I'm on a run of really hideous picture-taking, and for that I apologize. In happier news, I'm on a (very short) run of good Amsterdam eating: dinner at Issa was very good....simple, unpretentious cooking with very fresh seafood, along with the always-unexpected bonus of sweet, efficient Japanese service.
Pictured below are fried baby sardines (almost perfect); broccoli with grated daikon and cabbage (tasted like my Nan's broccoli salad in a very comforting way); fried scallop with something like a tonkatsu sauce (a bit like scallop doughnuts, these were great); takoyaki (octopus balls, very much like okonomiyaki but with a softer texture); and banana tempura.
Not pictured are the 700 other things we ate (there were four of us): beef tataki, tuna yakitori; a very simple clam soup containing 12 or so clams on the half-shell; kabocha squash tempura with green tea salt for dipping your slices into; horse mackerel sashimi; a pile of futomaki and nigiri (which, while good, were the least interesting things we ate), steamed spinach, sesame-marinated bean sprouts, cucumber salads, etc. The last pre-dessert bit was just about the best thing of the night: nasu dengaku, eggplant broiled with miso (recipe here).
Highlights: the scallop, the beef, the eggplant, the kabocha....the sardines...actually, there wasn't much that wasn't a highlight. Maybe the bill. This is a very easy place to spend lots of money. Nonetheless, it's a great way to eat. If/when I go back I will be skipping the sushi and focusing on all the little fried and grilled bits.
Afterwards, OT301.
3 comments:
My photography sucks too :-)
Issa, on the other hand, sounds very nice. I will try to make a reservation, if I ever extricate myself from the backlog of reviews I have to write...
Can't help but notice the lack of polite denials (Hey, whoa there, your photography doesn't suck, I mean...sure, nothing's ever in focus and what I can see of the food reminds me of dirty laundry, etc. etc. etc.)...
I'm kidding...of course it does suck, there's no way around that.
And Issa is definitely worth your time and probably your money as well. Skip the sushi and don't bother with the pre-set menus (which include soup and dessert)...seemed like the least interesting food on the menu.
Thanks for stopping by!
Ha ha, I don't do polite denials ;-)
But hey, we're writers, not photographers - nobody's perfect!
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