markemorse

i'd take a short (5 min) cab ride to South City Kitchen. CitySearch review. It's an honest, upscale, romantic downtown neighborhood restaurant with pretty dependable, largely interesting Southern food. I've only eaten at a table once, we usually ate at the bar. and: i haven't eaten there in 5 years, since i moved away. but friends say it's still good, the citysearch reviews are more positive than ever, and it's part of a reliable group of restaurants owned by the same people. mark

oops, ha ha....didn't notice that. hopefully you've made it to Sala by now.

tino27, I was just going to say that I make a bulgur/brown rice dish very much like yours (except I add almonds or hazlenuts as well) that I bet would change anyone's mind about brown rice. Admittedly, I'm using less and less brown rice in it these days and more and more bulgur....I just ike the taste better and the nutritional profile's not SO different (I don't think).....in fact we've completely replaced white rice with bulgur in our cooking and don't miss it at all... mark

Can't help you with the traffic other than to say do whatever you can do avoid it... And if that fails, go to Sala on N Highland and get the Humo de Oaxaca (pasilla de Oaxaca chiles stuffed with beef picadillo with almond cream and epazote oil). They will make everything all better. Sala Oh, and if you ever need anything obscure and Asian, just go directly to the International Farmer's Market on Buford Highway, because they've definitely got it. See? One stop, less traffic. You're ahead of the game already! Good luck! Mark

Well, neither of these are in Alpharetta, but they're at the bottom of 400 where it meets 285 (you've got to leave A-retta sometimes, right?): Five Seasons Brewery and Summit's Tavern. Five Seasons is a microbrewery (is that still the term?) with excellent food, overseen by an exyakitori bar owner. Great beer and wine, nice bar, good grub. Summit's is strictly a beer visit, although their food has been getting better through sheer overambition...the wings are still great if you like em hot. But the real reason to go is that they have a nice selection of NW ales, they carry most of the Rogue stuff and now that you can sell high-alcohol beers in GA they're really digging into Belgians and the like. Anyway, good luck man....that traffic doesn't seem real some days. Which brings up another great thing about these two spots, if you've got business downtown and you're done at 5, there's absolutely no point in trying to get to Alpharetta at that point, so finish at 4:30, have some friends meet you at Five Seasons (it's right on the way home), and wait out the traffic there. It works! best of luck, mark

Wow, I feel like I missed a spectacular party! SO much beautiful food, and perfect for these Surface of the Sun temperatures we're experiencing... Seems like everyone's pretty set for cookbooks, but if anyone's still thinking about the list Kevin started with, I'll mention that my favorites are the Giuliano (although I don't cook directly out of it that often anymore, I think that's because at a certain point I was cooking out of it so often that I just memorized the parts i needed) and this little book from Clarissa Hyman that I don't think anyone's mentioned since Kevin's list, Cucina Siciliana. It's only 154 pages of recipes (with lots of writing about Sicily and big space-hogging photos), but it has a high proportion of recipes that push my personal Sicily buttons: chickpea flour crisps, 3 caponata recipes, baccala, inpanata, involtini, polpette di tonno, etc. Don't know, I could just be swayed by the pretty pictures. I should mention that I've only read it in Dutch, which is not a language in which I can parse subtlety, so I have NO idea what the quality of the non-recipe writing is actually like. But it's inexpensive, light, and fun. Definitely couldn't be your only Sicilian cookbook, but combined with the Giuliano they're a nice pair. I like that they both assume you know how to cook, so there's not a lot of wasted space explaining fundamentals. OK, back to the kitchen.... Mark

