly leave our hats, gloves and even jackets at home, with temperatures suddenly rising above 20 degrees Celsius.

And when Indian summer is there, you don’t know when it is on it’s high point. The first rule of a photographer is to always take your camera anywhere, but I have to say there were some times where the scenery was more breath taking than the previous day, but I didn’t have a chance to capture it (at least by camera).

And then, before you know it, all trees turn golden, and soon after that lose color all together.

The post Indian summer appeared first on In The Name Of Food.

In the months prior to halloween, there’s a fun activity as well; going to a pumpkin patch and finding your own perfect pumpkin! Although eatable, these pumpkins are usually used as decoration, and carved out in the famous scary pumpkin heads.

We visited the ‘Centre d’interpretation de la courge’, in Saint-Joseph-du-Lac, just outside of Montreal. Next to a restaurant and a small shop where you can buy things like ‘pumpkin jam’, they have a huge pumpkin patch open to the public. On the fields you will not only find the big pumpkins, but also about 20 different kinds of smaller squashes. These smaller squashes usually have a better taste, which I prefer to use in most recipes.

The field is very spacious, and in early October still full of pumpkins! You get your own wheelbarrow, and are free to stumble around the fields, picking your favorite pumpkins. For a big pumpkin, two butternut squashes, a carnival squash and an acorn squash the total came to 11 CAD (7 euro), a pretty good price for all the pumpkins and the whole experience! The nice thing about pumpkins is that you can store them the whole winter, so you can get a big amount at once. And you can serve pumpkins that you have harvested yourself, which is pretty cool ;)

To finish of with my favorite (easy!) way of preparing pumpkin: cut your pumpkin (or any kind of squash) in half (no need to peel it), smear some oil on the cut part and sprinkle with some salt and pepper. Put the sides with their cut side down on an oven plate. Roast in the oven (200 degrees Celsius) for 40-60 minutes, depending on the size of the pumpkin. You’ll end up with a super smooth pumpkin that is easy to scoop out of the peel and that you can eat just like that, or use it in a recipe (like mashing it into a pumpkin puree). Yum!

The post Pumpkin patch, Saint-Joseph-du-Lac, Quebec appeared first on In The Name Of Food.

The village center consists of a few cozy streets with the typical ski-resorts kind of shops, but has a very modest feeling. There are no high rise buildings anywhere to be seen; all the cottages are nicely hidden by the trees, and the typical ski-resort feeling is absent. And the only thing that reminds of the 2010 Vancouver winter Olympics that were partially hosted here in Whistler, is the big square with the Olympic sign, the well maintained roads and the big gondola’s that bring you right up the slopes.

This is the area to find great waterfalls, like the Nairn falls and the Alexander falls. Some have a view point just outside the highway, others have a small hike to be done, making it a bit more of an accomplishment when you arrive and see the falls emerge.

Wildlife is all around here; this area is home to bald eagles, bobcats, lynxes, cougars, grizzly bears and black bears. There are people offering expensive tours to see bears in the wild, but it turns out you won’t need this. We saw a total of three black bears along the road, without even looking for them! Unfortunately only one of them was photogenic, the others were harder to capture on camera. One bear was climbing out of the river, still soaking wet, probably just after having a feast on salmon- the reason bears love this place.

If in Whister and looking for a bite to eat, go check out Green Moustache in Whistler’s center. Salads, rice bowls, smoothies and juices…basically everything here is healthy, organic, vegan, local, and is 100% fresh (no canned or processed foods here).

The post Seeing bears in Whistler, BC appeared first on In The Name Of Food.

Next to taking city walks, there are a few other fun things to do in Vancouver. Here is a list of 5 things I particularly enjoyed!

Terra Nova Rural park
If you need a break from the city, try visiting this coastal park and refuel on fresh air and a nice sea breeze. This is such a nice place to take a hike and have a picnic.

Recently an immense wooden playground opened in this park, with a huge tree house, ropes, zip lines and other cool things. Signs indicate that this play area is an ‘off-leash kids’ area, which is a bit of a funny choice of words, but kids sure have all the space to run around and play in this big park.

Public Market on Granville Island
The Public Market on Granville Island, a peninsula which is part of Vancouver, is a market not to be missed. Dozens of food stalls, mainly food, are situated in an indoor market space in what used to be a warehouse. Not only can you find all sorts of local delicacies, you can do some pretty good bargains on fruits and vegetables!

North Vancouver
If you have never taken a sea-bus; this is your chance! Vancouver’s sea-bus, which is actually nothing more than a little ferry, can be taken with the same public transfer card you use on the metro and the bus. After a 15 minute boat ride, starting from the Waterfront Station, you end in North Vancouver. This place is worth checking out for the view you’ll have on the Vancouver skyline. A bonus is the cool playground and playing meadow just at the shore.

Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Park 
The Chinese part of Vancouver is hard to miss, and in some parts of the city you would think you’re actually in a Chinese metropole. Although the best Chinese food is supposedly found in Richmond, Chinatown is great to visit as well. Well worth a visit is the Chinese garden (Dr. Sun Yat-Sen park), which offers an oasis of peace and quiet in the rush of the city.

Steveston fishing village
Located a 30-minute bus ride away from the city center, Steveston is a small fishing village right at the coast of Lulu Island. From 1871 onwards salmon canning was the mayor industry in this village, which is the reason for Steveston’s nickname: Salmonapolis. Although the salmon canning has been stopped since the 1990s, fishing is still was thrives this town. Another big business here is the whale watching industry; boat trips starting from here will give you a chance to see whales and orca’s. If you stay on the land, you still have a chance to spot some wildlife; we saw two seals swimming by the harbor!

The post 5 Fun things to do in (and around) Vancouver appeared first on In The Name Of Food.

NYC is the best place to do all this. As big and as huge as the Big Apple might seem at first, walking around in Manhattan for only a few days can make you feel familiar quite fast, and instead of being intimidated, you will feel embraced by it and have become part of it. You’ll finally understand what Alicia Keys and Jay-Z where saying all along.

So now that you have spent all your money on plane tickets and expensive hotels, why not choose to discover The City for absolutely nada? You only might want to keep some money aside to have some food, and for the subway for when your feet get tired (and trust me, they will).

These 10 things to do will cost you nothing, but make you fully discover New York City!

Ferry to Staten Island
In stead of paying money to go on a boat that takes you to the Statue of Liberty, why not take a free ferry that will give you a close look on the statue and give you a superb view on Manhattan? Remember to sit/stand on the right side of the ferry (coming from Manhattan) to see the Statue of Liberty. On the way back, the best place to be is at the front of the boat, as you will have a great view over Manhattan.

The ferry departs from the Whitehall Ferry terminal and takes about half an hour to cross to Staten Island. They leave about every half hour and can be very packed. If you’re on a tight time schedule you might want to keep this for another visit, as it can be pretty time-consuming.

Times Square
Of course a visit to NYC is not complete without having visited Times Square. The buzz and visual over-stimulation cannot be transferred on pictures. If you want to see the largest digital billboard in the world, see a naked cowboy or three life-size Elmos walking around next to each other, then this is your place to go. The huge M&M store on Times Square is worth visiting as well, you will never have seen so many M&M`s in so many colors!

Central Park
This park is unimaginably big. Walking around here makes you wonder how they could have made so much space in their urban design, and preserve it that way. It’s such a great place to stroll around, have a little picnic or, if you have any kids with you, visit one of the many playgrounds.

Chinatown
Maybe not the first place you think of going when visiting New York, but Chinatown is a really unique area to visit. Walking around here makes you travel to Asia for a while, and is nothing compared to the small Chinatowns in Europe. In terms of food, you’ll see the strangest (from a Western point of view) things coming by, that you might or might not want to try.

Cross the Brooklyn Bridge
My favorite thing from all of these is crossing the Brooklyn Bridge by foot. You’ll have an amazing view on Manhattan, and seeing the bridge from so close is pretty cool. The walk is quite calm comparing to the Manhattan Bridge, that has a subway and cars passing much closer to the pedestrians. Just keep in mind that you will not be the only tourists doing this walk :)

Grand Central Station
The Grand Central Station is how a train station is supposed to look. It’s well worth stepping inside here and see the magnitude of this building. This station has the most platforms from all the train stations in the world (44). Fun fact: Cornelius VanderBilt, who built the first Grand Central Terminal in 1871, originated from my hometown in the Netherlands: de Bilt. Other fun fact: His father was the founder of the first Staten Island ferry, the one I described earlier in this article.

Public Library
Another very nice building to visit is the New York Public Library. The halls are immense and the architecture is beautiful. They offer free guided tours twice a day, and there are often (free) photo exhibitions to visit. The coolest thing you can find in the library is in the children’s section. This is where the original Winnieh the Pooh and his friends can be visited! This teddy bear, given to a British little boy for his first birthday in 1921, was the inspiration for his father (A.A. Milne) to create the stories about Winnieh the Pooh. Unfortunately, when we visited, the animals where out (‘to the doctor’) for restoration. They will be back in the fall of 2015.

Festivals
New York City offers plenty of free festivals, workshops and other activities. You will find stuff to do all year round, although most activities will be organized in summer. Music festivals, free yoga workshops, workshops for kids… Many parks offer free movie nights as well. Seeing Titanic will be a whole other experience when seeing it on a hot summer night in Central Park!

