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The pasta itself looks like passatelli, a local specialty. Lovely report, as usual.

A coda to my visit, including this glamour shot of Klary (posted with her permission): as well as a shopping tip for those of you visiting the low countries who might be interested in some not-too-expensive kitchen accessories: HEMA. I buy tea towels when I travel (as they are very useful souvenirs) and this chain of stores (very much like Target in the U.S.) has some very nice ones. Lots of other cool stuff that I didn't consider due to concerns of weight or volume.

Cool, looking forward to the photos. And yes, I also found that the simplest food was generally the best.

It seems to have been a cigar shop before, newly built in 1970 (of Felix Heijnen), replacing an adjacent older building of the cigar shop built indeed after the bombings in 1940. Right after the bombings, temporary shops were built in front of the post office. Later the cigar shop became the first and oldest MacDonald's in Rotterdam. ← Wow. So the story is true (confirmed in every detail here). As per family lore, Mr. Heijnen actually designed this building himself, though it's probably been altered quite a bit.

Okay, back to the mystery: Does anybody know any history behind this building? I was told it by a relative of somebody involved with it, but I'd like to be able to confirm it independently, as I'm not sure how much of it was filtered through family lore.

Far and away my best meal in Rotterdam was the last evening's at De Harmonie. Well-executed fancy food served in a really lovely setting, a private room on the second floor (Sofie if you want to check it out on the web site). Something like five courses, of which I recall only the barest details: an amuse of gazpacho with tiny shrimp, and dessert featuring blackberries. Scallops, veal, and some sort of poulty were all in there somewhere. Large windows open to the park-like area in front of the restaurant, and nobody was smoking, so a really lovely respite. Afterwards some of us went for a walk on Witte de Withstraat, which had been turned into a sort of street festival (as this was Saturday) with lots of music and drinking. Packed. Wound up the evening at Westelijk Handelsterrein, apparently an old warehouse or factory that's been converted to a center for nice restaurants and bars. Conveniently located across the street from my hotel, so I didn't have far to go for my final night's sleep.

It looks like a bus station or post office....some kind of government building. ← According to my source, it was a privately owned business that had been in Rotterdam before the war, and relocated to this site after the war (as of course the original building had been bombed). According to this same source, the business owner had originally asked to build his establishment directly in front of City Hall, but was instead given permission to build on the corner. The original establishment actually sold something that is even worse for you than McDonald's.

My husband and I went to hear Kingsolver speak here at Emory University last week. I'd read the book, but only just, as I'm not a huge fan of her writing. My interest was largely piqued by the fact that her farm is apparently very close to where my grandparents' farm was located, and where I spent my childhood summers doing a much more extreme version of the lifestyle she and her family have adopted. She is very careful to not say precisely where she lives, and now that I've met her fan base I can see why. I enjoyed her readings more than I enjoyed the actual book. The reception afterwards, curiously, featured truly terrible food.

I've got a more or less standard plane meal that I take with me on long-haul flights. I visit a grocery store the day before and assemble some variation of the following as it's available (and as I've got room): bread with soft goat cheese radishes cherry tomatoes grapes If I've got room in my 1 qt ziploc (which I typically do if I'm returning home, and that's usually when I need this meal) I'll pack a couple of Activia yogurt drinks. I don't bother packing a meal for the outbound portion, as I fly Delta and Delta's got a quite reasonable special meal, cold seafood. It's been cold poached salmon with dilled potato salad for a couple of years now, and I don't mind it. The return option is a great deal iffier, so I usually pack my meal.

Correct, the location of this McDonald's is very nearly smack dab in front of City Hall (had I swiveled to the left this would have been of City Hall). As part of this meeting I ate at several locations quite close to his location, including Cafe Floor and Staal. There was also a reception at the City Hall, with a brief address by the mayor: My hotel was actually much closer to the waterfront, near Erasmus (link upthread), in a neighborhood that was at once both groovier and quieter. Here's the view from my room. You can see the rails for the number 7 tram that runs right in front: But back to the McDonald's. Was it always a McDonald's? Or was it something before it was McDonald's?

