Droog Amsterdam - Café

Droog is a design shop in Staalstraat, one of my favorite streets in Amsterdam. First they only had a small shop where designer furniture was sold, but since a few months they have extended the shop and opened up their own cafe. Now they also sell more affordable design goodies and they offer the possibility to drink a cup of coffee while dreaming about what you would love to buy. Just like you would expect from a cafe in a design store, the interior is absolutely amazing. If I get to live in a house like this when I am old, I would love to decorate the place like Droog Cafe. The cafe is well hidden within the store so it is really nice and quiet inside.

And then of course the food & drinks! Droog cafe sells coffee, tea, juices, sandwiches and salads. If you order tea you get to choose from a whole bunch of different flavours, jummy! but what I would really recommend is their chocolate pie. Without a doubt one of the best I have ever eaten!

Genau Genau @ Sugarfactory - 6th of October

As you might know, I host a montly club night at club Sugarfactory. Together with a friend of mine, I organize deephouse parties called Genau Genau. We used to do this at Thurdays, but starting from the 6th of October we have been asked to host Saturdays from now on! We have booked some great DJ's, who have played at Awakenings, Next Mondays Hangover, Cocoon and for Overdose.am. Really exciting! Come and join us at the 6th of October, read more about the event at our Facebook page To get in the party mood, you can check out one of our DJ's sets here:

http://soundcloud.com/koenlebens/koen-lebens-lazy-sundays12-08

Oh, and to reveal another little secret to you: we will also organize the new years eve party at Sugarfactory! So If you would like to go to a party with some really good music, where you do'nt have to pay the grand prize for entrance and where you still feel the new years eve vibe, keep yourself posted via www.sugarfactory.nl!

Station Roos @ Wibautstraat

Yesterday I was walking at Wibautstraat with a friend of mine, when we suddenly ran in to this cute ice cream store. It was raining very hard so it wasn't the best time to get an ice cream, but since the store looked so nice and the ice cream so delicious we couldn't resist it. The girl who owns the store told us that she had just opened up and that all the ice cream is handmade by herself. She lives in the neighbourhood of Wibautstraat and since she found that there wasn't a good ice cream shop in this area yet, she decided to open up a store herself. She has learned to make the ice cream from an Italian guy, who still teaches her to make new flavours.

When we were there yesterday, she had just made apple ice cream with pieces of apple in it. Lovely! I decided to have blueberry and apple, while Wessel chose dark chocolate and lemon. If you like chocolate, you should really try the chocolate ice cream because it has a great chocolate taste and it also has big pieces of chocolate in it. Yum! :) At the moment, Station Roos sells ice creams and coffee, but in the near future you will also be able to grab lunch here.

The store is open Tuesday till Sunday from 12.00-21.00. Check out the Facebook page of Station Roos for more info.

Organic candy @ Nieuwe Hoogstraat

When it comes to food, I like to live very conscious. I am a vegetarian so I don't eat both meat and fish, but I also try to eat as less food with food preservatives as possible. At work however, we have a huuuge candy jar and since I love sweets I do like to eat some candies while working.

I had a discussion this week with a colleague about the fact that it is actually kind of strange to be so conscious about eating i.e. bread without preservatives and eating organic vegetables but to eat candies which are made with gelatin (which is also made out of the bones of a cow) without even thinking about it. We agreed that it is not that easy to find good-tasting organic candies. But when I walked down Nieuwe Hoogstraat this morning, I discovered Candy Freaks: a lovely little store which actually sells loads of organic sweets!

I just had to take a look inside so I walked into the store and looked around a bit. The owner greeted me very friendly and immediately showed me around. He let me taste all kinds of different candies and told me what made these sweets so special. The one you see on the picture above for example, are made on a farm and are probably the only sweets that entirely exist of fruit. As you can see, there even are still raspberry seeds within them!

Candy Freaks sells sweets without gelatin, sugar and vegetarian-approved sweets. Furthermore, they have organic chocolates, sweet and salty organic popcorn and if you really don't want to try the organic ones you can buy classical sweets here as well. I can really recommend you to go here and have a look yourself, please don't hesitate to ask the owners for advice because they are really really nice people. Enjoy!

Check out for more info: https://www.facebook.com/candy.freaks.nl

BBROOD & Koffie @ NDSM-werf

Another hotspot enters Amsterdam Noord! Although it is not open yet, I think it is already worth mentioning it here. At September 17, BBROOD (which you might know from it's delicious bread) opens a little cafe exactly across the street of where the free ferries to NDSM-werf moor. I always go to the IJ-hallenmarket every first Saturday of the month, and until now there wasn't really a spot where you could grab a coffee or a small snack while waiting for the ferry back to the city center. So, I'm very excited to see this little pearl rising here :) At this time, there is still a lot of building going on, but you should definitely keep track of this spot!

Perfect view @ Shell tower

I'm quite a fan of the northern part of Amsterdam. In the past years, a lot of nice places have opened up their doors here. Think for example about EYE, de Tolhuistuin, Pllek..

For this weekend only, another cool hotspot opens its doors in Amsterdam Noord: the Shell Tower, also known as Overhoeks Tower. If you live in Amsterdam, you probably know it. It's situated across Amsterdam Central Station (on the other side of the water) and in between EYE and de Tolhuistuin. The tower, where Shell used to be situated, has been for sale for a very long time now. Once a year it's possible to have a look inside the tower and - most importantly ofcourse - to see the indoubtedly amazing view over Amsterdam. Unfortunately, I am not in town this weekend so I can't go there, but I am pretty sure that it is one of the best viewpoints of Amsterdam since the tower has a height of almost 80(!) meters.

If you'd like to take a look, check out www.shelltoren.nl. The tower is opened at Friday the 17th of August from 14.00-20.00, and at Saturday the 18th and Sunday the 19th of August from 10.00-20.00.
The entrance fee is 2,50.

Stadsbranderij Noord@ Tolhuisweg

 
Nice! Kees Kraakman -who describes himself as a coffee nerd- opened his temporary coffee-roasting factory in the Tolhuistuin (Amsterdam Noord) at the 20th of June. You can take the quick ferry departing at the backside of Amsterdam Central Station to get here. Kraakman roasts coffee beans and serves coffee from freshly roasted beans as well. It is great to see someone being so passionate about coffee, if you are around you should definitely go here and try! :-)
Stadsbranderij Noord is open on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 09:00 - 18:00.

Really really nice place @ Goudsbloemstraat

I haven't had the time to visit this lovely cafe yet since it is only open during weekends and I have been fairly busy the past few weekends. However, from what I have heard about it I can only conclude that I have to go here soon! At this 'really really nice place' (love that name!) you can have the most delicious brunches in the weekends, there are art expositions and other events and they sell great cocktails. When I was living in Berlin, me and my friends used to go out every Friday and Saturday and then start our Sundays with a lazy brunch. These were the best Sundays you could think of :-) There are not a lot of places where you can have a quality brunch in Amsterdam, but if I take a look at this menu I think that it gets close to what we were used to. Luckily, a lot of the friends I made while living in Berlin moved back with me to Amsterdam, so we will definitely check this place out together soon.

Brunch is at Saturdays and Sundays from 11:00-16:00. Check out the brunch menu here & their cocktail menu here, reservations via www.reallyniceplace.com.