Winter Trip to Amsterdam

Me eating a stroopwafel

At the end of January, Nick and I took a week-long trip to Amsterdam. He went for a philosophy conference. I went for the heck of it. Since he’s been abroad roughly 100 times these past few years (okay, I might be exaggerating a tad on the amount), I felt it was finally my time to go with him!



Belgium Waffles

I must admit that Amsterdam was never in my ‘Top 10’ of places I longed to visit. However, I can assure you that I am glad I went! We had a wonderful trip, filled with wandering the beautiful canals, eating local fare, visiting many fantastic museums, and even getting to see and explore several windmills just outside of town, and this is despite the weather being rainy and cold for the entire length of our trip.

Pannenkoeken with strawberry rhubarb compote & koffee verkeerd

Eating abroad can sometimes be tricky if you’re a vegetarian, but it wasn’t a problem in Amsterdam. You often run into a problem of wanting to eat local specialties that more often than not, tend to be meat based. Sliced raw herring (or raw herring in a sandwich) as well as various types of sausage are popular. Other dishes such as stamppot or hutspot (both are a similar dish of mashed potatoes with vegetables) may also contain sausage (especially rookworst- a smoked sausage). I had an awesome dinner for one (Nick was at his conference) at De Blauwe Hollander, near our hotel, that was a vegetarian stamppot with cheese croquettes and a side of pumpkin soup with a biscuit of cheese.

Most amazing hot chocolate EVER with whipped cream (slagroom)

We ate many a pancake (pannenkoeken) on our trip. Dutch pancakes are more like a large, crepe (thin, and about the diameter of a medium-sized pizza). You can get a number of sweet or savory fillings.

Pannenkoeken with mushrooms and Edam

Stroopwafels, folks, are where it’s at! They are a chewy, caramel-flavored syrup filled cookie. They are somehow very flat and weigh a TON. We brought back several packages of them. Sad will be the days when they are gone! You can purchase them everywhere in the city. You can also buy freshly made stroopwafels of various sizes at the Albert Culp Markt, a street market in the De Pijp neighborhood.

While we were perusing the wares at the market, we decided to eat lunch at Cafe Flinck, where we had delicious open-faced sandwiches and shared a plate of fries.

Open-faced sandwiches from Cafe Flinck with fries (patat)- look at all that cheese!

We also ate at Bird’s Snackbar, a Thai restaurant in Amsterdam’s Chinatown. The restaurant was maybe a tad too cozy (roughly the size of a large closet), but the food was remarkable. Indonesian food is also quite popular and we ate at a restaurant behind De Nieuwe Kerk, where we had some warm comfort food in the form of gado gado.

Fries (patat) with mayo (background) and curry fries (foreground)

What would a trip to the Netherlands be if I didn’t eat cheese like it was going out of style? The Dutch make some of my favorites cheeses (kaas) like Edam and Gouda. One night, we bought cheap wine and expensive truffle cheese and crackers and had a wonderful evening. Most of the cheese shops we went in had samples of most of the cheeses they had for sale.



Applegebak (deep dish apple pie)



Okay, so I know that my pictures are mostly of sweet foods, but what can I say- I like sugar! (But honestly, I just forgot to take pictures of our lunches and dinners.)

Souvenirs/Airplane snacks