This summer's Wave of Infernal Hotness has provided the perfect incentive to deploy my oft-postponed, veiled-in-secrecy Beach Sampler project (because in this weather, the veil just makes sense), wherein I visit as many recommended beaches in The Netherlands as my moderate tanning profile allows.
Yesterday's target was Zandvoort. I'd have to say that the reality of Zandvoort is somewhere between the two. More peaceful than a roundhouse kick*, but not quite as idyllic and undisturbed as the rustling dunes would have us believe. I spent my initial efforts trying to get to the south side of the Zandvoort beach, the "quiet" side I was told many times, where apparently there is almost no one except for the inhabitants of a nice quiet nude beach. I've never done the ol' commando sunbathe before, but it's been so hot I thought I could be persuaded. However, to everyone's dismay and chagrin, I got a late start out of A'dam so I had to abort my Journey to Self-Nudity in order to come home and start cooking for a BBQ that eve. And really, how often can you say that about your Friday?
I actually didn't even mean to go to Zandvoort...my intended destination was IJMuiderstrand again, which I enjoyed a whole dang bunch last week. But I forgot that despite what the Connexxion website implies, the IJMuiderstrand buses (583 and 83) don't stop at the Marnixstraat/Rozengracht stop where I was.
Last week in this same spot when I flagged down the 83 and got on, I told the driver where I wanted to go, and he said, "This bus doesn't go there". Easily believing that I'd made a mistake, I turned around to de-bus, but the doors suddenly closed and the bus sped off. Trapped! I turned to him with a confused "But..." on my lips (ha! say that out loud), half-expecting to see him rubbing his hands together with psychotic glee and bared fangs, maniacally and unnecessarily turning the windshield wipers on and off...(?)...
But he only said, "You want to go to the beach, right?", and I said um, yeah, but this bus doesn't go there, right? And he said, "No, it doesn't. Next time you take the 583." And so I sat down, not sure if I was about be taken somewhere else as an annoying punishment for not knowing the bus routes, or if I would in fact end up at the beach.
I ended up at the beach, IJMuiderstand. Not much to report really, it was a very non-touristy hang along a nice sandy walking beach (not too many rocks or broken clamshells to wince about), the water actually looked inviting, the shoreline not as development-free as Castricum for instance, but most of the ugliness was concentrated in a single clot that was back from the water a bit, so you didn't really see it unless you looked for it or your head was just swiveling around willy-nilly.
Anyway, that was last Thursday. Yesterday, I tried a repeat and ended up with no psychotic IJMuiderstand busses stopping at my stop. So after about an hour of alternately waiting and ducking into a shoarma place for cold water (the buses only come every 30 minutes), I broke down (crying*) and got on a Zandvoort bus, because one would swing by every 15 minutes and it was hot hot hot outside and my beach afternoon was melting away into a beachless pile of busstop sweltering nothingness.
* not really.
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It's interesting to eat in these small beach towns, or any small town, because while on one hand there can be less variety because of the reduced number of suppliers that care about servicing less-central, smaller markets...this same remoteness means that there are almost always local/regional food oddities that never make it to your nearest bustling metropolis.
Thankfully, this was exactly the situation in Zandvoort: every fish cart/truck guy looked like he bought his catch from the same place...I mean everything looked exactly the same from stand to stand. On the upside, there were some liberties being taken with the standard Amsterdam viswinkel offerings of kibbeling and lekkerbekjes.
For example: deep-fried surimi flakes. I didn't have a camera with me, and searching Google and Flickr leads me to believe this is rather rare, so I guess I'll have to go back and take a picture. These seaside fish trucks seem to treat their fried fish like belgian frites: fry them once early in the day to get the actual cooking done, and then throughout the day briefly fry them again to order.
The surimiflakes. You may already know this, but to distinguish between these and the silo-shaped cylinders you usually see: surimiflakes are roughly the same size, but are cut roughly and asymmetrically so that they appear more natural and less like they came out of a tube:
(surimi photo removed out of respect to people who love taking awful photos of surimi).
The deep-fried version were dipped in a very thin, very light batter, just like most fried Dutch fish...the coating is barely there. They're then sprinkled with viskruiden (fish seasoning), which I haven't fully researched yet, but it seems like it's usually a mix of dill, thyme, paprika, coriander, bay leaves, and juniper berries. Pretty sure it usually has E621/MSG in it, though...it's got that taste, which I don't necessarily mean in a bad way at all. Anyway, these crabby fries are served with your choice of sauce: ravigotte, (tartar sauce), knoflook (creamy garlic), or cocktail (also called whiskysaus, something like Thousand Island, but mmm not really). These sauces are kind of worth a post in their own right, not because they're delicious, but because as Vincent Vega said, "They fucking drown 'em in that shit" over here like they do with mayonnaise, and they're everywhere. I went with cocktail.
The results: well....I like surimi, as I've mentioned. And I liked this: something happens to the already semi-alien texture during the frying process and it becomes almost glutinous, retaining the slight chew of unfried surimi, but with an extra softness that is something like luxurious, plus an extra-crispy outside. There's also a serious note of cognitive dissonance, as with deep-fried ice cream maybe...you're just not used to eating this substance warm. But it was, overall, totally interesting and close to great. They also had some other status quo-challenging items which I'll hopefully have pictures of very soon. By the way, the vendor of these wacky snacks is Boudewjn's Visservice, and this is actually what it looks like at the fish stand:
(broken link)
It's going to take some getting used to, this European casual nudity.
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* I know this is not a roundhouse kick. I just don't know the names of any other kicks.
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