Editor Jasmine Groenendijk

Favourite restaurant

Spontaneously, my friend and I slid into Señor Torres on Zoutmanstraat the other day. Dios mío, what a taste sensation awaited us here. This little Venezuelan restaurant serves home-made comfort food in a no-nonsense setting. The menu obviously includes the typical Venezuelan arepas: corn rolls with different (meat) fillings. But also mandocas (doughnuts) and tequeños (a kind of cheese fingers). We went for a pabellón criollo-bowl: rice with tastefully spiced black beans and threaded meat, served with pieces of plantain. After eating, the plates went back into the kitchen almost clean.

Once, I did an internship in Venezuela. This little joint brought me back for a moment to the streets filled with music, fragrant barbecues and friendly Venezuelans.

Restaurant Senor Torres

Tastiest cake

Can it also be ice cream? Since the first bite of artisanal scoop ice cream from Piet Artisans of Flavour, I never leave Piet Heinstraat without at least one scoop of ice cream in my gob. The owners are half French/half German and Israeli and brought back several flavours of ice cream from their world travels. Like Asian sticky rice with mango or halva ice cream with sesame seeds from the Middle East. My latest discovery: watermelon ice cream with the crushed seeds still in it. And that in a crunchy crispy cone with hot chocolate drizzled over it from the chocolate tap. Try resisting that.

Pete Ice Cream Parlour

Guilty pleasure

Not cooking but picking up Indonesian food. One of the many advantages of living in The Hague: there are so many delicious tokos here! My mother-in-law makes the most delicious rendang, but we are fast discovering her biggest competitors here. At Restaurant Bogor, we love sitting in the living room, at Toko Cendana we always have a chat with the friendly owner, the Vegetarian Toko lets us taste that a good meal doesn't need meat and how nice that Warung Soeboer has reopened! Extraordinary that two friends of the late former owner have worked hard to revive the restaurant.

Still on my to-do list: Aunt Pop's dinner at Piet Heinstraat. You can register for this on Facebook. It looks like a very fun, but also very tasty experience.

Where in The Hague do you get a holiday feeling?

Besides the beach, what I also find so special about The Hague are the grand squares and avenues where you briefly feel as if you are abroad. Shuffling under the lime trees on Lange Voorhout past the stalls at the book and antiques market, having a glass of wine on Anna Paulownaplein, and by far the best: Prins Hendrikplein. Where toddlers, preschoolers and dogs get soaking wet in the fountain, tough teenagers play pétanque (with 'gear'! Like a special magnet they use to lift the balls without bending over), fathers play beach ball with children, expats, tourists and local residents enjoy a drink and a bite; whether on the fine terrace of Van Kinsbergen or on a bench with a meal they brought themselves. When I work from home, I start the day with a five-minute walk to the square - with coffee mug in hand. A quick trip to France and back and then allez-hop, to work.

Market on Lange Voorhout

Golden tip

Go live jazz! Oh yes, what an atmosphere listening to live jazz with a beer in hand gives. My live jazz baptism in The Hague was on the Bierkade near hostel The Golden Stork where students from the conservatory were holding a jam session on the canal. I could tell from the rhythmic moving along of many hands and feet around me: here are music lovers and connoisseurs. That suspicion was confirmed by shrieking applause after every song. This atmosphere tasted of more: what could be hiding behind the almost always foggy windows of Café Le Duc on the Noordeinde? On a rainy evening, I stepped into a kind of time capsule in good company: a brown pub with a mixed crowd where it might as well have been 1965. The music swung us back and forth between then and now, and you bet it was hard to sit still.

My most recent jazz experience was at Jazz in the Regentes on Koningsplein, where we were treated to classic hits and experimental surprises. But also spent an entire evening chatting with local residents at a long beer table. On to Jazz in de Gracht!

Special shop

As a fresh from The Hague - I have lived here since one year - I like to give typical souvenirs from The Hague to friends and family. For that, The Hague's Finest - 'The most The Hague shop ever' - on Veneweg is the ideal place for me. The first time I walked in there, I completely lost myself leafing through the Matlas; never knowing how many special stories are hidden behind the Hague mat.

'The Matlas' available at The Hague Finest

Then the 'Vamos a la Haya' line of beach chairs and postcards caught my attention - now a favourite. But a roll of 'Haagse kak' from toilet paper topper The Good Roll certainly doesn't look out of place on friends' Amsterdam toilets either. And the Eiber beers, Haagsch Hopje liqueur and Haagsch Duin tea disappear in many a gift pack. I always find the staff in the shop a gift too: very helpful and relaxed.

In any case, I like noticing how entrepreneurs from The Hague support and promote each other: in the Zeeheldenbuurt neighbourhood where I live, I see entrepreneurs exchanging plants and coffee, at Café Pomegranate, Marius' wines are on the menu; it gives a wonderfully familiar us-versus-them atmosphere.

Read also: The Hague's best tips from the editors: Frank Verhoef From Tapisco and Portfolio to Zheng