Going Dutch...

[therese]

Back from a week of work in the low countries, with a little bit of time for fun.

The following photo is taken from the vantage of a somewhat famous (by eG standards) place. Anybody know where I am?

[Jamie Lee]

I think you're looking off eGullet's Klary's balcony....

[therese]

I think you're looking off eGullet's Klary's balcony....

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Pretty close. Not her balcony, but one of her favorite places. A little bit of country in the city.

[markemorse]

Vondelpark? Blauwe Theehuis?

[therese]

I was actually working (writing) in this location, helped along by a beer and the lovely sunshine and breeze through the surrounding trees:

[therese]

Vondelpark? Blauwe Theehuis?

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Yes, as you see.

[therese]

And fortunately this establishment sells food, including my choice of a very nice bacon-lettuce-tomato-and, um, chicken (?; something that starts with a "C" according to the receipt sitting under my glass of beer) on brown bread:

Followed by coffee:

A more informative picture of the establishment:

[markemorse]

I was actually working (writing) in this location, helped along by a beer and the lovely sunshine and breeze through the surrounding trees:

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Oops, simultaneous posting.

You were lucky to catch a glimpse of some blue sky......

Edited September 15, 2007 by markemorse (log)

[therese]

Oops, simultaneous posting. 

You were lucky to catch a glimpse of some blue sky......

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I credit my magic sky blue pen. That and the fact that I was actually hoping for some really dreary, cold, gray weather, as Atlanta's been hot and sunshine-y to excess.

So any of you who enjoyed Sunday's pretty weather, please feel free to give my credit for carting Atlanta's weather along with me. I barely opened my umbrella the whole time I was there.

[therese]

Backing up a bit...

I actually arrived on Saturday (let's see, that two weeks ago tomorrow) and checked into the Movenpick Hotel (on the waterfront, very nice and entirely non-smoking), and went out for a long walk (where, exactly, escapes me), meeting up with Chufi/Klary at my hotel that afternoon.

Since we were close to a place that she'd never been and wanted to try, we visited 11, a bar located on the 11th floor of the old post office. It is difficult to find unless you're looking for it, and even then you're likely to be put off by the lack of signage and the trip down a dead end alley and a lobby lined with graffiti and a creaky freight elevator ride to the top of the building, but once you get there it's pretty cool:

Cool views, and at night it must be pretty spectacular, with overhead screens displaying a sort of op-art slide show:

This shot includes some of the view:

In the interest of jet lag and the evening in front of me I had a coffee, and Klary had a soft drink.

[markemorse]

Goodness, great photos of places I've only heard about! Well, one place. But that's a 50% unvisited place rate thus far....looking forward to more....

[therese]

Goodness, great photos of places I've only heard about! Well, one place. But that's a 50% unvisited place rate thus far....looking forward to more....

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Horrifically bad rebound insomnia from Ambien tonight, so I may as well post again.

After 11 we walked around a bit, heading towards a neighborhood that Chufi likes but that I can't recall the name of (so if you're reading please chime in here, Klary). The canals were teeming with families and visitors in boats all over Amsterdam on this weekend, but this particular area hosted large numbers of very drunk young people (many of them English, though I don't know if these were):

The place we were headed is an a pedestrian-only neighborhood, and at this time of day the streets were full of tables from bars and cafes. Again, I don't know the name of this place, but perhaps you'll recognize it. Here's the view from our table, looking through large windows to the outside:

And here's the view towards the back of the room where we were seated. Note that this is a non-smoking room, particularly nice as it was entirely separate from the other room, and although lacking the ambience of the main bar area was still very nice:

Klary ordered our drinks, which were both (I think) corenwijn. Typing the word reminds me that I ended up in a more or less heated debate with a Dutch colleague later that week. He insisted that corenwijn is always spelled with a "k", not with a "c", and was taken aback to find that it is, in fact, often spelled with a "c". He pronounced the practice degenerate and unsavory.

