A bit of Food in Amsterdam

I haven't quite finished writing about that weekendish birthday trip to Amsterdam, apart from still having that third museum to attend to I've hardly written anything about the food. Food that says a lot about a country, about a place, about its people. And even if I wasn't completely charmed by the city of Amsterdam, I think the food, the variety richness, the ingeniousness, good, fresh ingredients overall was a pleasant surprise indeed. Especially since the food wasn't a thing people had really raved about when I said "Amsterdam"...

Unfortunately most of the food pictures turned out really lousy, so I just have to try and give an idea of how it looked, tasted and felt. The perfect little breakfast place I've already mentioned here. And if you dare to look past that rather touristy, shabby part of street after street of just restaurant upon restaurant near Leidseplein square - although admittedly we did have a great encounter with tapas at a Spanish restaurant there, and nice pasta at an Italian place that actually didn't make my tummy go all balloony afterwards, like it usually does - you can most certainly find little gems.

Like the vegetarian restaurant De Waaghals (The Daredevil) we went to on my birthday. A rather small and crowded place, with a creative, cool, mostly organic menu and friendly staff - although rather absentminded... I'm not sure what I ate actually, they change most of their menu every month, but it was a plate of different small courses and really lovely.

Slight minus for not having a decent substitute for some interesting organic cider which was on the menu but had been sent back to the brewery for some unclear reason. And a huge minus for the rather disgusting, and disappointing, dessert of Waaghals Banana Pie. Which consisted of a very dry pie shell, sliced, not very ripe bananas and covered in a huge dottle of whipped cream. Not to mention that weird non-caffeine *substitute* for coffee called... well, something that has completely slipped my mind. But it tasted like hot water with a pinch of cinnamon plus froth on top. Far from the perfect round off to a meal, but still overall a pleasant, and different, vegetarian experience.

And no, this wasn't a very nice creme brulee either - at Marriott Hotel, Amsterdam, with a perfect view overlooking the busy street and pedestrians, nothing whatsoever like that sinful one I had last summer - but it made a rather perfect ending to this food post.