6.8.12

on the beat.

When planning last month's beach trip, I ended up using TripAdvisor for a lot of things. Just now I ended up out there again and realized I'd hadn't really used it to research Amsterdam restaurants in a while.

Some surprising results for "Best-Ranked Restaurant in Amsterdam" included #1 (out of 1,528 restaurants) Zaza's, which I'd just never heard of. Situated in De Pijp, it looks like an affordable, semi-interesting American brasserie menu, though the owner is Irish. If they have seats at a bar, this might be worth looking at.

Also #2 Vlaming, which is right down the street. Mara's suggested this a few times and I've always talked her out of it because I'd never heard anything good about it and the menu looked pretty boring. It's possible I suck though. Plus the owners seem very interested in making sure people have good experiences there. How strange (UPDATE: Mara and KK went last week and had a great time, so yes I suck)

Others: we've been looking for places with decent wine lately, #157 Graves has been a due for a revisit for a while now (I don't remember my last visit's food at all, which as you can imagine is super unusual), but also #66 Cote Ouest just popped up on the radar now too, a real and affordable French place with galettes and cidre and duck and all my other favorite things, plus this looks like a good mussels/frites spot for the wintertime.

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CRON going OK. But I need some salads that can be mostly pre-made and ready to go. And they should have some protein. For example: all of these ideas are based on the lunch menu from a Chicago restaurant called Moderno.
  • egg, cucumber, pumpernickel crumbs, blue cheese, tarragon
  • fried catfish, peanuts, field greens, creme fraiche/ginger dressing
  • arugula, crispy ham, pine nuts, pickled red onion, hirtenkase
  • beets, raspberries, pistachio, mascarpone, red wine vinegar
  • tuna, chopped romaine, rosemary, dried tomatoes, grilled radicchio, olives, creamy parmesan
  • spinach, hard-boiled egg, pickled onion, pecorino, mushroom, black pepper vinaigrette
  • smoked chicken, red apple, red pepper, mayo, pistachio, basil
  • sardine, preserved lemon, fennel
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4 comments:

The B*critic said...

you are a mad eater! I love it!
I'm going into amsterdam! Can you please help me with food suggestions???????????????
where do i go for Delicious local food - nothing touristy.
just want good grub
-cakes
-sweets
-junky but good food
-anything yum!!
THANKS! m.tchea@gmail.com
Michelle

MEM said...

heyyyy michelle...
did you see this post?
http://vegetarianduck.blogspot.nl/2011/09/what-to-do.html

that's kind of a good general reference. cakes and sweets aren't totally my thing, but google around for bakkerswinkel, puccini bomboni, lanskroon, and holtkamp...those are the best i know of.

for "junk", search for maoz falafel; get some kibbeling with whisky sauce; get a turkish pizza with everything; and some frites with mayo from vleminckx. you can find more deets about all that somewhere on this blog....have fun!

The B*critic said...

mate!!!!!!!!!
Thanks so much for the link to your blog and also the suggestions
YUM!
Okay... so no to sweets - but yum to junk!
i heard indo food was all the rave - any goodies ?

HANKS again! M xx

MEM said...

yeah indonesian and surinamese are things you should definitely try, but they're all over the city and of varying quality. if you let me know what part of the city you're staying in, i'll give you a couple addresses.