Ava Cyril

Carmen
Carmen
First Reviewer
5 out of 5
Avg. Member Rating
1
Review
3
Photos
Editor Pick

Warm Meal, Warm People

  • April 27, 2009
  • Rated 5 of 5 by Carmen from Fairfax, Virginia
Warm Meal, Warm People

On any major tourist street in Amsterdam, your likely to find a smorgasbord of food choices, from bars to sit-down restaurants (which are now non-smoking) to eat-at-the-bar joints to your standard American McDonalds, Subway, KFC and Burger King. Basically, each night, we just strolled through our neighborhood and looked at cafe menus to decide where we would eat dinner.

On our first evening, we happened past an Italian restaurant called just that, Italiaans restuarnt. The aroma wafting out the door made us stop and look, and the menu hearkened to our hungry tummies. The owner even poked his head out of the door as we browsed to tell us about the specials for the evening. Okay, twist our arms, we went inside.

The inside was as quaint as an Italian place that you’ll get outside of Italy. There were Chianti bottles decorating the walls, small, cozy tables filling up, and the smell of good pasta. I ordered the pasta special, which was a mix of all types of pasta - penne noodles, tortellini, etc. all put into one bown and made into a lasagna. My handsome dinner partner ordered the grilled chicken with french fries. We started of with some toasted Italian bread with a garlic butter spread - mmmmmmmm (though it did cost 3 Euro extra, it wasn’t included like it is in the States.)

I am told that the chicken was good, but just chicken. My pasta dish, on the other hand, was MMMMmazing. Savory and delicious and way too much to finish, so my dinner partner made work of it.

We managed to sit next to a few students from the US who were studying in Amsterdam, and they gave us some good first-day tips. The staff was also super pleasant, and we felt like we were eating in an Italian uncle’s kitchen, minus the 32 Euro cost of the meal, the bread and two drinks.

If you’re walking down the Nieuwendijk, which runs parallel to Damrak, your nose might find it before you do, but it’s well worth a sit-down. And if you can get a table up front, so you can people-watch out the window? Even better.

From journal Amster-DAM That Was Fun!

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