Category: travel

A lot of what we heard while in Amsterdam, either on the canal tour or via museum, and in our day trip to Zaanse Schaans was about the Dutch golden age.  At first I might have thought they made it up because I’ve never really heard of it before.  But there is quite a lot more to Dutch history than we typically learn in the US.  Or I was out sick that week.  I’ve studied fairly extensively on the topics of the renaissance period but really learned much more about Italy than of the Netherlands.  The Dutch had quite a thing going with trade and colonial rule and all that entails.  Result?  They are still quite fond of Indonesian food and make quite a lot of it.

We saw an Anthony Bourdain Layover episode on Amsterdam and he mentioned going to a restaurant called Tempoe Doeloe.  It looked …fancy.  But it also looked …..delicious.   I gave it a shot.  Researching the website and online reviews.  I came to find it occupies a niche I had never heard of called Michelin BibGourmand.  I’m not sure how this escaped my attention before as I read food writings on a regular basis but I never did.  They are self defined as:

1. Good cuisine at a reasonable price. Defined as “Inspectors’ Favorites for Good Value,” BibGourmand restaurants offer two courses and a glass of wine or dessert for $40 or less (tax and gratuity not included), and are often of most value to a city’s residents, who regularly dine in neighborhood restaurants.
    

So, again I set out by emailing a request for a reservation and received a terrifying and exhilarating email back in confirmation.

We spent the third day in happy and stone cold pursuit of adventure.  We tramped to Dam Centraal where we purchased Sprinter train tickets for Zaanse Schaans (€14 round trip).  I never really rode a real train before so between that and a pouring rain hike over a canal during –which I figured I would soon be swept into– from the gale of wind numbing every inch of my being, the trip was exciting!  We made it to a sort of faux historical area outside Amsterdam called Zaanse Scaans where they have relocated windmills and restored them alongside some traditions Dutch craft workshops such a Genever distillery where I sample the local fire water and asked questions about the precursor to gin.  There is a fascinating Klompen shop with a mini museum of amazing examples of wooden shoes including bridal and Sunday best alongside specialized clogs for snowy or icy regions.  There was one windmill we could tour that had barrels of giant cinnamon sticks and cinnamon grinding on the windmills wheel.  That brings me back to the Dutch East Indies.

The Dutch found a fondness for Indonesian food that endures today and at Tempoe Doeloe they’ve elevated what I suppose is a somewhat modest cuisine of long stewed meats and spices and stunning street foods by using top notch ingredients, placing them carefully on beautiful white plates, and service.  Fair warning that we heard they weren’t great about taking cards so we came armed with cash and had no problems.  The service would be somewhat slower than we are used to in the US but I found this to be true across all venues and assumed it is really just a somewhat more leisurely pace than we are used to.  I loved the crunchy sweet vegetable salads and small dishes perfectly cooked green beans and greens served alongside the long cooked daging rendang padang – beef in a strongly seasoned sauce of chili peppers and coconut and ajam paniki – chicken in a slightly spicy, fresh sauce of pandan leaves, lemongrass, coconut and candle-/berry- nuts.  The sauces had so much texture from the long cooking process.  It was carefully made well done food.  It made what to us, being very unknown or foreign tastes, very comfortable and familiar.   The entrees came out with small dishes of accompaniments that included some lightly cooked green beans, some greens with ginger, shrimp chips and a quick bright pickled vegetable along with white rice and yellow rice.  Each bite can be composed to cover all the flavor profiles.  If you get a chance at Indonesian cuisine I’d highly recommend it.  Ask questions and  be careful of a potential fiery spice factor if that stresses your ‘system’ but you won’t be sorry.

The next morning we got up at 4am to catch that €5 bus back to Schiphol where we boarded a plane for the next leg of our adventure.    We really enjoyed Amsterdam.  It was refreshingly different from our day to day life and full of new things to learn and experience.    I hope we will be back to see more.

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“What did you say?”  Tom asked?

“I got Jamie Oliver’s pans.” I said.

“What?” He said.

