WHAT ARE YOU EATING RIGHT NOW?

From ground-level, the immensity of Rotterdam harbour is hard to fathom.
It takes a birds' eye view before you realize that this is human endeavor on a mythic scale, extending out more than twenty miles and encompassing engineering achievements that have altered the landscape beyond recognition.
In short, it's big.

While I still lived in the Netherlands I took a few day-trips by train there, on a whim. I had been reading Kipling, Maugham, and several Dutch East-Indies authors, and felt an urge to see where the ships sailed from.

Rotterdam is actually itself an impressive city. The heart was ripped out during the war by a massive German bombardment, and when peace returned it was rebuilt as the most modern city in Europe.
An achievement of which to be justifiably proud.


I realized once I was there that harbours and industrial vistas, while infinitely charming, must take a backseat to the human dimension.
I vaguely recall having only bread, cheese, and coffee, while there.
After considerable searching and effort.


Good Indonesian food can better be had in Den Haag.

The Hotel Des Indes is just after the bend, where the Lange Voorhout turns into Frederik Street. It is walking distance from the American Embassy on the Korte Voorhout, and altogether not too far from the Central Station.
It's pretty much the most splendid hotel in the country.
Worth visiting, especially once you realize that before it was made into travellers' lodgements, it was a private palace.

Interesting little fact: while German officers partied in the hotel itself, Jews hid in the pigeon coops on the roof.
Another interesting fact: The hotel employed a professional gigolo to dance with women during the twenties.

It's a pilgrimage.

Yes, it's worth eating there, at least once. But the best food in Den Haag is not at luxury hotels or fancy continental restaurants, but at the Indonesian eateries that used to cater to the generations of returnees, exiled into the cold and boggy northern wastelands after a lifetime in the tropics. People who settled in Den Haag because it was one of the few places they still remembered, and where they knew people.
The last of those came in the late fifties, when Soekarno got all huffy about the few Dutch remaining in his newly independent paradise.
There aren't too many of those folks left now.
But the restaurants are still there.


PASAR MALAM BESAR

Every year there's a fair in summer in Den Haag celebrating the culture of Dutch Indonesians ('Indos'). This includes people of all racial derivations, from so white they glow in the dark to descendants of the Ghanaians who served in the colonial constabulary, but mostly of various shades of light olive, because many Indies families had some local genetic stock.

Naturally the main attraction is food. The question "have you eaten yet?" is often the very first thing a visitor hears in an Indies household, and the idea that guests must be made happy with something tasty is ingrained.
One just cannot be hospitable with coffee alone.

Dutch Indonesian food is not the same as Jakarta Indonesian; it is better. Yes, there are some incredibly bizarre Indies-inspired dishes in the Netherlands -- much like the English will vindaloo their Spam and the Heinz baked Beans, damned weirdoes -- but real Indonesian food has access to a greater variety of ingredients, more spices, and an inventiveness not bound by geographical limitations or cultural orthodoxy.
The results are, often, stellar.


Today this event is known as the Tong Tong Fair; the name was changed a few years ago to commemorate Dutch East Indies journalist, author, and activist Jan Boon, who was instrumental in keeping the exiled Indies Dutch aware of and proud of their heritage.
Tong Tong was the name of a magazine that he founded.
The term refers to villagers' wooden alarm gongs.


The fair is close to the Train Station, on the Malieveld.
It is one of the best reasons to visit Den Haag.
Arrive hungry, plan to eat.


May I suggest, as something not too foreign, splitting some bami goreng, saté, gulai kambing, soto ayam, and tall glasses of dawet?
Plus a plate of nasi kuning, of course.
It isn't a meal without nasi.


Salamat makan, ya.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================