Amsterdam, Etc: Part 3 (What I Ate)

Are you sick of me yet? One last day of Amsterdam posts and then I’m done! Woohoo! And this is the most fun one – the things that I ate!

In Amsterdam (and the other cities I visited) – I felt like the meals I had were either really expensive and good, somewhat expensive and meh, or cheap and suitable. Or snacks that were delicious, like the stroopwafel above, from Original Stroopwafels in Albert Cuypmarket – dipped in Belgian chocolate and so yummy! I ate that entire thing by myself – almost the size of my face – because I found out that Jeremiah thinks stroopwafels are “just okay.” A stroopwafel was the first thing that I ate in Amsterdam because Sam brought us some as a present. And I could definitely have eaten like five more.

Another sweet treat we had was the apple pie at Winkel 43, which to be honest I thought was just alright. The part that I liked the best was the whipped cream on the side and I had to resist not just eating the remainder of the whipped cream even though I had already finished off the pie!

The first dinner we had in Amsterdam, at Het Paleis, was eaten by the canal next to a friendly American couple who were also visiting and wanted to chat with us (of course I mostly stayed silent because I still don’t understand the art of talking with other tourists or even with locals), while it was still bright outside because it’s summer in Europe. We had a few Amsterdam-special things, like cheese (the type of cheese escapes me now), bitterballen (which reminded me of a Porto’s potato ball, and now I want Porto’s) and french fries with mayonnaise, which seems to be the European condiment of choice for fries – the next day, Sam took us to Wil’s fries, a small sidewalk stand run by Wil (who we got to meet and is very friendly!) and had more french fries drenched in mayonnaise. I love french fries, and I’m not that big on mayonnaise, but the combo was surprisingly tastier than I expected. In Brussels, we went to a place called Fritland and it lived up to its name – we had mounds of french fries to accompany our hot dogs, and I felt bad that we couldn’t eat them all!

Notable coffee places we went to: Bocca Coffee (unpictured which is a shame because it was my favorite tasting cup of coffee and we went twice), CT Coffee & Coconuts (very cute on the inside because it was a renovated movie theater and had a fun surfer/beach/chill theme to it, the food was okay but the coffee was very meh), and Sweetcup Coffee (decent, but notable because it had a giant dog in the back!! Which I totally missed the first time I went to the bathroom, but then saw the second time. It was so cute.)

Apparently, Indonesian food is a thing to eat in Amsterdam, so we went to a place called Kartika – the dishes all came out at once, in these little trays. We wondered if we had come in with three people, if we would have gotten the same amount of food and if so, if it’d be better to always come to places like this with three people.

The most expensive meal that we ate in Amsterdam – that we ended up going twice to – was at a place called Ron’s Gastrobar. The Ron of the restaurant, Ron Blaauw, apparently wanted to downgrade his 2-star Michelin restaurant to a mere gastrobar – but it still felt very fancy with its small plates and meat service where they wheel large chunks of meat to your table so you can view your cut of steak before you order it.

For our last few meals in Europe, I really wanted to eat seafood after having mussels in Brussels (haha) that were super delicious. While we were in De Hague by the beach, we ate at a beachside restaurant called De Golfslag, where the gin and tonics were huge and yummy and went well with the bucket of mussels we got. It was nice to eat seafood, drink, and watch the sun slowly set.

Then back in Amsterdam, for our last dinner, we went to a place called Stork – the mussels weren’t as good as the ones we had the previous night, but I really enjoyed the clam pasta. That was the best part of the meal.

In Amsterdam, I also felt like I drank a lot (for me, which is to say not a lot at all). My favorite bar that we went to was Hannekes Boom, where we went with Sam’s Amsterdam local friends after hearing Sam’s open mic speech at another bar (more hippie-like bar called Mezrab). It was the first night where we stayed out until the sky was actually dark out, so part of my memory of this place is clouded because I got really cold, but it just seemed like a fun place with lots of young people and odd covers of slightly outdated American pop and hip hop songs. (Actually, slightly old American pop music was everywhere we went.) And then since we stayed out so late, we decided to go to FEBO, a 24-hour convenience food store where you can put coins directly into a little microwave looking compartment to get your food. Like getting late night snacks and food at a Taiwanese 7-11 only better, because you don’t have to interact with people!

Another pub we went to was Brouwerij ‘t IJ, which is a pain to get to by public transportation because it’s a little bit out of the way, but awesome because it’s underneath a windmill that is still working. I wish we could have spent more time here, or been able to snag a table outside!

We also went to Foodhallen, which reminded me of San Pedro Square, and had drinks from the Kanarie Bar, which is only one of the many food and drink spots inside Foodhallen. This one specifically was right by the entrance and it was nice to stay there in the evening, while the sun was still out (again, one of the best parts about visiting Europe in the summer) laughing and talking with friends.

That was not my cocktail in my hand, in case you were wondering. Most of the time I was #basic and went with a glass of rosé, although I recently read this article about bad rosé so now I’m wondering if I just drank a lot of bad wine on this trip. I probably just drink a lot of bad wine in general though, so I won’t get too worried about it.

I had one last glass of rosé at Madam, a panorama bar and viewpoint at the top of the A’DAM Tower that we went to on our last night. It was nice to see Amsterdam from above and it felt fitting to be there on our last night.

So in general, although the food was pretty good during this trip, it wasn’t necessarily the best I’ve ever eaten (except for a few standout things!) and I think that in general, I will always just like Asian cuisine more – especially when traveling through Asia, you can get great food at great prices!. I really missed Asian food by the time this trip was almost over and we even ate pho while we were in Rotterdam (which wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be). And then when we came back, our first meal was Tasty Pot. Haha.

I know it’s such a huge blessing and I’m fortunate to have the resources and time to be able to travel. I’m glad that we decide (sort of on a whim) to go to Europe this summer and hopefully you enjoyed reading through these posts! I know they’re not really recommendation posts or anything, but at least I can share some of what I saw, did, and ate and enjoyed during my travels. I don’t have any more travel definitively planned (but there are tentative ones…), but hopefully I can travel more next year too!