As seen on tv
How cool is it to see a place you know from a movie or a tv series in real life? Sure, you can do an organised Sex and the City tour (I’ve even heard good things about it), but why not do the research yourself and find the places on your own? From the place where Marilyn Monroe’s dress blew up to the action scenes of Spiderman, NYC has been the setting of so many films! Tip: after visiting NYC, watch I am legend where Will Smith drives around deserted Manhattan (or do like me and skip all the scary zombie parts).
Bonus question: who recognizes this building on the picture, featured on a 90’s hit series?

Visit markets and supermarkets
What I always love to do in cities is visiting markets, and if it the country is new as well: visit supermarkets! I wrote an article about what NYC markets are my favourite, but I`ve spent quite some time in my favourite supermarket as well: Whole Foods Market! Living in Holland, I don`t get to shop here normally so when I`m in the US I always go find one, as this place is grocery heaven. For all the other unlucky people that don`t have a Whole Foods in their hometown; I have an article coming up on this supermarket and why it`s my favorite.

The post New York City on a budget: 10 free things to do in NYC! appeared first on In The Name Of Food.

Joe’s Pizza
This is pizza how pizza is supposed to be. Thin crust, tomato sauce and cheese, all baked in a traditional pizza oven. The right proportions of toppings make this pizza slice not too heavy or greasy, but full of flavor. For 2.75$ you have a big slice of ‘plain’ pizza (just tomatoes and cheese) but for 75 cents extra you have the choice of a more elaborate pizza (with fresh mozzarella, meat and/or vegetables). I would just go for the plain one. This place is famous in NYC, and judged upon their photo wall, very popular with celebrities as well. And that for such a simple little pizzeria!

Find Joe’s pizza at 7 Carmine street

Absolute bagels
Bagels are big in New York. You have hundreds of places to get them, but one of the places you can’t really go wrong is Absolute Bagels, located in the upper West side. If you keep the bagels simple you can get them for as low as 2.50$ (bagel with creamcheese), but the more exclusive ingredients you add, the more they will cost. I had the whole wheat bagel with plain cream cheese. Fresh bagel, loads of cream cheese: this is the good stuff!

Absolute Bagels can be found at 2788 Broadway, NYC

Food stands
You’ll see them everywhere on the streets: food stands with the colorful pictures on them with exotic foods, and usually some Arabic music playing inside. The stand might not always look too appealing, but when we tried it we were pleasantly surprised! The choices usually involve falafel, rice dishes, kebab and steak sandwiches (I loved the lamb kebab pita). These portions will even satisfy a big eater and works fine for dinner as well. Most meals are between 4-5 dollars.

Then there are all the food trucks that pop up once in a while, mostly in summer, serving artisanal foods. The ‘Dumbo’ area (Down Under The Manhattan Bridge Overpass) in Brooklyn is full of these trucks. We found a truck that served savory pies just under 5 dollars!

Also don’t forget to try a real New York Pretzle, sold at about every street corner in Manhattan!

Oatmeal at Oatmeals
Probably the healthiest one out of the bunch. I wrote about this place earlier, and it fits right into this budget top 5. If you take a small portion (which is enough for a small to medium eater) you’ll stay under the 5 dollars. For lunch I would recommend trying their savory choices. How many places on earth can you get a portion of oatmeal covered with goat cheese, bacon, dates and sliced almonds? This is your chance!

Oatmeals:120 W 3rd street

Burger at Shake Shack
You can find about any kind of burger in NYC, but which burger is good ánd stays under the 5 dollars? I did some research, and decided to try out the Shake Shack; a place that started out as a little stand by Madison Square Park, and became so popular that is has now four locations all over Manhattan. Beware of the huge lines at lunch time, but just as so many good things in NYC you gotta go where the crowd is. There is actually a ‘Shack cam’ filming the waiting line live, so before you head out there you can  check the line out on their website. I can tell you, this 4,20$ burger is totally worth standing in line for.

The original location of the Shake Shack can be found in Madison Square Park

The post 5 Lunch ideas under 5 dollars in New York City appeared first on In The Name Of Food.

Smorgasburg
My favorite of all markets. It has a few different locations, the East River State Park has a beautiful view over Manhattan. This view alone is worth going here!

The market offers plenty of ready-to-eat handmade foods sold by a big variety of food stands. It’s like a mini food festival! A lot of barbecue, a lot of burgers, but also some Asian and Latin American food. A main dish will cost about 7-10 dollars on average, and pastries and drinks can be found around 3 dollars.

One of the main attractions from the Smorgasburg market is the Ramen burger. In fact, it is one of the most instagrammed dishes of NYC! The line at the stand can be pretty intimidating, but at the rate of the burgers being made it will probably not take you more than 5-10 minutes to get one. At 10 dollars per piece I found them a bit overpriced, but is has to be said that it’s a good burger. The crunchy ramen-bun is a nice replacement of the ordinary white bread. But it’s not so much more than just a good burger, so if you’re not too curious about it, I would advise you to look around and pick another great dish out of the many to be found.