Well, I don't have any serious gourmand tips, but I just spent 4 days in Nickelsdorf (on the Hungarian border close to Slovakia) for a jazz festival and ate every meal at the jazzgalerie nickelsdorf, which is also known as Restaurant Falb. Definitely not worth going out of your way for, it's basically an old truck stop disguised as a California wine country biergarten (or maybe all Austrian truck stops look like this) but if you're in the area around lunch or dinner time, you could do much much worse. Really drinkable reds from Weingut Lunzer in Gols (the Heidebodem especially). Their German dishes briefly glance across the Hungarian border, great Wiener Schnitzel served with a crisp white salad with caraway that I'd love the recipe for. Jazzgalerie Nickelsdorf/Restaurant Falb I'd also call for opening hours and to make sure they're not on vacation. They definitely needed one by the time we left.... Like I said, not destination dining, it's basically a bar with grub, but I really enjoyed the food, wine, and vibe. I also saw it under abnormal conditions: they'd brought in a lot of people to help, so I must admit I don't have any idea what it's normally like there. Anyway, I thought something is better than nothing. Too bad there won't be any jazz happening (I don't think) when you're there: that would make it destination dining. Good luck! mark

Hi again, Thanks for the warm welcome, Klary! Happy to be here.... As for trying the recommendations, if you do nothing else, go to the Tokoman for Pom, around lunchtime...trust me. OK, here's the second installment of (what might be several) Eating in Amsterdam recommendations: +++ 4) Okonomiyaki at Japanese Pancake World, Tweede Egelantiersdwarsstraat 24A (link). This has been hands-down my favorite food discovery of 2006. I'll let Wikipedia give you the synopsis since it always takes me forever to describe them, but the Japanese Pancake World website has a ton of info under the "Japanese Pancake" section, and here's a decent article about JPW in a local expat magazine. I will say don't be deterred by the fact that the okonomiyaki ingredient list sounds like munchies gone wrong or two caterers colliding: dashi, cabbage, flour, Goudse cheese, tonkatsu sauce, mayonnaise, seaweed, and bonito flakes. I found out about them completely randomly...I had my first one on Queens Day when I was between parties, wandering around looking for weird old LPs and happened to pass their stall. The JPW crew were happily griddling these vaguely galette-like discs. I looked at the handwritten menu next to them and realized I had no idea what they were making. Great! At a certain point the cook flew into action, squirting and spackling the cake with all manner of unidentifiable goo. Finally, he reached into a tupperware bin and with a flourish coated the top of the cake with what looked like live butterflies. I'd just never seen katsuobushi in action before. The shavings are so thin that when they come in contact with anything hot, they flutter and move, making your dish look very very alive. Anyway, aside from the amazingly complex taste of such a simple dish, and the fact that it's a charmingly cool little space to eat in, another reason to go is that the chef (Frank, I think) could not be more inviting. When I went back to the restaurant three days later, he asked me if I wanted to come watch him cook my food (there's a sushi bar-like view of the grill), and I did, with him explaining everything he was doing and passing me the odd tidbit to taste. Very educational. BTW, I ordered plain Osaka style and plain Hiroshima style and preferred the Osaka by a nose. Go, you won't believe your tongue! 5) Roti Canai at Nyonya Malaysia Express, Kloveniersburgwal 38. The interior of NME is quite possibly the mathematical opposite of JPW above. Just imagine a well-architected, gezellig, candlelit two-level dining room with subtle modern touches, quiet bossa nova on the stereo and a good shade of red on the walls....then reverse everything about it and you've got NME. I've never eaten there, I don't even wait for my takeout food there, I pretend to have an errand to run so I can order, leave, and come back. And come back I do...for the Roti Canai. If you've never had Malaysian roti, it's quite different from the Indian version after which it's named. The ghee-ified bread seems even flatter, thinner, and more stratified than the Indian ones I've had, and instead of dipping your bread into dal or chickpea curry, you dip it into wonderfully rich and spicy coconut chicken curry broth. It's the kind of thing you hate to stop eating because it's doing everything right. But I'm sure it's a gazillion calories as well, so maybe it's best that they only have an appetizer portion on the menu. I think it's 2,50 euro for a 1-person serving. You won't want to share. Everything else we've had there has ranged from good to excellent...I had the Malaysian equivalent of an ikan boemboe bali and it totally rocked. Girlfriend is addicted to the Nyonya Fried Rice, which seems expensive for 10 euro until you realize that it's really just chock full of chicken and whole shrimp, more like a biriyani than Chinese fried rice. They're very sweet there. But geez guys...can we dim the lights a little? Or turn off one of the TVs? No matter. Take your grub 50 feet away to a bench on the Kloveniersburgwal canal and prepare for lift-off. +++ More to come... Mark

