Amsterdam Restaurant recs

Epicurean Exploits - Food and Recipes
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I’ll be there for a couple of nights with some friends and am looking for some solid choices. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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3 places we enjoyed last September:
Kantjil & de Tijger - for rijsttafel
Blauw aan de Wal - don’t let it’s location in the Red Light district fool you. This was my favorite restaurant of the visit.
De Kas

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Jeff – I’m headed there next month. Can you tell me more about Blauw aan de Wal?

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A favourite of local Amsterdammers for Indonesian–Tempo Doeloe. Located on the Utrechtsestraat 75.

Blue Pepper is a more new and very hip/popular Indonesian restaurant. I’m a traditionalist and prefer Tempo Doeloe. Kantjil en de Tijger is good and fun but, IMHO, not in the same league as either Tempo or Pepper.

Informal for some “dutch dishes” is Cafe Luxembourg near the Spui.

Another popular restaurant among the locals is van Vlaanderen. The webpage is in dutch but maybe Google translate will work? http://www.restaurant-vanvlaanderen.nl/

Just some thoughts. If you let t know more about what kind of food you’re looking for other places might come to mind.

OH…you really must go to a bruin cafe (“brown bar”) for a classic “borrel” (drink, usually made of jenever). Just ask for “een borrel alstublieft” or if that’s hard to say, “a borrel please” and they’ll serve you a nice jenever. Best brands for a genever (or jenever, same thing) include Ketel Een (in the USA Ketel One), Verhoeven, Bokma and others. In the USA Bols is popular but is considered quite “ordinary” in Holland, sort of equivalent to Smirnoff vodka here. I prefer young jenever but you can also get an old “oude” jenever–higher malt content. The typical way to serve jenever is to fill a small tasting glass to the top so the height of the jenever is higher than the rim of the glass. Considered hospitality in Holland. Things might be different now, but I’ve never seen jenever be mixed with anything else, as is done in the USA. The conservative brown cafe in Amsterdam is the Hoppe (on the Spui, near the Cafe Luxembourg) and across the street is de Zwart, also popular but the Hoppe is the most popular.

Have fun and as they say, Eet Smakelijk! (bon apetit!)

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Blaw was just really unique. You venture down this small alleyway in the Red Light District, to find this little oasis of a restaurant. The building dates to 1625 and the renovation protected much of the charm. Ask for a table downstairs - it has the better ambiance (they also have outside seating in a courtyard, but it was a bit chilly for that when we visited). The Owner/proprietor, who is very personable and interesting, served as our waiter also, which made for an awesome experience. We chatted with him about wine, food, travel, the history/inspiration for the restaurant, etc., throughout the meal. He would bring us different wines and an occasional special tidbit to sample with each course - if you didn’t like it, no worries, he came back with something else to try! His presence transformed a great meal into a lasting memory. My wife and I will forever cherish the evening and the new friend we made that night in Amsterdam. The food was creative, fresh, and expertly prepared, with a noticable mediteranean influence. I would return again and again. The funniest part - he seemed to really enjoy “us” as atypical Americans (after he learned I wasn’t Dutch! Happened to me multiple times where locals assumed I was Dutch!) : quiet, unassuming, genuinely interested…
There was another table of more “typical” Americans that we both got a good laugh out of!!

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Here are a few places I ate in 2009 that were great - i’ll just cut and paste my notes from another thread

last night we ate at Restaurant Fyra - this was recommended to me by Robert at Bubbles and Wines (a nice little wine bar at 37 NES that everyone should go visit - webaddress - www.bubblesandwines.com)).

We had the chef’s tasting menu and it was worth it. Food was excellent and well priced for what we received. We did the four course meal (which was actually 6 courses - but two of the courses were one bite tastings in between courses). Two fish plates (one was sea bass and I was unable to understand what the other one was - it was a long thin filet similar to a john dory) Both fish were cooked perfectly with minimal seasoning to highlight the natural flavors of the fish. The beef was an irish filet with potato balls rolled in almonds and then deep fried. Desert was dark chocolate over a milky chocolate filling with vanilla ice cream. Wine list was well paired to the food - mostly value wines in the 15-30 euro range. Unfortunately they did not have the vintage on the first wine (2005 Chablis), were out of the second (pulliy-fume) and then I accepted the third a SB from Saint Bris- despite not being the correct vintage because I was thirsty. We followed that with a bottle of red wine from portugal that was good but needed a little more time to soften (it was an 2005). We finished with a greek desert wine that was similar to port and very excellent. Sorry I don’t have producer names and more info - I left the list that I painstakingly wrote on a napkin sitting on the table.
Proeverij 274 - upscale french bistro style food - with an international flair (oriental spices in a few dishes) small wine list but matched well to the food (and it changes with the menu).

Prinsengracht 274 - telephone 020 421 18 48. Worth it.

the Green Latern (or De Groene Lanteerne) - wonderful wine list. Small intimate place owned and run by a husband and wife team. Food is french. Haarlemmerstraat 43.

and Blaw was awesome as well. Call ahead for reservations or you might not get in.

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Alice B. Toklas Cafe’, the brownies are great. Only problem is an hour later you’re hungry again.

[snort.gif]

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Thanks, Jeff. Made a reservation for May 28th…

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Got back from Europe today. Had a great experience at Blauw aan de Wal. I’d recommend anyone going to Amsterdam to make a stop there. It was certainly interesting walking through the red light district with my mom and sister as several young ladies were winking at me.

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Tim, I’m glad it was a good experience for you! It’s probably a good thing you didn’t mention who you might be taking to dinner there… [oops.gif]

It does make for a great story though.