If you shop at an Emté supermarket, you may have noticed over the last few months that you can now buy bread which has been made by the people of Laaf! Of course, who better to make bread? The three bakers in the Laaf Village have been baking away for many years now, so their bread must be very tasty!
Here are the different types of Laaf bread you can buy:
The Emté site even has some recipes for the Laaf bread.
Here’s how it works…
The Three Laven Bakers day in and day out bake the most delicious fresh breads. Their secret?
They are up early in order to harvest the grain. Between the millstones of Lariekoek Huys in the Laaf Village, the grain is freshly ground and the best meal of the whole Lavenlaar made. In the bakery the Bakers knead the dough until it is elastic. The dough is left to rise, and baked in the oven using traditional methods. When the bread smells delicious and is a light brown colour, it is ready to leave the bakery. Then off it goes to the EMTÉ supermarket…
It’s very nice to see the people of Laaf getting around outside of the park again!
The White Horse restaurant was recently renovated, and Efteling have posted a little ‘making of’ video to show the transition. They have also created a story to go with the new theming of the restaurant. We’d like to say thank you to our friend Milena for providing a translation of the story. You can read it on her website here in both Dutch and English, and we’ve also included it in English below.
The White Horse
There was once a poor work horse that spent its days with a mean old farmer. The horse stood lonely and alone in a damp shed. Its fur was grey and drab.
“Oh if I only had a little friend” the horse thought often. One day the farmer harnessed him to the plough. The ground was hard and progress was difficult.
“Faster, you lazy thing!” the farmer who whipped him ranted. “Work! Until you drop!” Suddenly a coach drove past. It had little children in it who were singing cheerful songs. But the horse was especially interested in the strange black stallion who pulled the carriage. Its long tail shone blue-green in the morning sun.
“What are you staring at old nag?” shouted the farmer. “Get!” The whip cracked again while the coach disappeared from view. That evening there sat a peacock on the roof of the shed. He put his head through a hole in the roof.
“I saw you getting fiercely whipped”
“Oh you saw that?” the horse asked with some surprise.
“It has always been like that unfortunately”
”Then its time you escaped”
“But where would I go?” asked the horse.
“Walk into the forest straight away” Said the peacock
“Then everything will be all right” The next minute he disappeared. The horse decided that the peacock was right. The misery had lasted long enough. The next day was a Sunday. The horse knew that the farmer always went away on that day although he did not know where. But this was the best time to escape. With a savage kick the horse kicked the shed door out of its hinges. He trotted into the forest and enjoyed his freedom. But after a little while he grew tired and hungry. Suddenly the peacock appeared again.
”Hold on!” the bird shouted cheerfully.
“You are going the right way”. And he was gone again. The horse walked on, deeper and deeper into the forest. But his courage was sinking into his hooves. The next day the peacock crossed paths with him again.
”Hold on! You are on the right track” Again the bird vanished into the forest. The horse just about saw a glimpse of its beautiful tail. He was suddenly reminded of the stallion that had the brilliant tail, the one who pulled the carriage. Also in the following days the peacock came for a moment and kept telling him to hold on. But the poor horse couldn’t. He had been dragging himself along for too long without food or drink. On the morning of the seventh day the peacock again stood before him.
“Oh no” The horse shouted angrily.
“Here he comes again with his ‘hang on!’
But the peacock said happily: “Not this time because you are there.” And sure enough, the very next moment he came to a sunny spot. There stood a stately white house with peculiar vases on the roof. Through the open doors happy voices sounded and on the terrace children were playing. They ran to him and patted him gently on his flanks.
“He looks so dreadful” A girl said. “So thin and dirty” Then they let the horse eat off their plates and drink from their glasses. It tasted delicious. The host of the teahouse came outside.
“Now, now you’re a sight old boy! We will give you a thorough makeover.” As soon as the horse had eaten his fill the children started on him with buckets of soap. They scrubbed and brushed his fur, washed and combed his mane and kept hugging him. The work horse felt like a luxurious horse and was enjoying it very much.
“You look like a parade horse with that lovely shiny fur!” said the host. He took the horse inside, where cheerful people were sitting at splendidly decked out tables. “Dear people” shouted the host. “Does anyone recognise this beautiful horse? It walked in today. Most people shook their head. Suddenly the horse was terribly frightened. Right by him sat the mean farmer! But to his surprise the farmer didn’t recognise him. The farmer said
“What a nice nag you’ve got there, host! It’s very different from the ugly beast that ran away from me last week. Well… its best days were behind it anyway!” Relieved the horse turned its head. Then he saw his reflection in a big shiny vase. But it wasn’t a drab, grey horse that he saw. No, there stood a splendid white horse straight and proud. It gave him a warm proud feeling. The host took him outside. “Well if you don’t belong to anyone then you will just have to live here. And from now on my establishment will be called ‘The White Horse’!
“You see don’t you?” said the peacock to the horse a little while later.
“As long as you hold on”,
”Yes certainly, thanks to you” The horse answered happily.
“If you say so” the peacock laughed. And before his eyes the bird turned into the blue tailed stallion. The white horse was speechless.
“If you will be living here from now on, we could be friends.” said the other horse.
“This is the best day of my life!” cheered the white horse. He reared in his joy. The new friends were strung in front of the carriage together. The children climbed inside and they rode away singing. Their song sounded like music in polished clean ears of the overjoyed horse:
“On Sundays we drink lemonade And eat whipped cream pie Then we play the whole day long At ’The White Horse’!”