Ja, thanks Klary...I've been checking IENS periodically, waiting for another Vietnamese rest. to pop up. Other than Wellcome and CC the other ones are all classified as "Chinese/Vietnamese" which doesn't encourage me. Maybe I'll check out the one on the Amstelveenseweg since I work on the Overtoom pretty often... I'll let you know what I find out! Mark

Does anyone have any idea where to grab some real-ish pho in Amsterdam? I've had sorta OK pho at Wellcome on the Zeedijk, but not in a year or so, and it wasn't really worth going back for (unless there's nowhere else)...but I really don't know another single Vietnamese restaurant in town other than Cambodia City, where I've never eaten because I haven't heard such great things. Any suggestions?

I'm working on it, coach. My haring game is coming together, I'm sure I can make the team by next season, I know I can. I just need practice. Maybe I can blame Amsterdamse haring...what's different about it other than the presentation (chopped and doused with onions and pickles)? Or maybe it's me...I can't really enjoy a raw oyster without being prepared for it either. For example, I couldn't wake up in the middle of the night and stumble groggy-eyed, sleepy-headed to the refrigerator, open it up and down a few freshly shucked oysters. Whereas I might be able to have a bite of zure haring. Y'know?

One more thing, Chufi, I'm in 100% agreement on: +Holtkamp (buttkicking Sacher tort, but everything I've had is good) +Brouwerij 't IJ (great beer, great old-school no music hang) +In de Wildeman (ditto) +Yam Yam (Amsterdam's only real Italian pizza, I'll go so far as to say...although I just heard about a new place that rivals Yam Yam. Anyone know the name?) +Lanskroon (stroopwafels) And I really really need to go to Kef the cheeseman. I've been taking the bus to Zandvoort on these horribly hot days, and the bus stop is right across from Kef. But when it's 30 degrees the last thing I need is a stinky cheese to add to my own personal aura of potential stink. Or do I?

