Is that possible? Could you be living all 23 years of your life without exactly knowing who you are, what you want in your life, where you are heading? In my case, the proverbial question popped out while I was at the end of a press junket in La Union.

On the last day of a surfing coverage, I decided to take the bus further north, all the way to Pagudpud – alone, running out of money (and clean clothes) and with a very heavy heart.

I was excited to go on maternity leave and finally have the time to sit at home, be lazy the entire day and still get paid. But I lasted only two days. Boredom and frustration forced me out of the house.

“Time. I didn’t have time.”

That was my excuse whenever I cancel my plans of visiting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. A real shame because I’ve missed several interesting exhibitions particularly Van Bosch tot Bruegel in 2015. Last week, I was finally able to go.

Located in Museumpark, Rotterdam’s art “centre”, Boijmans Van Beuningen is small compared to the more popular museums in Amsterdam like Van Gogh and Rijksmuseum.

I’ve been seriously craving for tarte tatin for weeks but didn’t really got around finding a restaurant that serves a good one. But as luck would have it, an Instagram post from FG Bistro popped out on my feed while I got an invitation to go out for lunch.

FG Bistro is among Michelin chef François Geurds newest ventures. Located in the old Ivy (the former FG Restaurant) in the Rotterdam’s Lloydkwartier, this is where Chef FG started what is now his two-star restaurant. Our warm welcome immediately transported me back to that long lunch I had here many years ago. Ivy didn’t have a star then but the dining experience was already Michelin-worthy.

Because I came here for the tarte tatin, I ordered the chef’ three-course menu, which included gyoza, beef ragu and tarte tatin. The gyoza, like the ragu, didn’t taste as special as the other dishes at FG or FG Food Labs.  But I couldn’t complain because the meal already included a big serving of Belgian fries, oven-grilled vegetables and a small bowl of salad, all for €35.

My officemate ordered the cod with tomatoes as main course, which was nice if you don’t mix  it with the overpowering salty sauce. The salty sauce was very good however with bread slathered with a good amount of French butter. All three of Chef François restaurants serve good bread and even better French butter.

The tarte tatin? It was what I had been expecting and more – sweet slices of caramelized apple sitting on an airy bed of puff pastry. Delicious, even more delicious with a glass of Kir Royale.

Tarte tatin served with vanilla ice cream.

FG Bistro markets itself as an authentic French bistro. And it does serve bistro classics like escargot, oysters and tartare, with a nice selection of French wines. There was even foie gras on brioche, which I contemplated on ordering but decided against it because of the pregnancy situation.

Don’t be fooled however because the Asian influence is still very present in the menu. You can order a variety of dishes from different Asian countries like pork belly, okonomiyaki (Japanese pancake) duck lumpia (one of my favourites) and tom kai. The portions aren’t meagre either. One order of that okonomiyaki can last the whole day.

The interior doesn’t feel like a real French bistro to me, not informal as Bistrot Du Bac for example and the clientele is more FG types. The ambiance does however with walls are adorned with drawings of scenes from Paris and huge French texts, big vases filled with fake flowers (I don’t like fake flowers) and unique hanging lamps. Being located in Lloydkwartier automatically makes FG Bistro hip as well.

The staff? As hospitable as Chef François himself. That’s probably one of the reason why his restaurant chain is on top of my favourite list.

Will I go back? Definitely, very often and very soon hopefully.

FG Bistro
Lloydstraat 204
3024 EA Rotterdam
+31 10 7470150
www.fgbistro.nl

“I miss travelling. We don’t travel as much as before anymore,” I complained to the husband while suffering cabin fever.

“Are you kidding? Most Dutch go on one long vacation a year, usually camping in France or Spain. We’re going to three Southeast Asian countries,” he answered looking at me like I am some kind of spoiled millennial.

If you put things in perspective in a way my husband does, I do sound like a spoiled millennial. But I did travel a lot more before, going on weekend trips once a month and business trips several times a year. That was two years ago. I don’t know when but at some point travel got too tiring.

Packing for another trip while your luggage from the last one is still lying in the corner of your living room still unpacked is not fun.

It somehow diminished the experience. After all, I’m not the kind of traveller who jumps from one city to the other, takes photos of one landmark to the next or gets crazy with must-see and to-do lists. I am slow traveller. So slow that I can just spend the whole morning eating breakfast, drinking wine and looking at a river flow under a bridge.

2016 had been a great year in terms of travel. Robin and I were together in all of the trips we took this year. It bonded us again, like it did nine years ago when we went to Palawan for a 3-week assignment. We discovered new places, re-visited old favourites and got reminded of how we were before we fell in love.

So here’s a recap of my 2016 in travel, a year I’d looked back with some tears but mostly smiles.

We came half an hour before the temple closed. Just like at the Osaka temple, we were hoping that by this time, the crowd of tourists has already dissipated. But we were absolutely wrong.

Even at almost 6PM, the stairs and halls of Kiyomize-dera were still swamped with local and foreign visitors. Maybe we just got unlucky but there were several groups of Japanese students exploring the temple and taking souvenir photos at the entrance. We inched our way to the main hall and even got as far as the main hall but 10 minutes later the crowd became suffocating so we hurriedly left.