Lest the alcohol leave me entirely incapacitated we also got some food, including a type of soft sausage called ossenworst:

[therese]

Another interesting way to get where you're going while you drink:

We couldn't tell if you rented one of these as a party, or if you hop on/hop off. Certainly you wouldn't have to mind so much about the calories you were consuming.

[markemorse]

The bar is In de Wildeman (link). Great bar...I had my first Rodenbach Grand Cru here, a really unusual "sour ale" from Belgium that very few brewers make these days (apparently its subcategory is "Flanders Red Ale").

Hopefully this stop amply fortified you for further research....

ETA: I should mention that I'm answering for Klary b/c I think she left for her Italian vacation this morning, probably won't hear from her til she gets back...

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Edited September 15, 2007 by markemorse (log)

[therese]

Because I knew I'd be spending the rest of the week eating mostly not-very-interesting "meeting" food, we decided to go for rijstaffel. I'd had Indonesian food before, in Atlanta, and really liked the complex flavors and textures, but there was only one Indonesian restaurant here and it had since closed. And Chufi had a read a restaurant review about a new-ish place that had given the restaurant in question, Taste for Life, high marks. As it turned out the restaurant didn't quite measure up, but as I remarked to Chufi, "Sometimes dinner isn't about the food."

Here are some random photos:

[therese]

The bar is In de Wildeman (link). Great bar...I had my first Rodenbach Grand Cru here, a really unusual "sour ale" from Belgium that very few brewers make these days (apparently its subcategory is "Flanders Red Ale").

Hopefully this stop amply fortified you for further research....

ETA: I should mention that I'm answering for Klary b/c I think she left for her Italian vacation this morning, probably won't hear from her til she gets back...

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Ah, yes, I'd forgotten that was coming up so soon.

So, thanks, as I'd promised to tell a Dutch friend (who used to live in Amsterdam but now lives elsewhere in Europe, the same one with the vehement opinions about spelling) the name and location of this bar for his next vist home.

[nakji]

I've never had rijstaffel before. Were there any notable dishes in the selection you tried?

[therese]

I've never had rijstaffel before. Were there any notable dishes in the selection you tried?

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My favorites were the hard boiled egg, which is fried and then topped with a fairly hot chili sauce, and one of the meat dishes that was described as being more of a Malay variant of a classic dish, that had more complex flavoring than the other items (including clove, if memory serves).

[therese]

Oh, and I've just recalled that my nice lunch at the Vondelpark was on Monday, not Sunday.

After I finished my work I had another few hours before I needed to catch the train to Antwerp, and so decided to visit a museum. I am generally really terrible about visiting museums, but I had visited the Anne Frank house on Sunday evening. As it turns out that the Anne Frank house is entirely on topic for this forum, as her father ran a business selling fruit pectin for making jam and jelly at home (called "Opekta") and also had a spice shipping business.

Spices also figured prominently in the museum I visited on Monday afternoon. You have to be 18 to visit this particular museum.

[therese]

You have to be 18 to visit this particular museum.

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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.

[Chufi]

Great pics therese! You had my favorite sandwich at my favorite place

the Indonesian restaurant was really not what I expected after reading Johannes van Dam´s (Amsterdams main, or should I say only, restaurant critic) glowing review. Anyway, fortunately you did not hold it against me

And how cool that you went to to the Bols museum. I was there a couple of months ago when I was blogging. It was very quiet then as well, and I´m sorry to hear business hasn´t picked up yet, because I feel they have a good concept going. House of Bols

Edited September 16, 2007 by Chufi (log)

[therese]

Great pics therese! You had my favorite sandwich at my favorite place 

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I knew it was your favorite place, but not that it was your favorite sandwich. But, you know, great minds and all.

the Indonesian restaurant was really not what I expected after reading Johannes van Dam´s (Amsterdams main, or should I say only, restaurant critic) glowing review. Anyway, fortunately you did not hold it against me 

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.

[therese]

And how cool that you went to to the Bols museum. I was there a couple of months ago when I was blogging. It was very quiet then as well, and I´m sorry to hear business hasn´t picked up yet, because I feel they have a good concept going. House of Bols

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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.

[therese]

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.

[therese]

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.