wow chufi, this is just what I've been looking for, someone else blogging about food in Amsterdam in English! and blogging excellently...big yay. great, great posts... i'd like to add a couple of recommendations (um, actually eleven at last count)...these would be things I would really really miss if I left Amsterdam for any length of time. +++ 1a) Broodje Pom at De Tokoman, Waterlooplein 327. As you probably know if you're on this page, a broodje is a sandwich. As you may not know, pom is a Surinamese casserole, sort of. It's a baked, kind of Thanksgiving-y seeming dish with pomtajer (taro root), chicken, orange juice, a sort of bacon (zoutvlees), and nutmeg, with slight variations. When you order a Broodje Pom at De Tokoman, one of the extremely pleasant ladies behind the counter will ask if you want "zuur and peper" on it, and you definitely do: zuur is a yellow cabbage/carrot/onion relish, usually called an atjar...peper is fiery madame jeanette (scotch bonnet relative) pepper relish. Anyway, the creamy comfort of the pom casserole combined with the tart relish and the (usually) gentle smoky heat, all on a crispy baguette...you get the picture. The Hete Kip broodje is also nice (spicy chicken), as are many of their other sandwiches--I just never really got over those two. Buy a cold coconut water to cool off with. 1b) Broodje Chili Kip at De Hapjeshoek, Metrostation Waterlooplein 6. Another Suriname/Indonesian sandwich place, across the street from the Tokoman. This one's down in the subway station underneath the opera house (Stopera) and Waterloomarkt. Same general setup, but I find his pom to be less appealing. Instead order a broodje Chili Kip (also 2,50 i think, maybe 3,00). It's just sauteed chicken with both mild and hot peppers and onions on freshly baked bread, but executed perfectly and spicy as heck. Same drill, when he asks if you want peper and zuur, say yes...he makes his own zuur, which in this case are homemade, pink-tinged cucumber pickles, while the Tokoman's are off-the-shelf bright yellow atjar. Another great sandwich here is the Kip Ketjap, a dark sweet Indonesian chicken with ketjap manis. 2) Lamahcun/Turkse Pizza at Mercan Patisserie, Rozengracht 148. They have great boreks and baklava here as well, probably because they're primarily a real bakery (as opposed to a bakery storefront, where everything is made offsite) and they make everything themselves. But, they also have a fine, fine version of the ubiquitous lamahcun (called Turkse pizza on Amsterdam menus), which is an oven-blistered flatbread coated with ground lamb, pomegranate syrup, garlic, tomato, and spices. When you order, she'll ask you if you want everything on it (she might say, "Alles erop?") and you say yes. A handful of chopped onions, lettuce, and red cabbage are placed on top of it, and THEN you get a squirt of a garlic-yogurt sauce and a squirt of spicy red sambal sauce on top. It's then rolled tight like a burrito, and you walk out as happy as anyone else in the city for the next 5 minutes. This is not the only place to get a great Turkse pizza, but this is one of the few I've had that is truly excellent and reliable in the center of town, and where I can heartily recommend the rest of their offerings as well. There might be another Mercan on the Nieuwendijk, at the very top near the Singel, but they might not have a pizza oven. Another very reliable source is Kismet (Kinkerstraat 350), but they're a bit further off to the west. They also have an Albert Cuypmarkt location, but last time I visited they didn't have a pizza oven (the rest of their food is very nice, a lot of stuffed vegetables). And having said all that: a "bad" Turkse pizza is still not that bad. And if it is, you're usually only out 2 euro or so. So at least have one somewhere if you can't get to Mercan or Kismet. The Albert Cuypmarkt and surrounding streets (for example, the corner of Van Woustraat and Albert Cuyp) offer an especially good chance for your hits to outnumber your misses. 3) Kibbeling , Gebakken Mosselen, Krabsalade at Volendammer Vishandel 't Centrum, Haarlemmerdijk 4. Well, I've listed three of my favorites above (fried cod, fried mussels, and crab salad), but every single thing I've ever eaten here has been sterling, which explains the constant line out the door (I say out the door, but it's a small place. The line's never longer than 10 people), I guess. So, in order to not have to stand in line more than once: if I were you, I'd definitely get 1) something fried, 2) a sandwich, and 3) some herring. At least. Their smoked salmon is excellent too. Let's tackle these in order. When you hear the words "something fried", don't think of generic cheap-style fried seafood, 1 part breading to 2 parts marine life. This is just the barest coating of thin batter, and the other 90% or so is fish. Cod, or kabeljauw, is the most common choice, but their fried mussels are perfect as well. So, to order, you want a bakje of kibbeling or mosselen, this is typically 150 grams or so (6 ounces?). Or you can just order by the gram. The cute-as-a-button girl behind the counter might tell you that it's only lukewarm and do you want to wait for a fresh batch. I wouldn't, it's still great lukewarm. She'll ask if you want sauce, and your choices are the Viswinkel Holy Trinity of ravigotte/tartar, knoflook/garlic, and cocktail/whisky. Cost: I think it's 2 euro per 100 grams, so 150 grams is..............3 euro. Sandwiches? They make their own fish salads: smoked mackerel, herring and beet, paling (smoked eel), tuna, etc., and you can get these all on sandwiches. They're all good, but my favorite is the "crab salad", which is really surimi, but it's in an amazing dressing of mayo and oranges, just perfect on a hot day. So in this case you'd want a broodje krabsalade, or broodje makreel, etc. There's a menu on the counter. And then herring. I'm not truly a convert to non-pickled herring yet. As in, I like zure haring in a jar a lot, but if it's the fresher stuff (which is only very lightly cured), I still have to be in the mood for it. When I am though (beer is usually involved), I ask for it with uitjes (onions) and zuur (pickles). Pay, and then squeeze your way out the door and walk across the street to the little bridge...there are some benches there where you can devour your catch. +++ Well, it looks like this may require several posts...I obviously got all nostalgic about my old neighborhoods and was eating vicariously through my writing. Stay tuned, though, for the other 7 or so (if your curiosity is killing you or you're coming to Amsterdam imminently, the full (and growing) list is here.