Strandtent DownUnderBeach

"Why do you always check first to which beach club we're going?" my daughter, Rihanna Gaga, asks me as we walk past the beach clubs on the northern beaches. "Because," I explain to her, "I want to write about all the beach clubs in Scheveningen. So I need to see if we haven't been somewhere before." I'm checking old blogposts to see which places around here we haven't been to before. My original plan was to visit Colorado Charley, but there's a private party going on there. Other places we haven't been to before don't look very open for business yet. So even though we started quite at the beginning of the Zwarte Pad, as this stretch is called (The Black Path, which sounds much more sinister in English), we end up almost at the very end, where Strandtent DownUnderBeach is located. Beyond this point, there is only Naturel, a few hundred meters to the north, and Het Puntje, which is even further onwards. 

We settle on the beach club's verandah. Rihanna Gaga is in a bit of a mood. She's building a cabin for herself out of pillows, and tries to put a large one over her head as a roof. She's doing so on the couch on which I sit with Billie Stormzy on my lap. He doesn't like that she's pushing his feet away to make space for her pillow cabin, and he doesn't like that his means less space for him. They're both getting irritated with each other. I ask Rihanna Gaga to build her cabin on the chair next to the couch, but she only leaves the couch reluctantly and somewhat annoyed. After a while, as it starts raining, we're moving inside. 

We've already ordered: pancakes for the kids and a set breakfast for myself called "The Sweet Dub", but the orders take a long time to arrive. Earlier, the waitress told me that we were the first to order food today and the oven wasn't fired yet, meaning I could not have some of the parts of the breakfast I ordered. Rihanna Gaga continues to try and build a cabin out of pillows, which doesn't work at all, with pillows continuously sliding on the floor. I try not to get irritated, because she is also clearly looking for a confrontation. I'm not sure what this is about. I know she sometimes resents the fact that so much attention goes to Billie Stormzy, but recently she has also taken to deliberately riling him up every once in a while. Still, most of the times she is very sweet and nice to him. Often, she'll ask if she can sleep on a mattress in his room and then they spend the mornings together having fun and watching cartoons. A little friction between them is to be expected, and in fact, the big age difference between them means it isn't too much. By and large, she is his big hero, and he is her cute little brother. 

Then, breakfast is brought. Billie Stormzy is somewhat annoyed that his pancake comes with nutella, whipped cream and fruit, as he'd have preferred one with powdered sugar. Rihanna Gagga, on the other hand, devours her own straight away. Billie Stormzy notes there is a pancake without anything on it included in my breakfast and alternates between his own lavish affair and my bare pancake on which I sprinkle a little bit of powdered sugar for him. Meanwhile, I eat a bowl of yoghurt with granola, fresh fruit, pistache, pure chocolate, orange rasp crumble with  orange/lemon sauce. It is as nice as that summing up suggests. The croissant was replaced by banana cake, but in the end, I also get a croissant, much to Billie Stormzy's delight: he has some parts of that before he returns his attention to his pancake. There's also an orange juice with the breakfast and I think that on the whole, it's a fine breakfast, perfectly fitting the good vibes of DownUnderBeach.

DownUnderBeach is your quintessential surfing beach club: its interior is what you could call driftwood chic, with tables made out of different types of wood, wooden crates on the wall behind the counter and an untreated wooden floor, with white-washed walls and simple chairs, and surf boards on the ceiling. The place also functions as a surf school, with arrangements for all ages. 

When the kids have finished their breakfast, it has stopped raining and they go outside. Peace has been re-established between them and they play in the sand together, then move to the small playground next to the beachclub. I sip my mint tea and read a little while they play, but soon it is time to go. I pay, gather the kids and we're off. 

Also on Breakfast at the Beach: Jump back in time to when I visited this place with Rihanna Gaga in 2014