two. ate.

Meriko (who we are sharing an apartment with in Paris starting tomorrow) recommended a "rad" tapas bar called A La Plancha (at Looiersdwarsstraat 1e 15) and said it was "rad".

We walked Amsterdam all day, mostly in the drizzling rain...Janet is still trying to recover from her intestinal bug. Food has been literally absent from the day save for a quick bite at La Garotte. I did convince her to buy a small baguette that she happily munched on throughout the afternoon.

It was with all hope for a good meal that we searched for A La Plancha. It's kind of hard to find but totally worth it (get to Leidseplein, walk to the left of the bank of Cafés with the giant Rolling Stones tongue on the front...this street will be Lijnbaansgracht, turn right on Looiersgracht, turn left on the third instance of Looiersdwarsgracht (1e)).

A La Plancha looks an awful lot like a sushi bar with chiller cases along two sides of a longish bar. At first, it seems like there in no menu but it's actually on the wall opposite the bar. Or you can do what we did, which was just point at what we wanted.

We started with a white bean, pepper and onion mixture which was like a salsa/bean salad plus some bread with aioli. The aioli was amazingly white and with a slight gritty texture and very delicious. The white bean dish was a good starter as well.

Because Janet was sick, we stuck to things that weren't too 1) spicy, 2)tomato-ey, or 3) involved too many vegetables, in that order. She still suspects that vegetable goulash from two nights ago...

Everything we had was excellent (the fava beans and jamon were especially so) but if we were both at 100% then we probably would have had every single fish dish in the house. One end of the bar is all raw fish prepared in the way you indicate to the proprietor. The marinated anchovies (boquerones) looked very good but it was a fair bet that I would be able to eat an entire plate alone.

In the end, we were as sated as we would be and then the bill arrived. It seemed that we ate quite a bit of food (or at least I did) and the bill was still criminally low. Just over 20 Euros for the food and beers and aqua con gas.

Posted by wm. christman at 11:32 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Being sick on vacation:
- allows you to sleep enough to recover jetlag (although you feel like crap in an altogether different way)
- allows one of you to go buy things at foriegn supermarkets to make your better half feel better (digestif biscuits, 7-Up, a piece of cheese, some cool-looking yogurt and banana for me)
- really sucks (Janet is suffering and that makes me sad)
We're really not eating anything today.

Posted by wm. christman at 10:15 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I didn't happen to mention that we're staying at Xaviera Hollander's Bed & Breakfast... Xaviera herself recommended a local spot called La Falotte so off we went, teetering from being awake for well over 30 hours from the flight and train ride.

La Falotte is a half French, half Dutch place with a Dutch standard meat-potatoes-veg set menu. You could get ala carte too. The special was a nice sized piece of pork fillet in a wine sauce with potatoes and what tasted like either fennel bulb or celery root (but looked like chunky library paste). The meat n' potato were very good. The root was a bit bland and slightly bitter. I should have been wary when the waitress said that there wasn't a word in English to describe the veg...

Janet had vegetable goulash which she said was a bit too tomato-ey for her taste. I thought it was pretty savory but nothing special.

Toward the end of our long (the Dutch believe in a slow, heavy, leisurely feed) meal, the chef came out and serenade several of what appeared to be his friends with his accordian. While that was ok, he did eventually ask us where we were from and then started a rendition of "Home On The Range". And yes, it was expected that we sing because let's face it, ALL Americans know the words to that song by heart. Unfortunately (or really fortunately), we didn't, he was interrupted and we escaped without flexing vocal chords.

Overall, we'd give it 6 or 7.

Epilogue: Ok, crap. Janet is now sick with some stomach thing. Was it the goulash? The satekroket? The airline food?

Posted by wm. christman at 11:05 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Many hours have passed and we're finally in Amsterdam. The first thing Jan spots after getting off the Thalys train is an automat of a sort that vends "kroket" - a deep fried pastry, more over a collection of deep fried treats. Kroket is pretty much like a croquette, only in a convenient shape and size for on-the-go knoshing.

One Euro and a paper sleeve later, we're munching on a satekroket which ends up being a log of highly spiced mashed potato in a deep fried casing. It's pretty good but kind of odd on the first bite.

Perusing the rows shows all kinds of krokets: sausage, cheese, meats, more potato...a vertiable smorgasbord of treat. We vow to buy more tomorow.

Posted by wm. christman at 05:57 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)