Amsterdam Dining

I just returned from a week in Amsterdam with a range of food memories.

The finest memory was a wonderful chocolateria in the Jordaan area - west of Central Station. Jordino has some really wonderful marzipan treats (a concoction of figs, chocolate and marzipan, and one of dates, chocolate, and marzipan. The other desserts were equally good. Their ice cream, in contrast, was only fair.

Jordino
Haarlemmerdijk 25
020-420-3255

A second worthy dining adventure was the Surinaam-Indian eatery Wan Pipel at Albert Cuypstraat 140 (020-671-8001). This small restaurant is behind the shops at the Cuypstraat street market. There are a number of Surinam-Chinese restaurants along Cuypstraat, but much of the food at these restaurants (according to the menu) seem Chinese in design. Wan Pipel is more South Asian. We ordered Roti Lams (Lamb Roti), Baka Bana (baked banana), lapis (a red and white coconut dessert), samosa, and a kip pastei (a chicken pastry). I cannot suggest that this was the most fantastic Indo-Caribbean meal I've had, but I enjoyed the food, the hospitality, and the bustling market.

Wan Pipel
Albert Cuypstraaat 140
020-671-8001

We also enjoyed Pygma Lion, a South African restaurant on Nieuwe Spiegelstraat. The food was less Afrikaans that I imagined it would be, and I was less taken by the game (zebra, oryx, etc.) with nouvelle sauces. But I did enjoy the fish cakes, the guinea fowl liver with hot sauce, and a coconut-pumpkin soup. They need a better selection of South African wines and more traditional Afrikaans dishes. It is a small, friendly restaurant. It is in a space that once was home to a gallery named Pygmalion, and thus the name Pygma Lion.

Pygma Lion
5a Nieuwe Spiegelstraat

We also ate two Indonesian meals: at Tempo Doeloe and at Blue Pepper. Tempo Doeloe is the more traditional in design (batik) and cuisine, and we had a 25 course rijsttafel. Unfortunately my party didn't like heat, and I would have preferred more spice. Even the medium spicy dishes lack much pepper (this is, of course, Amsterdam!). I would recommend the restaurant, however, mostly for the experience but also secondarily for the food.

The other was Blue Pepper, which is a very contemporary, stylish space with Indonesian-inflected dishes. The design of the food was compelling as well, although the combinations were not memorable. Still, it was a quite satisfying meal, even though t was a good deal more expensive than Tempo Doeloe.

For more traditional rijsttafel TD is a good choice, BP is an interesting up-scale restaurant that grounds its new cuisine on Indonesian flavors.

Tempo Doeloe
Utrechtstraat 75
020-625-6718

Blue Pepper
Nassaukade 366

Pancake Bakery was quite good for traditional (and not so traditional) Dutch pancakes (they have a collection of "international" pancakes). My apple and cheese baked pancake was excellent, particularly for the first night of my visit, when I needed a light repast.

Pancake Bakery
Prinsengracht 191
020-625-1333

Two disappointments

Sluizer on Utrechtstraat (near Tempo Doeloe) is a nothing special outpost of international cuisine.

D'Vijff Vlieghen [The Five Flies] (Spuistraat 294-302, 020-530-4060) was a restaurant that I first went to in 1959 when I was nine. The restaurant is a Dutch "theme park - a series of nine rooms that each in their own way captures images of Dutch history. As a nine year old, I ordered Duck l'Orange (and how Dutch is "[House of] Orange" Sauce!), and I was transfixed and transformed. It is the first "gourmet" food that I can recall (perhaps in that it suggested that a main course can be dessert!). When I returned in the 1980s, the food was OK. Now in 2006, it is awful. Dish after dish was poorly cooked, poorly conceived, and filled with off-tastes and cheap ingredients (A four course tasting menu was only 38 Euros, so you get what you pay for). The service was no better than the food (we had to keep asking for water). Very disappointing. I thought that I would return again in 2030, but I'm having my doubts, even though I'm sure D'Vijff Vlieghen will still be around.

