Another FEBO Post

After drinking beer at Heineken Experience and doing more sightseeing, we wanted a snack before dinner. There are so many FEBO locations in Amsterdam and we happened upon a different one near the Red Light District. Why not try something else?


This FEBO had a slightly different layout. In this picture, you can also see the change machine that you can use, since the machines only take coins.

This time we got the satekroket, which was described as a spicy ragout from peanut and beef, which was then fried. The texture of the croquette was basically fried mush. I know that doesn't sound very good, but it actually tasted good. It was like satay sauce-flavored mush with a fried outside.


We intended to make another trip to FEBO to try the Asian burger (the special of the month) but never got around to it. Maybe we'll go back on our next visit to Amsterdam since we love trying different fast food!

Burgermeester

After our snack at FEBO, we walked around the city some more, and then took the tram over for lunch at Burgermeester.

Burgermeester has a few different locations in Amsterdam, and we went to the one in the De Pijp neighborhood because we were going to head over to the Heineken Experience after lunch. (Just a note: we did research on restaurants before our trip and came armed with an entire list of possibilities. It didn't stop us from stumbling on places, but we had certain places that we "knew" from our research would be good and this was one of them.)


M loved that the menu was completely in Dutch. To the side is the special of the month burger that we considered (but didn't get), the piri piri burger.


M got the kip (chicken) tandooriburger which came with gelderse hoen (something to do with chicken, we think?), tauge (bean sprouts) and mintyoghurt (mint yogurt). It was really, really good. And really, really huge. M should have gotten the mini, but she thought that was a slider size. When the burger came out, we were stunned by how big it was! But it was really good. The chicken was juicy and the toppings added a nice flavor.


A got the meester biefburger, which contained Blonde d'Aquitaine rund (beef), gegrilde groenten (grilled vegetables) and dragonmayo (tarragon mayo). A was expecting a little spice to the burger due to the "dragon" mayo, but after we found out dragon is Dutch for tarragon, it made sense that there was no heat. The burger was quite tasty. The patty was cooked very well with just a little pinkness to it even though it was a thinner patty. After the initial disappointment with no spice, A thoroughly enjoyed his burger.


Happy with our burgers! (See how huge they were?)


With burgers in our bellies, we headed off for some beer at the Heineken Experience (which we will leave for our personal blog since it's not really about food and the beer is just Heineken, even if it tastes better in Amsterdam)!

FEBO

Before heading to Amsterdam, M and I didn't really have much clue what constituted Dutch food. The only thing we really knew about were croquettes. Meat and/or veggies compressed together, spiced, and then deep fried. Could it get any better?

Day 2 of our European vacation started with a quick trip to a couple apotheeks in search of instant ice packs. As noted here, I was still recovering from knee surgery and wanted to try and alleviate pain and swelling as best I could since we'd be walking a lot. None were to be found so we resumed our eating extravaganza.

One of the few things we had researched and labeled as a "must try" was FEBO. FEBO is an automat serving little burgers, croquettes, and other delicious treats. They also have a counter that you can order from, but in all of our trips to FEBOs, we only saw people utilizing the automat portion. M has a thing for automats. She loves them. I'm not sure if it's the history behind them or if she just likes the novelty of them, but she really does love them. Me? I just like fried things :)

First view of the automat portion
So for our first trip to FEBO we took time to examine all of the choices before settling on the Bami croquette. It was a tasty little fried nugget filled with chicken and vegetables.

Me paying for our treat
Me getting our treat out of the window
Our tasty croquette
The croquette was very very tasty. Good outer crunch followed by a soft interior. The flavors of the croquette itself was faintly Asian. A touch of soy sauce, and a little hint of star anise. Yummy fried goodness.

Albert Heijn

Whenever we travel, a grocery store is always on my must-see list. (Funny, I came across this post after we were back from our trip. I see I am not the only one!)

One reason we visit grocery stores on our travels is a practical one. We stock up on breakfast (usually granola bars), water and snack foods. Domestically, we usually bring breakfast with us, because there isn't much difference between grocery stores, but internationally, I plan to buy it there. But the reason why I love visiting grocery stores? They're so much fun! They're great insights into the local culture and I just love finding all the different products.

The only "problem" with grocery stores in other countries (especially in other languages) is that I am fascinated by everything and want to take pictures of everything. I tried to restrain myself on our earlier visit at the airport grocery store and this visit from taking too many pictures.

Now that I've given you my grocery-store-obsession background, it should come as no surprise that Albert Heijn was high on our destination list. It's the main grocery store in Amsterdam and there are branches everywhere you look. They aren't gigantic like our supermarkets, and A remarked that this could be because people don't seem to stockpile like they do here and instead buy what they need at the time.

Here's a look at some of the things that fascinated me at the grocery store:

Packaged sandwiches that look perfect for bringing to work for lunch (if I did that sort of thing).


Boerenkool... does that look familiar?


Pizza!


Carrot balls (as opposed to baby carrots or carrot sticks)... they look cute!


Why can't we have shrimp chips in our regular grocery stores? Love.


This could work for a taco night party substitution:


Pretty strawberry cake.


These cats kind of scare me, although I guess you could find them cute.


Mmm... popsicles.


And of course, lots of paprika snacks.