“I got Jamie Oliver’s pans.” I said.

“Pans?  OH!  I thought you said you got Jamie Oliver’s pants!” He said.

And so it goes. I’ve had a fan girl style crush on Jamie Oliver for years.  I have his pans, well, the pans he hawked for Tfal.  I have a shelf dedicated like a shrine to his cookbooks.  I even have a motley collection of UK region specific DVDs of past shows that didn’t really air in the US.  When we talked about places to go and in our research Z realized/remembered that he had an outpost of his foundational training restaurants in Amsterdam.  Called Fifteen for the number of trainees given a shot at a career in food.  I immediately found the Amsterdam version of Open Table and booked a table for dinner.  It was fun and terrifying to see the email confirmation come back in Dutch.

The restaurant is a bit removed from the main tourist district.  To be fair, not easy access if you aren’t serious and it’s a cold winded pre-spring evening.  We hit the tram service from our hotel and it got us about three quarters of the way.  The balance of the walk was made in gusty wind blowing off the wide canal at the water edge of the city.  I didn’t know cold wind could do that.   A girl could lose the will to go on!  Trailing behind Z by hundreds of feet but doing my short legged best to lean into the jet stream in my face.  As I handed my jacket to the hostess she said, “oh, you’re wearing a summer coat,” with obvious confusion and something like pity.  We figured for three days en route to the tail end of South Africa summer we could make it work.

It was our second experience with a virtually empty restaurant in Amsterdam.  At this point we know we are the weirdo American early birds.   Only a couple other big parties, likely after work office groups, fill any tables.  It’s decor is industrial and urban graffiti but with chandeliers.  We are handed menus that are in themselves fairly refined, edited.    There are starters, small plates and mains.  I decided I no longer know what to do with that.  Do we share a small plate and each get mains?  Share a starter and eat a small plate?  Is a small plate a few lovingly crafted bites or is it potentially a full dinner?  Throwing all caution to the wind we each ordered a small plate and a main.  Potentially too much but who even cares?   A small plate of a light brown bread and a huge fresh disk of Dutch butter quickly arrived.  I was surprised that there wasn’t much of a cocktail program.  Maybe, with the Amsterdam outpost at ten years old that is a newer concept?  Not really sure but strange.

The first course arrived.  I ordered

Ravioli with ‘Terwolde’ goat cheese  sundried tomatoes / kale / walnut butter sauce / pangrattato of gingerbread

What I expected?  Maybe one or two ravioli with a fairly restrained butter sauce and a few walnuts and a sprinkle of gingerbread.

What I got?  A full dinner amount of ravioli, sauce and no restraint spared.  I was actually somewhat surprised.  It was tasty mix of flavors but actually a bit muddled for the sheer amount of sauce and walnuts.  I missed the flavor of the gingerbread.   Now that I reflect on that it may not have made it on the plate.

Z had the largest gnocchi I’ve seen-fairly well dumpling sized and soft and comforting.   The cheese was a soft tangy Dutch cheese that cut the richness of the pork ragu.  I finished his plate.  No shame.

And this was the small plates.  A bit nervous about that.   Then the mains arrived.  I ordered something called kataifi and it is ridiculously craveable.  Finely shredded pastry (think baklava) wrapped around caramelised salsify panfried in what must have been butter with roasted cauliflower and tangy cheese.  I could have licked that plate clean.  I want it right now.  Gah!

Z had a more standard steak with interesting accompaniments such as apple compote and chicory tarte tatin.  We were not familiar with chicory being used this way.  It had a not unpleasant bitter taste and an unexpected softly roasted white color.

Overall I felt the mains were more successful than the small plates.  They felt natural and delicious.  I would seek out that kataifi any day.  I am excited to try to reproduce something like this out of my own kitchen.

The concept of giving training to someone who wants it and might otherwise not get it?  Worth it again and again.  Am I sure this has Jamie Oliver’s fingerprints on it?  At the core yes but I’m not sure about the far reach of the years. Am I still a fan girl and would I brave the jet stream again for it?  Yes.