I ate at the Pancake Bakery at least 20 years ago when I stopped in Amsterdam on my way home from a visit to Israel. We had a lot of Dutch volunteers on my kibbutz and they used to have "pancake parties" regularly, although we cooked them over an open fire on the kibbutz.

The Pancake Bakery was a great place to get a decent meal if you were traveling on a shoestring budget. I met some interesting fellow travelers when I dined there and ended up going with them to a club where Los Lobos was playing, on tour from the States. I have fond memories of my dinner there. Glad to hear they are still in business!

Suzy

Had a recent trip to Amsterdam. Food was very good. While there was nothing mindblowing, virtually all the meals there were of a high quality. Also FYI, there are active and helpful posters on egullet for Amsterdam. Some selected observations below. Will add some more later when I have time.

Tempo Doeloe, mentioned above is positively recommended in number of places. Had the full rijsttafel meal there (37 Euro pp). I have little (no) experience in Indonesian food but really enjoyed the different flavors there. We had the next to highest spice level and it was about right. The dishes range in spiciness and the hottest dish there was pleasurably spicy but I would not have wanted too many dishes at that spice level. (For context, this was a bit hotter than the hotter dishes at Lao Szechuan.) Service was very good. We made a last minute reservation and they told us at the time of booking that they needed the table back in 2 hours, which was just slightly rushed for the full rijsttafel.
Utrechtsestraat 75
1017 VJ Amsterdam, Netherlands
+31 20 6256718
http://www.tempodoeloerestaurant.nl/en1.htm

Instead of Sluizer, I would try Vooges if you happen to find yourself on that part of Utrechtstraat and not interested in Tempoe Deloe. We went there without advance information (we actually looked at Sluizer and did not have GAF's pan of it in mind, but thankfully chose Vooges). Enjoyed the meal very much. Cuisine has Mediterranean influences. Companion had a Moroccan tomato soup and vegetarian entree with tabbouleh that were both very good. I had a more straightforward steak with Bearnaise sauce that was very well executed. Service was very good.
Utrechtsestraat 51
1017 VJ Amsterdam, Netherlands
+31 20 3305670
http://www.vooges.nl/vooges_amsterdam/home.html

Buffet van Odette was a very good breakfast and casual lunch place (recommended on egullet) near our hotel. Exceptionally sourced ingredients and careful preparation. Felt a little touristy in terms of the clientele but the space was charming. Really enjoyed their bread (whole wheat/grain style), which led us to go to the bakery as well. And the (traditional) croissant from Pompadour was also very good (very buttery and had a depth of flavor) but we didn't make it to Pompadour.
Herengracht 309
1016 AV Amsterdam, Netherlands
+31 20 4236034
http://www.buffet-amsterdam.nl/eng_index.html

Hartog Bakery which we found as a result of Buffet van Odette is a little off the beaten path. There's both a bakery and a recently added sandwich shop close by. If you like the style of heavier, "grainy" bread, this was truly wonderful and worth a trip.
Bakery
Ruyschstraat 56
(at corner of Wibautstraat)
1091 CE Amsterdam
tel. 020-665 12 95
Sandwich shop
Wibautstraat 77-88
1091 GK Amsterdam
T 020 - 694 83 29
http://www.volkorenbrood.nl/

For me, a visit to Amsterdam always requires at least one bowl of snert, the thick and meaty green-pea soup that's one of Holland's national dishes. I like to eat it at Cafe 't Smalle, Egelantiersgracht 12, right by Anne Frank House. They serve it with thin slices of a pancetta-like pork on pumpernickel-style bread. Pair it with a fresh Low-Countries beer, and life is suddenly very beautiful.