The Indian dish from Paranta Alley, for example, was extraordinary! Very un-American spicy as well. The portions will probably not get you through the day, but it’s a great snack.

This market has a great festival vibe going on, and there are plenty of picnic tables and spots on the grass in the park to sit and eat your food. If you’re visiting New York and you want to pick one market to see, this one would be my top recommendation!

Smorgasburg runs from April to November in weekends in different locations. Look for current locations on smorgasburg.com

Chelsea Market
Chelsea market is a big food hall, or as they call themselves “an enclosed urban food court”. This inside market offers over 35 different food stands, from sandwich-stand to a lobster place. If you just want a simple grab, there are some coffee places and bakeries. If you want to slurp ramen at the bar of a Korean place; it got you covered.

My favorite place in Chelsea Market is Beyond Sushi. This vegan place serves (vegan) sushi, rolls, wraps, salads and soups . Although not super cheap (8,75 for the regular wraps), it’s super tasty and full of freshly cut vegetables.

The sandwiches from the Cambodian sandwich place Num Pang are also definitely worth a stop (tip: the avocado smash on a quinoa roll). Sandwiches are around 8-9 dollars. Again, this is not a place where you come for the cheap food.

Chelsea market is always very busy, and the places to sit are sparse. It’s a better idea to just get your food and find some place to sit outside.

Chelsea Market is open all year round and can be found at75 Ninth Ave, New York.

Queens Night Market
As you might guess from the name, this market is held in Queens, at night. Every saturday from 6 PM until 12 AM, this is the place to be if you want to taste some very popular street food combined with a great over all ambiance (with a live band!). You’ll moslty find Asian food, but there’s also Brasilian, Mexican, Middle-East and real American food to be found.

For some reason many vendors on this market offer fried foods. Fried mac&cheese, fried ice-cream, fried cookies.. I could not leave without having tried the fried cheesecake. It was interesting, to say the least, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone ;)

It’s a cool place to try out exotic dishes (ever tried jellyfish?) in small quantities, and there is plenty to look at. Tip if you don’t want to take a risk: go where the big lines are.

Queens night market has recently moved to 90-02 168th Street in Downtown Jamaica, New York

Gansevoort Market
This market resembles Chelsea market, but on a much smaller scale. That also means: less people, which is great because you probably will find a place to sit (although lunch time might be busy). I personally prefer this market to Chelsea market, although there’s less of an abondance in food choices.

Gansevoort market is open year round and can be found at 52 Gansevoort St and is open year round.

Union Square Greenmarket
This farmers market on Union Square is worth dropping by. A huge selection of fresh, locally grown and (mostly) organic fruits and vegetables, different kinds of artisanal breads, local sourced cheeses… This is where you want to go to do some sustainable groceries! You won’t find as many ‘ready to eat’ foods as in the other markets, although fresh strawberries and blueberries do a pretty good job as a midday snack!

Union Square Greenmarket can be found on the North and West sides of Union Square Park, open Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, year round ( 8:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.).

The post 5 food markets worth visiting in New York City! appeared first on In The Name Of Food.

Magnolia Bakery
Probably the most famous one, and featured on series like ‘Sex and the City’ and movies like ‘The devil wears Prada’. This bakery is mostly famous for its cupcakes, and is said to have started the cupcake craze in the 90’s.

With somewhat high expectations I took the subway to downtown Manhattan and walked over to the bakery, where a big line of people waiting to place their orders was formed. This gave me some time to look around and pick my cupcake. The place looks adorable and is like a cliche little girls dream; lots of pink, pastels and flowers. There’s a bit of a stressful vibe though; because of the huge amount of people (all tourists want to try this), the staff keeps shouting instructions (this line for the cupcakes!, that line for the payments!) and there were some people trying to sneak in between other people, which was annoying other people.

There is definitely no space to enjoy your cupcake here, your order gets carefully and stylishly packed, and you get it to go. For me the wrapping part is about the most positive thing about getting your cupcake here, because the taste of the actual cupcake was a bit of a disappointment. My red velvet cupcake was dry and just didn’t have that much taste. The buttercream was good though, but it’s hard to go wrong with butter and sugar mixed together ;) cupcake prices start at 3.25$, the red velvet cupcake was 3,50$.

Honestly, I only tried the red velvet cupcake, so I cannot say much about the other pastries, but I wouldn’t care to come back here. Keep reading on to find out what cupcake shop I would recommend you going!

Magnolia Bakery locatations: 401 Bleeker St (West Village) and in the Rockefeller center

Doughnut Plant
This donut place opened in 1994, and has since then expanded with four locations in NYC (Long Island, Brooklyn and two in Manhattan). Claimed as best doughnuts of NYC by many, there was no way I could leave New York without trying these first.

