mmm…nothing like a blanket of mayonnaise to stimulate the appetite. lest you think tastes in the city of amsterdam are so refined as to produce only plentiful cornucopias of fresh produce and traditional artisan cheese wheels, i thought i’d share some photos of the darker side of the city’s gastronomic offerings.   if you despise the deep-fried, cringe at cholesterol, and fear fattiness in full force, shield your delicate eyes from the following gallery of wonders.

considering the reasons many tourists travel to amsterdam,  it’s no surprise that much of the food aims to satisfy the most indulgent of desires. whether it’s the cheesiest bacon-studded hot dog extravaganza or a sugar-spiked, chocolate-dipped, syrup-blanketed, frosting-laden waffle, there’s a stunning selection of items celebrating the dirtiest, basest, most gluttonous food fantasies.

as you stroll the winding streets, nearly every other shopfront displays massive glass cases nearly overflowing with hardened pizza rounds the size of manhole covers and multiple incarnations of cheese-drenched meat products trapped in encrusted shells of  stale bread.  visually horrifying, but surprisingly acceptable at certain points very very late in the evening or rather, very early in the morning.

on the sweet side, these shops all offer dozens of varieties of these terrifyingly shiny sugar-waffle explosions, their sad mountains of frosting languishing under the fluorescent lights.

but hey. it’s a city of the munchies. what else would you expect? it’s no surprise that you can’t walk anywhere in the city centre without encountering masses of people  clutching their white paper cones of french fries, mouths smeared with mayonnaise and ketchup and eyes delirious with greed.  we fell victim too, although in a less satisfying styrofoam container.

you can see flinner looks a bit sheepish and root looking very apprehensive at what’s about to go in her mouth.

i found myself very intrigued by the robot machines  pictured below. but…i really hope this isn’t what food of the future looks like.

in the wise words of the irish legend eoin flinner, the food at wagener hockey stadium in amsterdam is ‘absolutely savage.’  i don’t know if it’s a dutch thing or a european thing or we’re-not-in-kansas-eating-deep-fried-anything-anymore thing, but i’ve never seen food like this at a sporting event.  sure,  i’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for a good old fenway frank and garlic fries are part of the fun at A’s and 49ers games,  but i was seriously impressed by the freshly made sandwiches and the bountiful displays of fruits and vegetables. check out the mozzarella and tomato caprese sandwiches on huge baguettes below:

and the insane display of veggies for on-the-spot stir frying. i don’t think most of these vegetables have ever seen the inside of a US stadium except maybe to soak up the grease from a sausage.

not feeling a thai curry or vegetable stir-fry? you could also choose from a selection of just-chopped salads:

and the desserts? i saw a twinkly-eyed old man chopping fresh strawberries while soft spiralled croissants baked away in the oven. and you can see by the empty tart shells that these tempting little berry mounds are being made on the spot. quite a far cry from soft serve from a machine or even a ben and jerry’s peace pop straight out the box.

there’s certainly something to be said for the joys of watery beer in a plastic cup, exorbitantly priced hot dogs, and chucking peanut shells on the ground while watching the sox drive it home in the 9th inning. obviously you don’t go to fenway or gillette or your stadium of choice for the four-star dining. and to be fair, stadium food has gotten a lot better in the US in recent years. in fact, the new yankee stadium even has a fruit stand. whaaaaat? surprising but a great idea, although it would be nice if the fruit was local instead of shipped in from across the country. but rest assured all you old-school die-hard sports fans who think that the world is going to hell in a compost pail – the stadium still sells hot dogs, sliders, pretzels, and an amazing 1,341 calorie portion of cheese fries (btw that link goes to the great blog young and foodish, whose author i met a few weeks ago).  why bother with fruit when you can get nearly an entire day’s worth of calories in just a few bites?

in case you’re wondering why i was at a dutch hockey stadium in the first place, my friend eoin’s sister roisin was playing for ireland in the euro hockey championships. GOOOO TEAM! it may have been 8am and our group may have made up about 20% of the people there, but our crew came in full force.

ireland rally gear FTW! no doubt about it.

i’m curious about the food sitch at other stadiums in the UK and europe and around the US as well. guess it’s time to get me to a football match. anyone got any great (or horrendous) stadium food experiences at home or abroad? leave a comment and let me know…

obviously, it’s the raw herring. if that’s not what you were thinking of, it should be.

discovering local foods is one of my absolute favorite things about traveling. it’s a great excuse to talk to people, to make new friends with random strangers, shopkeepers and restauranteurs, to learn new things about food and culture and identity, and to sample some delicious and often deliciously weird things along the way.  sanne, one of our very gracious dutch hosts, recommended we try the fresh herring, which has generally been lightly salted or brined to conserve.  for you history buffs, apparently herring has played a major role in the historical and economic development of the netherlands dating back to the 14th century. unfortunately, we forgot to follow up with a recommendation for a good place to get the herring. luckily, the fantastic foodiefest street of haarlemmerstraat came through for the win as i randomly walked by a classic herring vendor on a bridge right near the apartment. turns out that stubbe haring is actually considered one of the best herring wagons in town. success!

it’s even better when the classic local dish also involves a traditional method of eating, which is to hold it up over your mouth like a mama bird with a juicy worm for her baby and let it slither down your throat. you can see the traditional dutch lady in the poster doing it successfully – root and i wanted the raw onions and pickles as well so we stuck with the hot dog bun style sandwich version.

raw herring might sound scary, but it’s actually quite tasty. a little slimy, a little gooshy, a little fishy but the soft pliability of the hot dog bun and the piquant crunch of the onions and pickles make for one highly enjoyable little dutch package. in fact, it was delicious enough that we decided to immediately buy a second one but with the smoked herring this time.