Sorry I missed the snert and that cafe. We were staying right by the Anne Frank House. One final recommendation, more for the day trip than the restaurant, but the food was surprisingly good. There is the Kröller-Müller Museum inside the De Hoge Veluwe national park, about 50 miles outside Amsterdam. There are free bikes for visitors to ride in the park, a museum with the second largest van Gogh collection, and a nice sculpture park. It was definitely one of the highlights of our trip. Takes a train and two buses to get there, which were not nearly as bad as that might sound. (I also saw interweb mention of a direct bus shuttle from the van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, but I don't know if that is still running and whether it is seasonal service.) We also stopped in Utrecht on the way back to Amsterdam.

To make this food related, there is a lovely cafe inside the museum, Monsieur Jacques. We shared a salmon sandwich, which turned out to be a generous portion of high quality smoked salmon served with a hearty wheat bread. There is a nice outdoor seating area, kinda mid century modern like the museum building. My guess is that the museum cafe is a better bet for food than the main restaurant in the park.

http://www.monsieurjacques.nl/
http://www.kmm.nl/?lang=en
http://www.hogeveluwe.nl/default.asp?language=2

Lox & bagels at Gary's Muffins was always a good breakfast.

Ooh at first I thought this was about Amsterdam, NY but I'm excited to read it's about the real Amsterdam!

I went there last December and had an amazing time!

While I didn't achieve my goal of visiting the Panenkoeekenboot (a boat tour with a pancake buffet!), I did get to visit an authentic brown pub style pancake house. The pancakes were delicious!

My favorite area was Leidseplein. There was a lot to do there and it felt safe to walk around! Bird's Thai in the red light district area also had good food (despite the area).

Did you get outside of Amsterdam? My older son may have a semester in Delft come winter, curious if there's any place he should hit.

Just curious, has anyone been on the Pannenkoekenboot?! I wanted to go sooo badly when I was there but a co-traveller vetoed that choice. Just wondering what I was missing..

http://www.seriouseats.com/2007/07/take-a-cruise-on-the-pannenkoe.html

Does anyone have any more recent Amsterdam recommendations or restaurant feedback? I'll be with a friend who's a non-foodie, but I should be able to twist arms and plan for a few better meals while there. Coming from Chicago, of course I want Indonesian. Dutch pancakes are also high on the list. Places with interesting beer lists are always welcome. And, at the risk of having a Calvin Trillin moment, if I can bribe my friend with a great hamburger at one meal it will probably buy me some goodwill.

Just got back from Amsterdam TUESDAY (4th trip, and still missing it as usual)......

We really never have any "foodie" type meals...nor were we looking for any as we are not foodies ourselves....priority was to hit tons of brown bars, outdoor cafe's (and other fun stuff)....but since you are going with a non-foodie, thought I'd reply......because Amsterdam is one of the few places I've visitied where the "tourist trap" places are......quite good!

For example, have never had a bad thin crust pizza at ANY of the scores and scores of hole in the wall Italian places....much better than you would ever expect (kind of on the level of Apart in Chicago)...really cheap and quite delicious...made with care...would be pleased to have any of these in our neighborhood in LA or Chicago..

Also, countless Argentinian Steak Houses all over the city.....quite above par as well....(I'll bet your friend could get a burger here)....again, not Tango Sur, but unexpectedly good..

And finally, Chinatown has several better than average places.....again, who knew?

Similar looking restaruants near tourist hubs in Rome, London, Paris, etc. are uniformly vile in my experience...but for some reason, Amsterdam does a good job feeding it's many visitors...

Mind blowing...no.....but much more than you'd have a right to expect! Plenty with which to bribe your friend into going where you want to go (which others will have much more feedback on than I!) But even you as a foodie will not be disgusted....

amsterdamn is about 3 really groups of food - dutch (ok, heavy, a little bland but worth trying), colonial (in my mind the best part of amsterdam) and snack foods (dutch food really lends itself to snacking). in terms of stuff to buy, I always buy about 100 bucks or more worth of cheese when I leave. I just go into a cheese store and ask for recomendations. they hard stuff, aged and/or with stuff inside (mustard, carraway seeds, etc) are great.