The place looks sophisticated and has some industrial touches to it. Not an ordinary bakery feel! The fact that they spell ‘doughnut’ and not ‘donut’ fits the place. The location in Chelsea that I visited had some nice sitting area.

At the Doughnut Plant you can choose the type of doughnut you want: yeast, cake or filled. Mark Israel, the founder of Doughnut Plant, is the inventor of the jelly-filled square doughnut, so if you want to get something special you could go for that one.

What I’ve heard is that the donut to go for is the yeast one. That’s why I left the bakery with a nice yeast based vanilla bean donut in a box. Verdict? Amazing! Super light, airy and it has a non-greasy feeling, which is quite an accomplishment with a donut. If the only donuts you have tried are the Dunkin Donut or supermarkets kind of donuts, you definitely have to try this one, it’s a donut on a whole different level! It might cost a bit more (3,35$ for a yeast donut), but I promise you won’t regret it.

Doughnut Plant Manhattan: 220 West 23rd Street (Chelsea) and 379 Grand Street (Lower East side).

Molly’s cupcakes
Oke, let’s go back to cupcakes again. If you google ‘best cupcakes NYC’ you’ll see a lot of people mentioning Molly’s cupcakes.

I love the ‘village bakery’ feel, somehow you can imagine ‘Molly’ having started this bakery out of a big passion for baking (although that’s not the real story). At least it hasn’t become a big coorporation, it is still very low scale and personal. I asked for the most popular cupcake they had, which is the ‘cake batter’ cupcake: a confetti cupcake filled with cake batter and topped with vanilla buttercream. We choose to take it to go, since it was still a bit early to stress our insulin levels. Big mistake. The package didn’t hold up very well, and with 34 degrees Celsius out it started melting a little. Good I took a picture before we left!

Although the conditions had been harsh on the cupcake, and it didn’t look as pretty anymore, the taste seemed not to be affected by it. This cupcake is totally what I expect out of a famous cupcake. I mean, cake-batter filling?! Yum! Rich flavor, ‘moist’ cake and amazing buttercream. My dream-birthday cake would be made out of this, for sure!

If you are visiting NYC and in need of a cupcake, go straight to Molly’s cupcakes! They have plenty of flavors, and even serve vegan ones. Just remember to eat it right away, if it’s hot outside ;) Cupcakes start at 2$, the center filled cupcakes are 3$.

Molly’s cupcakes, 228 Bleecker street, NYC.

The Cronut
I remember when two years ago suddenly there was ‘the cronut’. Created by Dominique Ansel, a French baker who has his bakery based in NYC. The cronut is a mix between a donut and a croissant, having the shape of a donut, but the flakiness of a croissant. This was supposed to be the best pastry ever, and people were spending hours waiting in line to get one. I remember thinking those people must have been a little crazy, and what could possibly be so good about a croissant/donut merge?

Being in New York a few years later, I started thinking about this cronut again. I tasted some supermarket-cronuts in the meanwhile, but was curious to taste the real deal. I looked up the bakery and went there on a sunny afternoon. The craze must be over by now, I thought. Boy was I wrong. The lady at the counter told me that the only way to get a cronut was to arrive preferably not later than 7 AM, and wait in line until the bakery opens at 8 AM. If I was lucky I could get my hands on one.

I was already mentally saying goodbye to the cronut, not willing to leave from Brooklyn around 6 AM just to get a pastry, if there wasn’t a very kind person offering to get it for me (thank you JP!). Fun fact: there is actually people you can hire to do the line for you and get you the cronuts (no not JP, although he might be willing to depending on the pay).

So this is not by first-hand experience, but when JP arrived at the bakery at 6:45 there were already 9 people waiting in line. 1,5 hours of waiting later, with a free glass of lemonade and a mini-madeleine, the moment was there to take the cronut to its final destination: home!

All this show around the cronut, and the ‘unnatural scarcity’ sets the expectations pretty high. I don’t know if this works against or for the cronut. High expectations make it easy to get disappointed, but then again the feeling of luxury around it gives the whole cronut experience a golden edge (just like an expensive shampoo seems to work better than a cheap one, even if there’s actually no real difference).

I was actually a bit disappointed to see that the cronut was not just a simple cronut, but filled with cream and topped with an icing. I would have liked to taste the cronut without any pimping, but apparently this is the only way to go. You can only get the cronut in one flavor, which changes every month. We were lucky to taste the cronut with a bourbon cream, peach filling (a bit compote like) with icing and lemon zest sugar.

