Dutch food

When I go on holiday, eating good food is part of the experience. A few weeks ago, I was in Amsterdam, and although the Dutch are not well known for their world-class cuisine, I found the food at a delight. Dutch cuisine is usually associated in the global imagination with pancakes and large, red balls Edam cheese. But these days, what the Dutch are very good at is what might be called “modern European” cuisine. Their style is understated, but tasty, and everything is beautifully presented.

Take for example, the chicken and chips that I ordered at a local brasserie near our hotel on the Herengracht canal. The brasserie was nothing fancy — it seemed to be a local hangout for young professionals and had a cosy, friendly and comfortable ambience. I wanted something simple and I thought that chicken and chips, while not very exciting, would do the trick for me that evening. When you order chicken and chips in the UK, it usually comes as a chicken quarter — probably the wings and an extra bit on the end — that has been oven roasted, with a pile of chips on the side. At this brasserie, the chicken arrived delicately carved into manageable pieces and had a delicious buttery, herby flavour. The chips were crunchy on the outside and fluffy and soft on the inside. A whole dish was beautifully presented, and absolutely delicious.

It was not just this particular brasserie that presented us with an ordinary m eal that felt like a special treat. In most of the restaurants that we ate in, we would come away full, happy and satisfied. I have been to The Netherlands a number of times and that seems to hold true in most restaurants. It seems, in my experience, that it is much more difficult to happen upon a good restaurant in London or the UK by chance - you really have to go out of your way to research the guidebooks or to get recommendations from friends in order to have any halfway decent meal at a reasonable price here. So I’ve always been especially delighted whenever I’ve visited The Netherlands as I know that most the time, whichever restaurant we might pick randomly, we would be sure to end up with a good meal.

On this visit, we didn’t manage to go to an Indonesian restaurant, unfortunately. I am always keen to have at least one Indonesian meal, while in the Netherlands — I have always liked is rijsttafel, a meal for one that which comes with an array of different Asian specialties served in a delicate little bowls around a plate of rice. The multiple dishes is clearly derived from the Asian way of dining, where each person has their own bowl or plate of rice, and then everyone tucks into a range of different dishes such as chicken curry, stirfried pork as well as seafood, beef and vegetables dishes. In the Western way of eating each person has their one meal on their own plate - no sharing. However, in Asia, everything is shared, and the dishes are consequently much larger than the delicate little samples making up rijsttafel!

I was particularly tickled a few years ago, when I was in Delft with my family. The Indonesian restaurant that we loved had a dish that reminded usof a dish that has been passed down through the generations from my father’s mother’s side. It was called babi kichap. Babi means pork.Kichap means soy sauce and is the word that became ketchup in the West, meaning a condiment — and eventually coming to mean specifically, tomato ketchup. The characteristic of babi kichap is that the source is very dark — as dark as black coffee — due to the soy sauce. I don’t seem to have found it anywhere else in Europe apart from the Netherlands. I had always thought of this as a family recipe so we were all delighted to see it served in a restaurant!

Staying with the Oriental theme, I was really taken by a fast food noodle joint in the Leidseplein area. It was called Wok to Walk. The idea is that you choose a base of egg noodles, vermicelli or rice etc and then make a selection from a list of different meats and vegetables. The final step is then to choose the kind of sauce that you want e.g. peanut sauce,, oyster sauce soy sauce etc. They fry it up for you there and then and you can either have it as a takeout (the “walk” part) or you can eat it in. It was amazingly fast and quite delicious. It reminded me of Asian street food and caucused all but with a modern European twist.

There is one Dutch speciality that I tried once a while ago in Delft which was really more of an endurance test than a joy. Raw herring. It may be so some people’s taste - and it clearly is loved by the Dutch - but not to mine. We bought it fresh from a market stall, served in the little pot and garnished with a huge helping of raw onions. As it was a local speciality, I resolved to try it so I took a deep breath and popped it into my mouth. It tasted of the sea, seaweed and the mud at the bottom of an estuary and the texture was cold and slimy. It was horrible! Bleah….

So no raw herring on this last trip to Amsterdam, I’m glad to say. With all the other delicious meals, we came back from Amsterdam very chubby . I am now facing a very rigourous gym regime for the next few weeks to make up for all that overindulgence. Wish me luck!

Photos:

amsterdam by macropoulos (CCL)
babi kecap by zoyachubby from flickr.com (CCL)
maiden with raw herring by riceuriian from flickr.com (CCL)