I only get to holland about once a year, but for a decade I'd get there pretty much every month. I'm not going to give you specific recomendations, because things change, but I'll give you some ideas that you should be able to ask for specific recomendations from your concierge.

in terms of real dutch food - the only things that I really enjoyed were the pancakes and the pea soup, although there are a good range of stews (like rabit in beer) that are done pretty well. I am sure that you can get a receomendation from your hotel. if not, the place in the ground floor of crowne plaza hotel near the central station is a pretty good example of a basic medium end dutch eatary.

in terms of colonial - indonesian, of course. there are many places in town. you want to get the full rice table. just as great is suranamese food - sort of a combination of latin american chinese and caribian indian. I love it. try this place Warung Marlon 1e Van der Helststraat 55 | De Pijp | +31206711526. there are a lot of places around the red light district, too.


for snacks, you will see belgian frittes places arond town. go to one with a big line. the other things is Febo, an automat. I eat about half my meals in amsterdamn there. fried crockettes .sort of stew balls that have been friend. fantastic stuff. you will also see various herring dishes sold nn the street.

Yes...Febo.....greasy and wonderful (actually, not a bad burger)...and fun to "window shop" for food!

Just back from Amsterdam & wanted to follow up with some of our dining experiences...

We had rijstafel a couple times while there.

Sampurna Indonesisch Restaurant, Singel 498, 1017 AX Amsterdam: (This restaurant is right across from the floating flower market.) A little on the trendy/upscale side, but the food was great. They had 3-4 rijstafel menus, ranging from about 25-40 euros per person, plus a la carte. We got one of the meals with fewer courses and had more than enough food. I don't have a high spice tolerance and some of the dishes were a little too spicy for me, but I tolerated it. For two with drinks, we paid about 90 euros.

Kantjil En De Tijger, Spuistraat 291/293, Amsterdam: I went to this Indonesian restaurant with a friend who is Dutch Indonesian and let her be the guide. There were 4-5 rijstafel menus, plus a large a la carte selection. (Rijstafel menus were priced for two people and began at about 55 euros.) The food was great (not as spicy as Sampurna) and plentiful. This is a big, bustling restaurant. I didn't see the check, but I suspect we paid about 75-80 euros for two with drinks.

I'd recommend both of these Indonesian places. We did walk past Blue Pepper, but didn't eat there because it's a bit pricier (70 euros per person) and I was dining with a friend who hadn't Indonesian before...based on the price, I was worried about the authenticity for his first experience.

Belgisch Restaurant Lieve, Herengracht 88, 1015 Amsterdam: We stumbled across this restaurant while wandering around one night and were pleasantly surprised. It's a Belgian restaurant (but be forewarned: no mussels) that has 3 levels of service: 3 courses (starter, entree & dessert), smaller portions again spread out over 3 courses (the two of us got 3 starters, 4 entrees and 3 desserts) or an even larger tasting menu (I'm not sure how many courses). All of the dishes are selected from a fairly large menu--about 10 starters, 10 entrees and 10 desserts. You also have the option of having wines or beers matched to your courses. Some of the dishes were terrific, others were just good, but overall we really enjoyed the meal. It cost about 90 euros for two people, with ~4-5 drinks.

We were staying near the Anne Frank Haus so I was excited to try Cafe 't Smalle, but, alas, we had one so-so experience and one bad one there. We headed there one evening and before we even opened the door, the bartender (standing outside smoking) stopped us and said, "We don't serve food." He then added, "I could tell by your expression that you were looking for some place to eat." The fact is, we were hungry but happy to have a drink first. And they *do* serve food, but in the evening it's only bar snacks. Still, we went in, each had a beer and a couple bar snacks, then left intending to return for lunch one day. A couple days later we walked in on a rainy afternoon when only 4 or 5 customers were in the place, took a seat and then watched the bartender waitress go to pains to ignore us. (She ate her lunch, went into the back room, then headed outside to smoke a cigarette). We finally got up and left. Too bad...I would have liked to have tried their snert.