My first impression? Wow, look at that cronut-box. How good does that look? And the cronut itself: it’s like a cake, with all the fillings and toppings. The taste is quite sublime, you can taste the different dimensions in the flavors and is not just sugar and grease. The subtile bourbon taste goes well with the fruitiness of the peach. There is definitely something working well here. The cronut itself is somewhere between crispy and fluffy. But the thing I don’t understand is: who would eat this for breakfast? Why is this a morning-thing? I had a few bites, enough to have a good taste, and I enjoyed it, but I was happy having JP eat most of it (after all, he did all the hard work for it). This cronut thing is a bit too heavy for me.

The cronut is 5 dollars, which is expensive for a donut but not that expensive for a unique experience ;) I would recommend skipping the place if you are only shortly visiting NYC, but if you have some extra time to spend (and don’t mind getting up early) why not get in line and review the cronut for yourself?

(Confession: We’re thinking of trying the September version, bergamot- Earl Grey).

Dominique Ansel’s bakery can be found at 189 Spring St, NYC.

The post The most famous sweet places in New York City appeared first on In The Name Of Food.

I love oatmeal, oatmeal-cookies, oatmeal-granola and basically everything else with oats, so I couldn’t not like this place. I came here already in November last year, and liked the place so much that I had to pop in again for an early breakfast.

The menu offers endless variation, as you can not only pick from about 30 different signature bowls, but also custom make the oatmeal yourself by adding ingredients like fresh fruits, nuts, seeds, cookie crumbs or chocolate. They have 80 toppings to choose from! The basis is always oatmeal, made with your choice of either milk or water.

If you thought oatmeal is supposed to be sweet, you’d be surprised by some of the savoury oatmeals here. Some examples of toppings you can add: bacon, ham, Gorgonzola cheese, olive oil and Parmesan cheese. Last time I visited I tried one of the signature bowls that comes with trufffle oil, Parmesan cheese, pepper and salt, and it tasted great! It didn’t have a classic oatmeal feel to it anymore though, and I regret having taken it for breakfast. It makes kind of a heavy dish, so I would recommend taking the savoury ones for lunch or a late afternoon snack.

This time we shared a peanut butter-banana-almond milk oatmeal for breakfast. As you can see on the picture, they didn’t hold back on the peanut butter ;) It was good, but I would get something lighter next time and go for toppings like fresh blueberries, strawberries and raspberries. Yum!

The oatmeal pastries are also totally worth looking at. The blueberry-oatmeal muffin (2,75$) is amazing and I secretly would choose this over any oatmeal.

Oatmeals also serves nice coffee (1,75$ for a normal coffee, 3,25$ for a latte). It’s a perfect place to have breakfast, a lunch or even an early dinner! The only downside of this place is the space. However it looks really cute and tiny, sitting here isn’t that comfortable, as there aren’t that many seats and it feels a bit cramped if there are people sitting next to you. If the weather allows, I would recommend getting the food to go.

Prices: The small oatmeal (baby bear) starts at 4,25$, a medium one (mama bear) is 5,25$ and the large one (papa bear) is 6,25$.

Find OatMeals at 120 West 3rd Street, New York

The post Oatmeals – NYC appeared first on In The Name Of Food.

You can find about anything in this city that you could ever think of, and just as many places that you could never even have imagined. There’s the hidden gems: a small, cheap pizza place that turns out to make the best pizza in the world (yes, you’ll read about this on my blog soon!), and then there’s the extravagant, unaffordable places where you have to reserve months in advance (no, you probably won’t read about these on my blog, although I recently visited a pretty exclusive place that I will definitely share!). And then there is everything in between. So much choice, it makes me envy the New Yorkers, and it answers my question to why people here never seem to cook at home.

By Chloe

Well, you have to start somewhere, right? And why not do it at a healthy place? By Chloe, located in Greenwich village in Manhattan, is a café, juice bar and bakery in one, serving from brunch to dinner. Although you’ll find things on the menu like ‘bacon’ and ‘meatballs’ everything they serve here is 100% vegan. Ingredients used are mostly seasonal and locally sourced.

The place has a clean, modern look and has a cozy vibe; you want to stay and hang around! Unfortunately we did not have a chance to hang around for very long. We visited on a weekend, so the place was crowded. So crowded that we had to take the meal to go, which is actually not such a punishment with sunny 30 degrees Celsius weather outside and a park at five minutes walking distance. About everything on the menu looks good, but in the end we settled for a small pasta with avocado-pesto sauce and a ‘spicy chorizo’ salad with black beans, quinoa, avocado and corn.

They both were as good as they look. The pasta was smooth and very flavorful, and the salad super fresh and very well filled with delicious ingredients. A big shout out to the amazing basil-lemonade, of course home-made and the best lemonade I’ve had.

The price is very reasonable. For the food and the drink that you see in this article we payed 20 dollars, including tax. If you are passing by but don’t feel like having a whole meal: they have tons of pastries and serve home-made ice-cream as well (all vegan, of course). I might have to go get a taste of those soon!

You can find By Chloe on 185 Bleecker Street, New York.

