My Friday was pretty awesome. I’d spent all week working on assignments, and when I finally handed them in on Friday morning, I decided to celebrate by visiting a couple of stores in the Hague. I bought a few Christmas presents, shopped at one of my favourite stores (Lush!), and I had lunch at a vegetarian restaurant.

I’ll start with the restaurant. The place is called Baklust, and I actually hadn’t heard of it until recently! They sell vegan cakes, sandwiches, empanadas, fresh juices, hot beverages (with soy milk!) and other delicious meals! Their menu is on their website (only in Dutch, but check out their website, it looks lovely!), but there are also daily and/or weekly specials available at the restaurant itself. I love the atmosphere at this place. Look:

I love the little birds everywhere, and their logo is pretty cute, too (that’s the sticker on the brown bag in the middle). My lunch consisted of a spicy seitan sandwich, a pink grapefruit juice, and a piece of vegan cake to take out. The sandwich was awesome. I would probably choose a different type of juice to go with my lunch next time (I liked it, but I’d prefer something a little sweeter), but otherwise this was great!

The sandwich consisted of two slices of bread, spicy pieces of seitan, romaine lettuce, red cabbage, and cucumber raita. I’m a little disappointed that the picture turned out a bit blurry and dark, but… at least you can see what the dish looks like.

For dessert, I bought a piece of vegan cake and took it home to share with my boyfriend. We loved it! I don’t remember exactly what was in it (apart from coconut, obviously), but it was really, really good. I’d love to go back and try their vegan chocolate walnut banana cake! They also have sandwiches with hummus or lentil paté, a grilled sandwich with peanut butter, garlic, sambal and apple, and more… yum yum. I can’t wait to go back sometime!

Afterwards, I walked to the Lush store to pick up a few Christmas presents. I usually order their stuff online, so it was nice to be able to look at (and smell!) the products before actually buying them. When I was at the store, I started talking to a man who turned out to be one of the founders of the company, and we had a conversation about the different products and how awesome Lush is in general. That was great! They gave me a couple of demonstrations of specific bath products, as well, which is alway fun to see..

Lastly, I really wanted to go to Thomas Green, a British/American food specialty store that carries a couple of vegan products I’m interested in. Unfortunately, they were out of vegetarian haggis when I visited, but I did get my hands on a package of Linda McCartney vegetarian sausages. I haven’t opened the package yet, but I’m excited to try them!

Oh, by the way, I love the snow on WordPress. I first noticed these little snowflakes falling down on Mihl and Hannah’s websites, and now the snow has spread to my blog, as well. Fun!

One last thing: I plan on baking a bunch of cookies for Christmas this year, but I haven’t decided which recipes to make. I do have a few recipes in mind, but … Any suggestions? I know there are loads of excellent cookie recipes in the cookbooks I mentioned in my previous posts, but I’d really appreciate specific recommendations, too!