wedged into its happy little white bread cocoon, the firm and salty smoked herring is absolutely ridiculously phenomenally good.  it doesn’t have the slick fleshiness that might frighten people away from the raw herring and the smokiness adds a fantastic undercurrent of flavor.  michaelangelo, a world-traveling ninja turtle whose jetsetting likeness has been captured in many exotic locales around the planet, also enjoyed the smoked herring a great deal as you can tell by the victorious fist pump.

of course, michaelangelo being an eternally curious global citizen and connoisseur of local specialties, would never leave a city without sampling all the traditional delicacies.  okay, according to his story he only strolled through the red light district. but we’ve caught him on camera taking full advantage of amsterdam’s other fully legal delights.

surfing a wave of dutch cheese with a can of heineken and a fat spliff – that’s worth a victory fist pump for sure.

i knew i was in a city of good eating when one of my first morning stumbles was into a shop called ‘cheeseland’ with wheels of emmenthaler the size of a monster truck tire or a dog bed for a large-ish golden retriever.  to give you a sense of scale, that wedge has a larger diameter than my kitchen table (not that you’ve seen my kitchen table, but it’s of a good size).  hellooo and welcome to amsterdam.

the reason for my cheese shop visit was thanks to a few days in holland hanging out with my friends rootster and flinner, two of my favorite people who live far away in chengdu, china, whom i clearly do not get to see often enough. these two party legends emailed and said ‘hey we’re going to be in amsterdam next week! come meet up!’ and i said ‘hmm….okay!’ and a week later found myself enjoying all of amsterdam’s myriad sources of entertainment.  i love living on a continent with affordable train travel, even when you live on an island. amazing.

since i got in on a fairly late train, my first real experience with amsterdam’s quality food came on a solo morning tour of the streets around our friend’s apartment near the central train station. i left root and flinner to catch up on sleep in a new time zone and ventured out to get coffee and munchies. and just so you know – it was 9am so i don’t mean that kind of coffee or that kind of munchies -  those came later in that day (remember mom, it’s legal there!). haarlemmerstraat, the street right outside our friend’s place must be some sort of gourmet thoroughfare because i visited two cheese shops, three bread and pastry shops, an olive oil store, a spanish and an italian delicatessen, a lebanese bakery, and two juice bars over the course of the trip.  i knew it was a good neighborhood when i immediately ran into this chocolate and sweets shop:

i may not know the exact translation of bonboncreaties but unlimited delicious is certainly speaking my language. they even had a signs for a new food fair in nearly every shop window. i’m seriously tempted to go back next weekend.  the beautifully crafted chocolates and cakes were gorgeous but i was in a savory mood so i continued on to kaasland in the top picture. i was enticed by the bright green color of the pesto cheese (in the very center of the photo) and the friendly dutch woman behind the counter recommended an amazing deeply flavored and almost caramelly aged gouda as a local specialty. i also purchased a warm loaf of brown bread and some fresh fruits and vegetables from the supermarket including tiny ripe strawberries and juicy sweet tomatoes.

the most amusing moment of the morning came when i tried to buy coffee to bring back to root and flinner. every shop on the street seemed to be a ‘coffeeshop,’ not actually a shop that sells coffee. i finally stopped in one with a large espresso machine in the back and asked the guy behind the counter if they sold takeaway coffee.  he smiled and handed me a brochure on ‘amsterdam coffee’ and said ‘this is what coffee means in amsterdam.’ right…i get that. but..how does one actually buy coffee? i finally discovered a place that not only served actual drinking coffee but produced its coffee with the incredible robot machine on the right. i want it to wiggle its espresso arms and go waaaalll-eeeeeee.

after stuffing ourselves with bread and cheese and veggies, we did a bit of wandering around the city’s beautiful cobblestoned streets, over shimmering canals and past ornately decorated old buildings and churches. root and i caught up on several years worth of talking, stumbled upon the red light district and tried our best not to get hit by bikes. here’s the two of us probably standing in the middle of a bike lane.

root being a fellow serious eater, it wasn’t too long before we were hungry again and returned to haarlemmerstraat to pick up more snacks. my favorite purchase was some of the best bread i’ve ever had, a flattish crunchy brick of mixed olives and sundried tomato:

we also couldn’t turn down these amazing pastries on display at vlaamsch broodhuys, which i believe means breadhouse (which has a lovely but totally unintelligible dutch website).

i was intrigued by the prune tarts in the center but ended up going for abrikozen, frambrozen, and rabarber frambozen (apricot, raspberry and rhubarb raspberry). the rhubarb was very good but a bit too dense and floury, the apricot was better but not quite there, and the raspberry was absolutely spectacular. tart, sweet, sugary perfection.

our last foodie visit on haarlemmerstraat the next day was a fantastic gourmet food store specializing in olive oil, vinegar, and mustards.  one wall consisted solely of huge metal canisters full of oils imported from spain, italy, france, and even a fair trade olive oil from palestine.

i picked up some peppery italian olive oil and we also succumbed to the siren call of some delicious olives and marinated purple artichokes. root and i also made a beeline back to the breadhouse for more olive and sundried tomato bread. i could graze on this street for ages.

i’ve got posts on some traditional amsterdam specialties coming up, as well as some items you may not want to let anywhere near your mouth. if you’re ever in amsterdam, make sure you visit the foodie paradise of haarlemmerstraat. i’ll even give you the addresses if you bring me back snacks…

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Meeuwig & Zn (olive oil, mustard, vinegar, etc. shop)

Haarlemmerstraat 70
1013ET Amsterdam

Vlaamsch Broodhuys (amazing bread and pastries)

Haarlemmerstraat 108
1013EW Amsterdam