The post NYC- by Chloe appeared first on In The Name Of Food.

The Keys are a line of islands that form the long ‘tail’ of Florida, with Key West as the most Southern one point. At this point you are only 145 kilometers of ocean away from Cuba, making it the most southern point of the USA. There’s a famous landmark that indicates this point, but we never made it there because just when we were ready to go, all hell broke loose in the sky and a huge thunderstorm came raging over. That was pretty impressive to see, as all the roads turned into wild rivers.

Luckily, the day we had planned to go snorkeling, the weather was clear. We took Lucie on the boat with us, and took turns in diving in the water. What an amazing experience! We saw tons of colorful fishes (that’s how far my fish-knowledge goes), purple jellyfish, a barracuda and even two sea turtles! Someone in our snorkeling group even saw a nurse shark, that I luckily missed because I would probably have drowned in fear.

Half Shell Raw Bar
If you are into seafood, the Keys are definitely the place to be. Actually if you are not into seafood you might have a hard time finding good food options.
We tried our luck at the Half Shell Raw Bar, in Key West. The food here is simple, but the seafood is of great quality and very well prepared. All the seafood is super fresh, and I can’t think of a better place to have it! The shrimps were amazing, as were the mussels (which I never saw this huge!).

What better way to end a meal with Key Lime pie? Originating from the Keys, this cheesecake made with key limes (therefore the name), is hard to go wrong with. This one in particular was extraordinary, made with fresh lime juice.

Although the place looks pretty simple, the price tag of this dinner for two (and a half) was 52 dollar, including two alcoholic beverages. This is a pretty common price for the Keys, it’s hard to find any cheaper options around.

The post The Keys, Florida appeared first on In The Name Of Food.

The city itself is not really a city with a cozy center, as it mainly consist of one long street. Some parts are very fancy (including private yachts), some parts are more basic. The part close to the beach has all the restaurants and bars, and is obviously most touristic. Public transport is great here, we used the bus many times to get to the beach.

A beach is a beach is a beach
I love beaches, but to me they’re all the same, besides some basic things like temperature and whether it is a stone- or sand beach. Still I can say that Pompano Beach is the best family-friendly beach that I visited on the Floridian coastline. Plenty of space, coast guards every 50 meters and the ocean gradually gets deeper. Most of the time the ocean is pretty calm, making it perfect for small children. The water is so clear that you can see fish swimming, even without goggles. We saw a few manta ray’s swimming by one day!

The beach in Fort Lauderdale, just some kilometers south of Pompano Beach, is very nice as well. Beautiful water, many palm trees to sit under and plenty of bars and restaurants around.

Sunshine state?
During our stay I kept wondering why Florida is called the ‘sunshine state’. We saw the sun a couple of times in the morning, but other than that it was clouds, thunderstorms and rain. No wonder that the preferred time for tourists to visit Florida is winter, as this is when the weather is great: perfect temperatures (24-28 degrees Celsius) and sunny. From May through October the wet season runs, and this is when thunderstorms are a daily occurrence. The temperature is still excruciating though. Although an average of only 32 degrees Celsius, the humidity makes it feel like 40!

Forrest
A big tip when in the area of Pompano Beach, is the Fern Forrest Nature Center. This little rainforest features swamps, beautiful trees and flowers and many photogenic butterflies. The trails are quite easy, and you can choose from several loops (short or long). Some trails are built on an elevated deck, which gives a nice perspective, while some loops are on the ground (hello mosquitoes!).

This forrest is a great alternative to the beach, a bit more active and definitely more shadow and coolness to enjoy! You can still hear cars at any point though, so you can’t really pretend to really be out in the wild.

The post Pompano Beach appeared first on In The Name Of Food.

In between the thunderstorms (there is actually a tiny monsoon between June and September), we enjoyed so much walking around the cobble stone roads and visiting this old American city. There is a very nice beach close by Savannah on Tybee Island, famous for its Lighthouse.

The squares in Savannah are so charming and full of character, and have such a peaceful vibe. One of the squares was actually used as a set in the movie ‘Forrest Gump’ (the scenes where he sits on the bench, telling his story). The bench has since then been removed from Chipawa square, but the square still remains.

The Sentient Bean
We had a great food experience in the Sentient Bean cafe in downtown Savannah. While the weather was getting more and more threatening, we sat down at the (roofed) terrace, enjoying an awesome quinoa salad with avocados, nut pâté and beans, together with delicious quesadillas filled with hummus, tomatoes and spinach.

The Sentient Bean offers a big menu with plenty of vegetarian and vegan options, plus they serve breakfast all day, which I think is always a good thing :). The place is reasonably priced (we paid 14$ all together without tax), portions are a bit smaller than the average place. You won’t get the real southern food experience here, but if you are into more healthy or vegetarian eating, this is the place to go!

