Boos K'fe

When everyone in the US and in the Philippines was celebrating Mother's Day, my boys treated me to a Mother's Day Buffet Brunch in Boos K'fe, which was my restaurant of choice. :)

Every time we head to Strassen or go to Arlon, Belgium, we always pass by Boos K'fe. The place caught my attention a couple of months back because on Sundays, their parking is always full. They also have a resort-looking outdoor set up that can be seen from outside. I checked them out online one time to see if they are children-friendly before my gang and I trudge over there for a meal.

It was a gorgeous sunny day when we went there. As usual, the parking was full but they had valet parking that still had a few more vacant places and that's where we parked. We didn't have a reservation as it was a spur of the moment decision. Their outdoor tables were fully booked but they offered us a table indoors, which was almost vacant except for two other tables. Sadly, it was warmer inside while it was breezy outside. Well, that's the downside of not making a reservation.

Anyway, the place felt festive. There were lots of people, families, friends taking all the sun the day offered. The music was upbeat and beach-like. There were children running around and playing in the sandstrip barefoot, building a road-way in the sand. Waiters or Lifeguards as they called them were scurrying from one table to another from the kitchen. Some Lifeguards were offering customers outside straw hats as protection from the sun.

Since it was a sunny day, the buffet brunch had a barbecue grill with burgers, beef ribs, porkchops, pork ribs, chicken, and sausages. There was a table for desserts featuring flavored mousse, fresh fruit salad, muffins. There was also a set up for an English Breakfast with a variety of bread, eggs among other things and another table with cold salads, carpaccio, sushi. My eyes lit up and my appetite was extremely alert and excited. The repertoire of their buffet brunch barbecue didn't disappoint. It was delicious and yummy even to my Asian-trained tastebuds that often find European food bland.

When we had our fill, we transferred to a table outdoors where we sat on beach chairs, kicked off our shoes and let Polo play in the sand. We also took off Nicolo's socks and shoes and let him discover the feel of sand on his feet -- it was new to him. We chilled there for a while and allowed our skin to absorb the vitamin D our bodies badly needed.

The buffet set us back by thirty euros for the adults and half the price for the children. It costed much more than what we expected but it was worth it for a Mother's Day feast care of my boys.

'Tis the Season of Cherries!!!

I have a picture cherry-picking in San Diego, California when I was less than five years old. I ate a few pieces of these in the Philippines last year when my sister's boyfriend came home from HongKong (or maybe Japan, I forgot where). On rare ocassions, they were sold in one of the malls in Makati and in Chinatown for Php 300 for one-fourth a kilo.

Luckily, it's in season here in Luxembourg! Last week, I requested my dear husband to bring home some and here's a picture. They didn't taste like the cherry flavor of cough syrups, chapstick or lipstick because those taste more like cherries that come in bottles and are soaked in syrup. These tasted subtle, the kind that make you never stop eating in search for the flavor. In any case, I found them refreshing, a refreshing break from our usual banana, apple, pear, and ocassional strawberry and grape fruit repertoire at home.

The Chocolate House

We stumbled upon The Chocolate House on a rainy windy afternon last Autumn. It was a good discovery! It is a lovely cozy go-to place for chilling out with warm drinks, chocolates, cakes and pastries. It is my husband's temporary alternative to the Starbucks experience that he has been longing for ever since we came here to Luxembourg.

The place is known for their hot CHOCspoons - they are a chocolate cubes of different flavors that come with a wooden spoon. The chocolate cube is stirred in a mug of hot milk that becomes a flavored chocolate drink when the chocolate cube melts. The CHOCspoons are very comforting during cold Autumn and Winter days.

For spring, they have a number of cold concoctions to cool down their visitors on a warm day. Check out what we had:

ChocoLoco - 1 slice of brownie with 3 scoops of chocolate ice cream (but I changed mine to vanilla) with cream and chocolate bits



Kids Only - 3 scoops of ice cream (vanilla and strawberry) with cream, smarties, and candy sprinkles





Stawberry Tarte - one of the cake selections for the day.





For me, their hotchocspoons are still their best offers.

Ahoy Mateys!

It's wonderful to note that everything I need to know about making a birthday cake is on the web! And it isn't just any birthday cake at that. It is a pirateship-looking cake for my Captain P who is turning four on the 21st of February.

Thanks to google search, I found a simple and highly rated chocolate cake recipe as well as one for choco frosting.

It was one thing to make it and to make it look fun and interesting. It's another thing to wrap it up and transport it. Visions of my college friends who took up engineering came to mind while I was wrapping up the cake. They would have measured every angle and side and produced a well-proportioned and stable packaging for this. In my own layman's way, I got a used file folder, wax paper, a stapler and tape and voila! I managed to package the Pirateship cake and bring it to Captain P's Precoce all in one piece. Whew!

Ok, so it looks more like a barge or something than a ship but it won Captain P's approval and the favor of his classmates and teachers. :)

Not bad for a first (well, ok second cake because I did a dry-run two weeks ago... hehehe). Thanks to the expensive cost and lack of sweetness and options for children's birthday cakes here in Luxembourg, a corporate lady turned homemaker like me is finding joy in making sweet fun treats for my boys.

Thanks to the links below, I am slowly redeeming my reputation as a bad-floppy baker. Hahaha!!!

One bowl chocolate cake recipe
Rich Chocolate frosting
Piping bag instructions
Nutella Frosting
Pirateship Cake Design Samples

Who will be King?

The Feast of the Epiphany, the time when Jesus manifests Himself to the three kings or the three wise men -- Gaspar, Melcor, and Baltazar -- is celebrated during mass on the first Sunday after New Year's Day in the Philippines.  In Bulgaria, men dance in the icy water of the Tundzha River in belief that the one who retrieves the cross from the river and those who dance there are blessed with good health throughout the year. In Spain, they have a Three Kings parade and give gifts to children in the morning of the 6th of January. The Epiphany is celebrated in various ways all over the world. Check out this link for more.

Here in Luxembourg, they have the galette des rois (King's Tart or Pie). It is filled with pomme (apple) or frangipane (almond cream) and is topped with a golden paper crown. Hidden inside the pie is a small image of a child and whoever gets it in his slice of pie receives the crown and becomes king for a day. All bakeshops sell it weeks before January 6.

I learned about this in the blog of a resident here. Good thing, I read it a few days before the actual feast. To go with the flow and to experience something new, I ordered a galette des rois from our neighborhood's bread and bakeshop and brought it home for us to try it out. I was curious about how it tastes and was also excited to introduce Polo to this Luxembourgish tradition.

.... So after dinner, I brought out the galette de rois and served it as dessert partnered with coffee. I like the buttery taste and crumbly texture of the pie's crust. The apple filling was more like compote or apple jam.

Guess who got to play king for the night?