Okay, time for some Rotterdam history. But first let's see if anybody else knows the significance of this establishment: It's in Rotterdam. Do you know where? Do you know anything else about it?

Another Dutch dairy reference: This guy clearly enjoys his job as a streetsweeper. He is reaching down to activate the "mooing" mechanism on his bike/trashcan combo. I came up a large group of them that were apparently just starting their shift, so there was a great deal of mooing and jollity.

Next stop, Rotterdam. I stayed in a great hotel called Grand Hotel Philadelphia, not far from the waterfront, and a twenty minute walk or three minute tram ride to the train station and/or conference center. PM me if you want info about the hotel, but I'll go ahead and point out the breakfast is very nice: orange juice squeezed just for you by the friendly staff (a couple of whom I ran into clubbing one night), the usual meats and cheeses, and (particularly cool for me) buttermilk, known as karnemelk to the Dutch. Oh, and hagelslag: any culture that endorses consumption of chocolate jimmies (sprinkled onto bread and butter) for breakfast is okay with me. The coffee sort of sucks, but if you ask the staff will make you an espresso. It's still not great, but at least it's hot and a bit stronger. Lunch at the conference center also included karnemelk. I've yet to figure out (because I don't read Dutch, though I can figure out simple stuff) whether or not karnemelk is real buttermilk or just cultured milk. This Dutch Wikipedia entry may give the answer, but I can't figure out enough of it to say for sure. If it really is buttermilk the Dutch are eating a commensurately huge amount of butter.

The grim and tiny kitchen pictured above may be visited by anybody who's willing to board (in the face of a dire warning that you do so at your own risk) one of the boats at the Antwerp Maritime Park adjacent to the Nationaal scheepvaartmuseum. Said boat was a patrol boat on the river for many decades. Lots of other cool boats as well, but this was the only one you could board. Food in Antwerp was of the meeting variety, with only one meal in a restaurant. It's the building with the bright red window frames at bottom left, and it's called something like Captain Zepp's. A set menu for our group featured very salty zucchini soup and very salty chicken stuffed with ham and cheese, and fries, but a the vibe was nice and the food is probably decent if you order it yourself: I'd not planned on buying chocolate while I was in Antwerp, but one rainy afternoon I'd gotten myself quite thoroughly lost (despite having a not very good tourist map at hand) and asked a passer-by to help me orient myself on said map. She was an older lady, and in the course of our conversation (in English---almost everybody in Antwerp offered the choice between English and French chose the former, with a few very definite exceptions) pointed out that there was simply no way that I could visit Belgium and not try the chocolate. And she proceeded to point out to me that there was a really great shop on my route, Sweertvaegher. I got my favorites, chocolate-covered orange peel and marzipan. There are, I'm afraid, none left to show you. Oh, and speaking of sweets, Chufi brought me some lovely little stroopwaffels. They were excellent, and in the interest of my waistline I shared some of them with colleagues. So, again, none to show here.

So, from Amsterdam I train to Antwerp, where I have to spend quite a bit of time working, and the time I do spend eating is in the company of my colleagues (who are nice enough, but generally not too picky about food). I do manage to take a few pictures, though. This one is of a tiny kitchen that's not presently in service. Anybody know where it might be?

One place we did visit (pictures in the thread) was Confeitaria Nacional. Go upstairs to have lunch in the dining room. Inexpensive, very pretty room, very traditional food. Your lunch mates will be local businessmen in suits, and well-heeled ladies out shopping for the day. The place we didn't visit that day was Martinho do Arcado. I know there's a web site for it, but can't track it down. It was famous as a hangout for Fernando Pessoa, famous for his poetry (which I can't bear, but that's just me).

For this particular trip I did a fair amount of research about Lisbon and Portugal, going so far as to actually study Portuguese (such that I can now read things like short stories so long as they're grounded in reality), and read (in English) some well-known Portuguese authors. This gave me a good idea of the topography of Lisbon, and also drove me to look for old-school places to eat. If you're interested in that sort of thing I can give you some more instances (that I tried, or didn't get to try but would have if I'd had time).

