Saturday September 17, 2011
Somewhere between France and Holland on the Thalys TGV
Beautiful Autumn Weather
I'm on a roll here blogging as I travel on the wonderful Thalys TGV back to Amsterdam from the very special city of Paris. I have to say that Thalys is so far the best train I've ever been on. Anyhow, back to updating on some new discoveries while in Amsterdam during IBC.
My BFF, Linda joined me in Amsterdam to celebrate her birthday. It’s her first time in Europe! Fortunately, Amsterdam is a very easy city to navigate around as it’s small and English is spoken everywhere so very easy for her to get around. I tried to meet her for dinner when I could so we could spend some time in Amsterdam together. We discovered 2 very good restaurants that are reasonably priced (Amsterdam can be expensive!). One was Indonesian and the other was “modern” Dutch.
The Indonesian restaurant Tujuh Market is located on the popular restaurant street Utrechtsestraat. It was referred to me by a friend and also happened to be in the Lonely Planet Guide. According to the Lonely Planet Guide, it is arguably the best Indonesian restaurant in Amsterdam and I have to agree. Ironically it’s located right next to the most highly ranked Indonesian restaurant for food. Anyhow, we got the rijsttafel, which literally translates to rice dish but is basically a tasting of many different meat, chicken and vegetable dishes to be eaten with rice. We had the “restaurant” special rijsttafel which consisted of a tasting of the chefs favorite dishes. What I liked very much about it is that our waitress taught us what dishes to start with first as the dishes are laid out according to spice intensities. The idea is to end with the spiciest. We loved all the dishes but the last dish, which was to be the spiciest, was so spicy that I actually gagged! and that's from someone who loves spicy!
We were very full and could not finish it all. Our bill came to about 60 euros including drinks and wine for me which was very reasonable. It is definitely now my favorite Indonesian restaurant in Amsterdam.
Rijsttafel at Tujuh Market
Another restaurant recommended by my friend is Razmataz. It is not mentioned in any guide books and is located in the “Centrum” section of Amsterdam that is not part of the “tourist” area . We had early reservations and were one of the first diners but the place quickly filled up with locals, which created a nice atmosphere. We also noticed we were the only “foreigners” in the restaurant! My friend told me the menu was “modern Dutch” but I found it to be Dutch influenced Italian cuisine. Linda had the 3 course menu which started with Vitello Tonnato, followed by duck a l’orange and ended with a home made hazelnut like ice cream. I started with the scallops in a fig sauce and ended with home made raviolis filled with ricotta and lemon. The ravioli was very very good and cooked perfectly. It was dressed with a fresh tomato sauce. I wondered about scallops in a fig sauce as I would have thought it would be too heavy but that too worked. Again, our bill was in the 60-70 euro phase which was very reasonable as we were stuffed. And the service was fabulous. There was no English menu so our waitress patiently described each dish to us in perfect English.
My entree: Scallops in Fig Sauce. Tastes better than it looks
Linda's Vitello Tonnato: Huge Portion!
My main course – Lemon Ricotta Ravioli with fresh Tomato Sauce. Delish!
Linda's Duck a L'orange
Linda's Hazelnut "parfait" dessert
So if I go to Amsterdam again next year, I’m going to make an effort to explore the restaurants recommended by locals and not by hotel concierges or guide books. A lesson that I learned after over 10 visits to Amsterdam!