We ate at a couple pancake restaurants and a couple other cafes, but I'm going to have to do some digging to find the names. I'll try to follow up with those within the next couple days.

Have a few days in Amsterdam at the end of April. Any recent experiences?

I don't really have any notable food recommendations, but if you are a beer drinker here are three spots we love. Last time we visited Amsterdam was about two years ago for reference.

Browerij de Prael
Oudezijds Voorburgwal 30, 1012 GD

Really nice brewery with a sunny tap room and friendly service. Current beers are listed on a chalkboard, and as I recall great prices for really fresh and tasty brews.

Arendsnest
Herengracht 90, 1015 BS

Cool little bar (also has seating downstairs) with a ton of Dutch beers available. We had a lot of fun here and it's well set up if you want to have some interaction with the tables around you while sampling different beers.

In de Wildeman
Kolksteeg 3, 1012 PT

We visited this bar a few times during our trip. Another place with a deep list of tap and bottled beers from around Europe. Again, friendly service and very welcoming every time were stopped in.

Since I'm a big fan of Indonesian food, whenever I'm in A'dam I always visit Kantjil & de Tijgerhttp://www.kantjil.nl/en/. Their "rice table" is a fantastic collection of excellent dishes.
One of the truely great, local things to do is to go to Vondel Park, especially on a Sunday afternoon, and take a simple pub meal and a beer or two at the terrace+cafe Vondeltuin http://vondeltuin.nl/ in between strolling around the park, watching the locals enjoy their day.

Geo

Amsterdam Report--Spring 2017

First let me say a thing or two about location. We found a pleasant boutique hotel—LJ 76, which I recommend highly for its friendly service and comfortable accommodations (although, admittedly, we do not require much luxury)—near the Museumplein, and this was probably one of our most important vacation decisions since the site provided easy transport to both the Central Station and airport, was in walking distance of all the restaurants mentioned below (as well as many others worthy of attention), and was, obviously, near several of the city’s major museums, which, global Museum Ticket in hand, we visited frequently.

. . . bringing me to our first restaurant, Rijks, adjacent to the Rijksmuseum itself. Like many of the city’s current upscale restaurants, this one is also devoted to small dishes, offering a variety of interesting small choices--which at Rijks were indeed small--at moderately expensive prices. Flanked by a pair of amuse-bouches (an especially memorable savory raisin fritter on a cheese cream and sprinkled with tomato powder) and petites-fours at the end, the meal began with a dish that, frankly, did not do justice to its subject, white asparagus, although the few slivers of smoked trout that followed did. Fortunately, my wife and I then opted for an unsmall selection, a monkfish in butter sauce that was one of the “for-two” offerings and which turned out to be perhaps the best preparation of monkfish I’ve ever had. A nice tart rhubarb mille-feuille topped off the meal.

Service at Rjjks was a little slow, but not agonizingly so like it was at Ron Gastrobar, operated by the Michelin starred chef Ron Blaauw. In this case, the foie gras starters—one seared, the other foamed and creamed—and the sea bream main my wife and I shared—cooked Asian style in coconut milk and perhaps the best single dish of our trip—were separated by an unacceptable distance in time, so much so we were comped for our wine and beer without any prompting. Nearby tables were also comped for one thing or another, since the general edgy dissatisfaction was palpable. We were eventually told that the restaurant had been slammed by a couple of tour groups—for which they were apparently unprepared--and perhaps this was an abnormal occurrence; based on the quality of the food, I would probably give Ron another chance, although I would definitely be leery about scheduling anything anytime soon after the meal.