You are located pretty far out insofar as the very cool architecture and ambience of the older portions of Lisbon are concerned. I'm not familiar with the area immediately around your hotel, but as I mentioned the metro is easy to use. For breakfast I'd try Pastelaria Versailles , an old school coffee house not far from your hotel that I wanted to try on my visit this spring but couldn't. As per the web site they open at 8:00 AM, and you could either go sweet, with pastries, or savory, with an omelette. Coffee, juices, and fruits are all spectacular in Portugal.

Don't worry a bit about the language thing: many, many Portuguese speak English, especially younger people in Lisbon, and my French and Italian both came in handy on different occasions. You will be fine. Public transit in Lisbon is fantastic: clean, cheap, well-organized, and safe. As for restaurants, I posted in some detail here about a week's holiday in Lisbon a few months ago, including pictures. I'd be happy to answer questions about any of those options in more detail. Here's the thread.

My meeting finished, I spent some more time wandering around, and finally stopped at a cafe, scoring a table outside on the end of the bench that runs one length of the it, sheltered from the brisk wind that was blowing up about then (and underneath some heat lamps that were later lit). Here's what I saw from my vantage point: These people look chilly, don't they? And they were likely thirsty as well, as this place had really appallingly poor service, but clearly remained a favorite with locals, as they hopped on empty seats on the cafe side the very second they came open. The young women next to me had ordered the daytime drink for this set in Amsterdam, fresh mint tea: I had corenwijn again: Anybody recognize this place? Very mod decor inside, and the tables had a sort of abstract crown pattern in the middle.

Too cool. Can't wait to see more.

Sunday also included some work, a meeting with a Dutch colleague to discuss a project. We had lunch at Luden (because I'd specifically asked for someplace that served typically Dutch food, and the vendor at a bookstore in the area sent us there) and I had mustard soup (yes, I'd seen it on Chufi's cooking thread) and a croquette sandwich. I liked the soup, and still don't like croquettes very much: a bit too gooshy inside for me. At some point during the day I mentioned that I was sorry that it wasn't the season for herring, but as it turns out herring never really goes out of season, and we chose this likely looking spot: The menu: The wares: We had plain herring, I think. No photos of the food I actually ate, as there is only so weird that a person can appear to her colleagues.

Serendipity at work there. I was walking from the Vondelpark through the museum area, trying to decide whether I really wanted to go spend some quality time with Van Gogh, and happened to see the sign, and remembered it from your blog. So, off I went. The staff wasn't too concerned about business not being too big yet, as they'd apparently missed deadlines this spring for being in various tourist guides. And of course it meant that my visit was great. There were a few other people there, and we all ended up chatting at the bar, and trying each other's drinks, so that was nice.

I knew it was your favorite place, but not that it was your favorite sandwich. But, you know, great minds and all. Somebody's got to do the hard work of holding these people accountable, and it may as well be us. The food wasn't terrible, of course, it just wasn't special. And then you topped off the evening by taking us to a cool place, Morlang, for dessert (where your even cooler friend comped us): prosecco and passionfruit creme brulee. In deference to jet lag we ended the evening at a reasonable 11:00 pm and I headed home to the Movenpick.

No, this museum is not located in the Wallen, but across the street from the Van Gogh museum. The final exhibit in this museum is a bar with a very informed and engaging bartender: He made me a variation on a Bramble: Your ticket also gets you a tasting of genever (three full-sized servings, actually), and you can also try any of the Bols flavoured liqueurs. And if you know anything about alcohol and engage the bartender he will pour you drinks until the cows come home. I tried a genever Martini. All sorts of cool history, and exhibits where you get to test your sense of smell and see bulk spices, etc. It would actually be a great museum for kids, but the management has clearly decided that they don't want 16-year-olds hanging out there. It's only been open a few months, and the staff's excitement at an actual visitor was palpable. Oh, don't worry, I didn't actually finish any of the drinks, and made my train to Antwerp just fine.