Eating dos and don'ts

The last week or so has been pretty busy over here, with visits both from the in laws and from old daddy longlegs (my father, that is..), whose legs are not working terribly well anymore. Apart from a social overdose - for someone like me who usually prefers keeping to herself most of the time - there was also a lot of eating out. I was thinking of creating a sort of list of my favourite places to eat here, and also places not to go (of which I only have two yet), but this'll do for a start.

On Tuesday 'Man With Boat' (a friend of Boyfriend's, who doesn't really have a boat, but I believed he did for a long time, so now he is nevertheless 'man with boat') came over, and him, Boyfriend and me all went out to a Mexican restaurant called Cafe Pacifico. They are located in what I like to call the 'gay street' since it has lots of gay bars and gay sex shops. On their web page they claim to make the best Margarita's in town, and even though I've not had a Margarita in every bar/restaurant in Amsterdam (yet...) I do believe they're not far from the truth. In other words, they do make a damn good Margarita! The food is also yummy (though the menu carries little variation), served fast, and relatively inexpensive. And the music playing always has me dancing in my seat.... The combination of all these factors means I can even happily sit through a dinner where Boyfriend and Man With Boat are discussing programming. ;)

On Wednesday the in laws came over for a late birthday celebration for Boyfriend (who's birthday was the 7th, an occasion we incidentally celebrated at a lovely - and slightly pricey - Italian restaurant along the Singel called Casa di David). They were very pleasant and very Dutch. Which is to say they spoke a lot of Dutch, and by the end of the evening my head was spinning from having tried to keep up with all of it. I've no doubt I must've learned something new in the course of the evening though. Aaanyway. For dinner we went to a nice Thai restaurant near here, on the Staalstraat, called Krua Thai. We've been there a few times, but only for special occasions, since it's on the expensive side. They have this really nice white fish in garlic and lemon sauce that I always order, and that I've recently tried to replicate at home with moderate success. I'm also a sucker for the deep fried banana dessert. NOT a good idea if you're on a diet....

On Thursday I saw my dear old dad for the first time in 4 years (WAY too long!). And as is the custom with all our guests, we took him out to Kantijl & de Tijger, as mentioned in a previous post, for Indonesian food. Once again it was a great success. Later in the evening dad and I drank too much wine (something of a theme for his stay here... Irishman, you know. ;)) and reminisced about old times. It was good!...

On Friday we were planning to go for Sushi, since it's one of mine and Boyfriend's favourite things and dad had never tried it. However, our usual sushi restaurant is quite small and it was completely full. We decided to try an "Italian" place nearby. We soon came to regret that decision.... You know it doesn't bode well when you see a dessert menu on the table with the most tacky pictures and descriptions you can imagine, including a pic of grass green ice cream combined with some sort of weird candied ice cream that I'm sorry to say I didn't have the presence of mind to take a picture of. The dessert menu also tried to tempt us with real orange ice cream with real orange bits, inside a real orange... Same with lemon and coconut... We had a good laugh about that. Funnily enough, me and dad stopped by an other "Italian" (which in most cases apparently translates to Lebanese, as far as staff/owner is concerned) place on the Damrak on our way to the station. It had the same real lemon and real orange in the dessert menu. I'm happy to report that the pizza at this other place was actually quite nice though.

Real lemon ice cream in real lemon. Quite the rage at "Italian" "restaurants" in Amsterdam, it would seem. I bet you I wouldn't find this on the menu at Casa di David.

A picture of the exterior of the "Italian" place on the Rokin, so you are fairly warned:

Well, when we got our food, it for the most part did leave something to be desired, though some of it was also perfectly adequate. I had some rubbery and tasteless snails for an appetizer, even the garlic butter didn't taste anything. I should've known better than to order snails in a place like that of course, since they're not the easiest thing to prepare. I did however imagine it would be safe to order a pizza - how can an "Italian" place screw up that, right? Well, it was edible, but with a faint and unpleasant aftertaste of mould. The low point of the evening however (which caused much amusement and disbelief) was when we opened a single serving ketchup portion and discovered the ketchup to be dark brown, rather than its usual red. We subsequently opened the second package on the table, with the same result.. Boyfriend dared go where I did not, and tasted a tiny bit of it, saying it tasted old - not surprisingly. On the bright side, it did give us something to laugh about. And I will give them a plus point for having a cat. Some people may not like having cats walking around in the dining room of an eatery, but as mentioned previously I happen to be extremely fond of these little creatures.

Yes, the ketchup was actually this colour...

We had a similar bad eating experience at an "Italian" place in the "gay street" when we wanted to take my friend Marte to Cafe Pacifico but had to make other plans quickly when we discovered that most things on the menu there were incompatible with Marte's lactose intolerance. Which goes to show that nothing good comes of improvising when hungry. At least when you end up in an "Italian" "restaurant".....

After our dining disaster on Friday we decided to have dessert at Häagen-Dazs on the Rembrandtplein, and for the first time we went to sit in the restaurant section in the back. GOOD choice. They had the most mouthwatering selection of combinations of ice creams, pancakes, sauces and fruit you could imagine. And when the food arrived it was at least as good as expected. Obviously not somewhere to go every day, seeing as it must contain about a million calories,but if you love ice cream and want a real treat, then this is the place to go. Although I don't recommend going right after dinner, since I had great trouble getting down the last few bites of the dish below, even though it was delicious:

On Saturday we had been wise enough to make a reservation, and we finally got our sushi. This restaurant is a small and cosy place, in the beginning of an alley leading up from the Rokin, just opposite where the tour boats leave. And for being sushi the prices aren't bad. I also had Unagi (the eel kind, not the state of total awareness) for the first time ever, and it was yummy. I've been daydreaming about it several times since... After our sushi we went across the street to take a candlelight boat tour with (copious amounts of) wine and cheese. Boyfriend and I took a similar tour last year for my birthday, and it has been lovely both times. Particularly recommended for couples.

Dad on the boat

Magere brug by night (and through the glass window of a moving boat).

This post may make it seem like I am a little food obsessed. Apart from that not being terribly far from the truth, I do also hope it may help anyone who comes across it in their search for decent place to eat in Amsterdam...