Restaurant Blauw is a block or two above Ron, and it was there that I sampled my first rijsttafel, reputed by NYT to be the best in town. I enjoyed both the variety and taste of the fifteen or so meat—primarily satays and curries--and vegetable/salad dishes placed in front of me, although I did not find the flavors that much more inspiring or different from those I’ve encountered in the best of Chicago’s Thai restaurants. I’d certainly love to experience it again, and perhaps compare some of the other Indonesian restaurants’ versions—there are a couple more, by the way, near the Museumplein—although, as with our deep-dish pizza, a biannual visit would probably be sufficient for me. My wife, by the way, ordered a la carte, and she was very satisfied with her deep-fried prawns and her sea bream, carmelized very nicely in a coconut (I think) sauce.

Although we may have found the best dishes of our trip elsewhere, our most enjoyable overall experience was at John Dory in the nearby Canal District. This is a small restaurant (up the spiral staircase) and bar (downstairs and outside to the canal) that is very dependent on the daily fish market. In fact, although there was a menu posted outside, we were never given one, and only offered a choice on the number of courses, from 2 to 6. That was fine with us (we’re a pair of omnivores when it comes to seafood), and we put ourselves in the chef’s hands for three fish dishes (also framed by amuse bouches and petites fours). They included chunks of mackerel with an eel-cream-onion garnish, sole prepared with chorizo in a meaty broth, and haddock cooked with seaweed in a Sherry sauce. The wine pairings were excellent (a particularly fruity white pinot noir with the first), and the service and timing were about as good as it gets. Because of a combination of all these factors, this would be one table I would certainly reserve in advance on any subsequent visit to Amsterdam.

And Dutch traditional fare? Well, there’s always La Falote with its very simple offerings, and homey atmosphere. I was there on an off- night (late Monday), so it was an easy walk-in, but considering the quality and price of the food and the restaurant’s reputation, I suspect that would not be the case around dinner hour on the weekend. I highly recommend the pea soup (if you like one with chunky porky meats), and since my main (a tasty hunk of ham on the bone) came with a bevy of vegetables (including both boiled and fried potatoes) and it was near the end of my stay, there was no room for the apple pie (with ice cream and schlag), which I’m sure would have been very wonderful and very large. And, oh yes, a friendly and accommodating staff; when one of the diners at a nearby table realized she had to make a trek to an ATM machine, the waitress not only gave her detailed instructions but offered to lend her a bike.

And if, on the other hand, you’ve had too much of the Dutch tradition, there’s always the Seafood Bar which delivers exactly what its name seems to promise. In fact, from the abundance and particulars of the menu (our oysters, prawns, and lemon sole were all pristinely fresh), from the boisterous crowd and staff, I was immediately transported back to the exuberant and simple seafood houses of a generation or two ago in US cities like Philly, NYC, and Boston. I don’t know if such places still exit in any quantity on our coasts, but at least one of them can still be found in Amsterdam.

Addresses:

Rijks
Museumstraat 2

Ron Gastrobar
Sophialaan 55

Restaurant Blauw
Amstelveenseweg 158-160

John Dory
Prinsengracht 999

La Falote
Roelof Hartstraat 26

Van Baerlestraat 5
& Spui 15

&

LJ 76
Jan Luijkenstraat 76

Heading to Amsterdam in a few weeks. Any current recommendations?

Thanks, Will

WillG wrote:Heading to Amsterdam in a few weeks. Any current recommendations?

Thanks, Will

We were there last year to see the Vermeer exhibit and a good friend from Amsterdam recommended these restaurants. All were excellent!
Cafe de Klempel - Prinsenstratt 22
Choux - de Ruijerkade 128
Sheepskameel - Kattensburgerstraat 7

It's such an interesting city. Take a boat tour of the canals if you can.

WillG wrote:Heading to Amsterdam in a few weeks. Any current recommendations?

Thanks, Will

Gary's Deli @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foKxkpWsMwI
Wonderful streetfood @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTmZ3rPM0i8