The post Savannah and its Oak trees appeared first on In The Name Of Food.

Georgia is considered one of the states of ‘the deep south’, which means: sun and warmth…yes! Georgia has a subtropical climate, so high temperatures, especially in summer, are combined with an occasional thunderstorm.

We explored the environments of Augusta, which had plenty to offer, and had a great hike around the Savannah Rapids. We were not by ourselves (to say the least) but it was an easy, kid-friendly trail and gave a nice taste of the water-rich environment.

Foodwise, the cuisine of the deep South has its own characteristics (and is quite similar to soulfood, which is more popular in the African American community): fried chicken, collard greens, fried Okra, corn bread and grits are a few examples of famous Southern dishes.

Grits are made by cooking crushed corn into water or milk, which turns it into a porridge. Popular for breakfast, people either eat it sweet (by adding sugar or syrup) or savoury (by adding cheese, bacon or sausage). Of course I had to try this dish at breakfast; it was OK… but just plain porridge (probably didn’t pimp it enough). Lucie was quite happy to finish my portion after hers though!

Not feeling much like eating fried chicken or other fried goods, we decided to not try more soulfood for dinner, but went for a more conveniently located mainstream foodchain that was still unknown to us: Zoe’s Kitchen. This place is pretty simple and has the healthy vibe going on. We had the vegetable kebob and the grilled cheese sandwich, and Lucie had her own little quesadilla. My personal favorite: the vegetable kebob, with grilled portobello mushrooms, peppers, tomatoes and onions.

You can definitely find cheaper places than this (21 dollars for the three dishes), but I really enjoyed the food and the place. The place actually offered a nice terrace that we greatfully used, although most local people prefer to stay inside with the ice cold airconditioning. I’ll keep Zoe’s kitchen in mind for a next time!

The post Georgia on my mind appeared first on In The Name Of Food.

Rawlicious
Rawlicious is a food chain in and around Toronto. We visited the one in Burlington. Everything in this place is vegan, and raw! Raw as in really raw, uncooked! This place got me excited because it is quite different to what I normally eat, and because I was extremely curious to what you can cook (or in this case ‘prepare’ would be a better choice of words) with only vegetables, fruits, grains, beans, nuts and seeds.

Turns out; you can do a lot with just those ingredients, and it’s pretty darn tasty! We went for the quesadillas and the onion bread dish. Both where served with an OK coleslaw, but the show stealers where the dishes themselves.

I still can not get over how amazing the food was. The quesadillas had so much flavor, and were so ‘cheesy’, yet the base of this cheese was not dairy but cashew nuts (how?!). The onion-bread; so crunchy, spicy, and filled with delicious guacamole, tomatoes and alfalfa. I have no idea how they make the onion-bread so bread like, but I suspect it is made using a drying method.

The cherry on the (vegan) pie was the dessert, key lime pie. I’ve had vegan and raw pies before, but they always had a weird aftertaste. This key lime pie just tasted like amazing key lime pie, nothing else. And again, for a vegan and raw noob like me it is unbelievable how creamy and smooth this pie was, without any form of milk or cream. The filling of this key lime pie consists of cashews, coconut and lime, the crust a mix of dates, buckwheat and almonds.

If visiting the Toronto area, it’s so worth passing by Rawlicious. It’s a bit on the pricy side compared to the more mainstream places, we paid 35 CAD (25 euro) for two dishes and a dessert. It’s a shame there are not more Rawlicious franchises in the rest of Canada or the US, I would definitely come back every now and then!

Loving Hut
Right in the center of Toronto, when desperately looking for a place to have lunch while the rain was pouring down, we came across a vegan place called Loving Hut. In fact, Loving Hut is an international vegan food chain, and even has two restaurants in Holland (in Amsterdam and Maastricht). I however had never heard of it!

From the outside the place doesn’t look all too cozy, but the inside is inviting and modern. The menu offers huge selection of vegan and nut-free options. Somehow we managed to choose dishes with almost no vegetables, which is quite ironic in a vegan place (although we could have known when we choose the burger).

The vegan burger was great, but the bread was a bit dry. The french fries were delicious though; crunchy, golden brown and house made. The best thing we tasted here was the Pad Thai with tofu and tempeh. The sauce was flavorful, spicy (on request) and filled with fresh bell pepper, bean sprouts and onion. If visiting this place, definitely go for one of their Asian dishes!

Of course we had to try a dessert as well, so we went for the cheesecake. Strong vanilla flavor and nice creamy consistency; exactly what I like in a cheesecake. There’s a bit of a funny aftertaste, but it’s good pie nonetheless.
The price tag: 32 CAD (23 euro) for two main dishes and a dessert.

To end this post, here are some pictures of rainy and cold Toronto

The post On the vegan tour in Toronto appeared first on In The Name Of Food.