Restaurant Week in Amsterdam
We participated in the Restaurant Week in August and totally enjoyed our choices. We were very happy to see it return this past week. I made 4 reservations, but had to cancel the first, since Ray was still not feeling real great. We will go to that restaurant soon, since it is across the street from us and they do have a prix fixe dinner. During Restaurant Week a 3 course lunch is 22.50 and a 3 course dinner is 27.50, a real bargain for the quality of food.
Our first lunch was at Keizergracht 238. It is the restaurant within the Hotel Pulitzer, a real classy place. We had lunch here during the previous restaurant Week and knew we had to return. We have pictures of all our eating experiences, but we got carried away at this lovely place and realized we had eaten our entree before we took pictures. Anyway...Ray had beef and I had catfish. The real highlight of this lunch was our ongoing conversation with the wait staff. Our main waiter was a fella from Singapore. He has lived in Amsterdam for 28 years. He speaks 5 languages. He has family all over the world from Australia to America. His wife is from Suriname and his fellow worker is also from Suriname. Suriname was governed by the Dutch until 1954 when it became a constituent country and achieved independence from the Dutch in 1975. We met a guy at the gym who also is from Suriname. It was a great afternoon with great food and conversation.
Part 2 of Restaurant Week was lunch at Van Vlaanderen. Food from Flanders. This is a very small place across the canal from the Heineken Brewery. It is an easy walk from our apartment. I always take a peek on trip advisor and read some reviews before I commit to a restaurant and this cafe had very high ratings. Well, it also did not disappoint. For a Thursday afternoon the place was pretty busy. About 6-7 tables with one waiter. I think all but one table was doing the restaurant week menu. This particular place also served an amuse bouche. As usual we had beer to accompany our meal. Today we had Brand Bier. I think our waiter told us it is a Heineken product. Another wonderful meal with a good photo display thanks to Mr. Wynn.
So last evening was our last Restaurant Week venture. It was a lousy day in Amsterdam and it didn't get better at night. Noordwest is quite a distance from our place, but we walk alsmost everywhere so we headed our unbrella in hand. (Ray's hand). We had been to this restaurant before and had their 3 course dinner. As I recall the first course was a venison sausage, followed by beef and a dessert that I cannot recall right now. We may have blogged about it, but I can't remember that either. I guess there is a reason I am on medicare...I'm old!! So after arriving a bit wet and tired our waiter immediately brought us beer. The service here is great. One consistent complaint about Dutch dining is the poor customer service. We haven't had any real awful experiences, but we are never in a hurry and aren't shy about asking for whatever we want. I stepped out of the box and ordered the wine parings with my 3 courses. I am not a wine expert, but this stuff was excellent. Good idea to go with what is recommended when you are a novice. I will definitely do the wine thing again. 2+ hours later we are happy as clams and walked to the nearest tram. The weather still sucked.
What a great week. We pretty much only go out once a week, since I like to cook and get such good fresh food at the markets. A nice treat.
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