It has been closed for a little while to be given a makeover, and now it is open once again! The White Horse (Het Witte Paard) has been transformed to give the feel of a tea room; very classy!
Photo by Eftelwesley.nl
There are teapots, plates and elaborate decor everywhere! It is definitely an improvement on before, theming-wise, and is even brighter and looks more spacious than before as well.
This is slightly disgusting. We found an old Efteling item in our possession. What makes it a bit disgusting? It is food-related!
This lollipop has been lurking in our home since around 1997, so about 16 years now! On it is Pardijn, Pardoes’ lady friend. We don’t see so much of her in the park any more, but back in the 90s, Pardoes mania was going strong!
Obviously it has suffered a little bit, as there is a crack in it, but in general, it doesn’t look too bad! Must be full of lovely preservatives 😉
We have recently learned from Eftelist that the White Horse restaurant is getting a renovation. Quite a few years ago it had a clean-up, and it looks a lot better than it did, but it is lacking something Efteling-y when you take a look at other similar restaurants such as the Octopus and Station de Ooste.
There are two main issues that we have with the White Horse (Het Witte Paard). Firstly, it can get a little draughty; it doesn’t feel cosy, as they always seem to have the doors open on each side of the building. Secondly, the toilets. They are tiny, and every time we have visited, they haven’t smelled too great either! Otherwise it is a nice enough place, lots of food variety and lots of tables.
Some better theming would be nice in the restaurant, and we know that Efteling can do theming really well, just look at Polle’s Keuken! At the moment, there are chairs that don’t match, and of course, a White Horse shoved in the middle of the floor. Just in case you forgot that you were in the White Horse, maybe.
Hey, those chairs don’t match!
The renovation is due to take place in February, and we look forward to seeing what they do with the place!
If you have ever stayed at Bosrijk, you will be familiar with the option to have breakfast. You can choose to have it on any morning of your stay, and it costs 15,50€ per adult and 7,75€ for kids between 4 and 12. If you don’t want to pay that much for breakfast every day, the store at Bosrijk’s reception sells bread, cereals, milk etc so that you can make your own.
The breakfast is a buffet, with the usual offerings. You’ll find breads, cereals, various meats and cheeses, eggs and bacon, juice and yoghurt as well as coffee and various teas. You’ll also find the best egg warmer you’ve ever seen:
Sandman Egg Warmer and Egg Cups
There are seats inside the building as well as outside and in the conservatory. If you get a chance to have breakfast here, it’s definitely worth it!
So, we are about 6 days away from heading to Efteling (happy faces!) and we’re trying to book a couple of restaurants. The only option to add on to your booking is the Raveleijn dinner package; aside from adding golf and champagne etc. On the ‘restaurants’ section of the site, you can however book other restaurants, but once you get them to the checkout, they won’t take your credit card. Maybe you must have a Dutch card to book them? Either way, if anyone else is thinking of doing the same from the UK, I advise calling Efteling directly!
A couple of years ago, I was wandering around one of those discount supermarket type of places, and out of the corner of my eye, I could swear that I saw the Efteling logo. Was I having withdrawal symptoms? Was all that studying at University driving me crazy? Well, yes to all of the above, but I was right! There it was in the freezer aisle, glistening like a jewel in a frog king’s crown, the Dragon Tart.
To the majority of us in this country, it could best be described as an Arctic roll. Green sponge cake wrapped around pink ice cream, with a swirl of jam (or dragon blood, if you’d like to think about it like that) in the centre. The thing even had scales printed on the sponge! That wasn’t all. There was a little bag containing those little pieces of candy that crackle when you put them in your mouth, and those were to be sprinkled on top of the cake.
And was that all?
No!
Something that was almost as good as the cake, free stickers!
So how was it? It was pretty tasty. The fact that it was Efteling-related probably made it more tasty, and the crackling stuff just made it even better! Heck, even the box looked good!
The cakes were made by Maître Paul, who make frozen cakes and pastries.
If they were still around, we’d tell you all to buy one. Or maybe you could make your own?!
Whilst staying at Bosrijk, the time may come when you feel the need to call for a pizza. Of course, you can go and pick one up from the main building, however if your cottage/apartment is a little further out, you may want to have one delivered.
On our last visit, in the name of research, (of course) we ordered a pizza for delivery. The number is located in your accommodation, along with a menu. Once you have ordered your pizza, wait a little while, and a man on a bike will turn up at your door. Your pizza has arrived!
Now for the verdict. We had been meaning to order on of these for a while, because we’d seen people wandering around with pizzas and got a little bit jealous! We ordered some sort of chicken pizza, and it arrived fairly quickly. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as good as we’d hoped. It was sort of hard on the base and didn’t have a lot of flavour. Of course, all pizzas are different, so I would still encourage people to try one, even just for the novelty of it turning up on a bike 🙂
De Soete Inval is located to the right of the Efteling Museum (as if you are looking at it straight on) and opposite a first aid station. They sell 85 types of sweets which you can pick and mix yourself, as well as gift sets including mugs, tins and lunch boxes. It is rather small, but perfectly formed, being decorated in an old-fashioned style. This place can get very busy, and watch out for wasps in the summer!
Click here for more sweet photos of the store by our friend Milena.
If you shop at an Emté supermarket, you may have noticed over the last few months that you can now buy bread which has been made by the people of Laaf! Of course, who better to make bread? The three bakers in the Laaf Village have been baking away for many years now, so their bread must be very tasty!