And here's what we ended up buying:


2 boxes of breakfast bars (muesli reep) - natural and chocolate flavors, shrimp chips, paprika mini fries, Spa Reine water (huge bottle for cheap), mini stroopwafels (delicious, more on that later), and Haribo (my favorite candy brand which we need more of here) happy cherries.

This was the first of several Albert Heijn visits (mostly for water). Such fun!

De Rozenboom

Our first "real" meal in Amsterdam was at De Rozenboom, a place we stumbled upon after spending the first afternoon of our trip wandering the city to get acquainted and chasing the beer bike (more on that another time). We had passed many places that looked like pubs or restaurants, but didn't see anyone eating any food! They were only drinking beer so we had no idea what the food looked like. Then we found De Rozenboom on a little alley, and after we saw that they had some Dutch dishes, headed right in.


De Rozenboom was a cute little place built on multiple levels. They had tables outside and inside, and we opted for an inside table since it was getting cool (and I was one of about 5 people we saw that day wearing shorts).

They had a huge menu, with pancakes, soups, salads, burgers, lots of entrees with chicken, meat and fish options, and of course, the Dutch specialties. All of the Dutch dishes came with soup. It was a simple chicken soup with a nice, mild flavor. There wasn't much in it but it was a good broth which you could tell was made from real chicken. (Wow, I look completely exhausted.)


I got a dish called boerenkool met worst, which was listed on the menu as kale with a smoked sausage. I didn't know anything about this dish beforehand, and was expecting sausage with something like sauteed kale on the side, but what I got was this:


Mashed potatoes mixed with kale and topped with bacon! It was also accompanied by a nice salad which had something that tasted to us like rakkyo!

A ordered kapucijners met spek, uitjes, zuur, picalilly & bal gehakt, which was translated (they had an English page) as marrow peas with bacon, onions, pickles and a meatball. His dish also came with the salad.


It was so good. Both dishes were really tasty and a great introduction to Dutch traditional dishes, but I give A's dish a slight edge for tasting so healthy. It also wasn't as heavy as kale and bacon topped mashed potatoes! A also liked his better for similar reasons. He found it really refreshing and liked the marrow peas. The marrow peas were definitely a standout.


We also got Amstel beers to drink with dinner. I love how they serve beer in smaller glasses in Europe! Much more my style.

The dishes reminded us of Dutch comfort food and it was such a cute little restaurant, so it was perfect for a meal at the end of an exhausting travel day. If you should find yourself in the area (it's a short walk from the Spui tram stop), we definitely recommend it. Check out the marrow peas!

Uncle Gussy's

Food from a Greek truck? Yes, please.

I went to Uncle Gussy's, a truck located on 51st and Park, today for lunch. I wanted to take a walk and then got my mind set on a chicken pita, so I headed over. My plan B if the line was more than 20 people was to head back a few blocks and get chicken over rice from XPL.


Uncle Gussy's has pitas, platters, sandwiches, Greek salads and burgers. They also have daily specials "made by Mom." (Today it was tomatoes stuffed with rice and chopped meat.) The Greek salad sounded really good, but as I said, I was there for a chicken pita. Luckily the line wasn't that long and I quickly put in my order for a chicken pita deluxe.


I didn't really know what the difference was between a pita and the deluxe and didn't feel like asking at the time. I figured, it was my first time there, I'd find out what it was and then adjust accordingly next time. Turns out, unlike at diners where "deluxe" means fries but also the sandwich toppings, deluxe here just meant fries.


I got the sandwich on whole wheat pita. Liked having that option. I didn't add any other extras, so it came with lettuce, tomato, white sauce (tzatziki) and hot sauce.


And a better look at what's inside the pita:


The chicken pita was so good. I definitely want to go back for more, whether it's in a pita, platter or as the chicken gyro topping to the Greek salad. The chicken pita fulfilled my craving. Go visit Uncle Gussy's!

100 Tastes

The 2010 Time Out New York list of the 100 best dishes and drinks came out today. Out of everything on the list, we have had 1.5 (we both had 1, but only 1 of us had a 2nd).

Together we had the Great White Way concrete from Shake Shack (see: Shake Shack addiction) although we think that Jelly's Last Donut is better. It made so little impact that A didn't even remember that we had it.


The only other thing from the list is the spekuloos spread that A has had from wafels & dinges.

Other than those 2, we've been to a couple other places on the list but haven't had the "best" dish there. But there are so many more places to try! It's a good thing we started a food blog...

Kari Ayam

The Malaysia Kitchen Food Truck is currently out at lunchtime in NYC and will be on the road (during the week) for the next month or so. The aim of the truck is to promote Malaysian food and restaurants, and they are giving out free food at their station each day.

Today I heard they were parked near Bryant Park, so I ventured over around 2. There wasn't much of a line at all since it was on the later side.


Since it's all free samples, they limit you to one per person. Not having more choices and not taking money also helps the line move faster (and it moves quickly). Although free giveaways usually mean a madhouse, this line was fairly short.


They did a great job with the truck itself. If I were doing one of those marketing surveys where you pick which design you like, this would be up there.


The choices for the day, coming from Fatty Crab (which I have always wanted to try but haven't gotten to yet), were between kari ayam (chicken curry) and nasi lemak (coconut rice served with sambal, egg and cucumbers). My first instinct was to get nasi lemak because, well, I like nasi lemak. But I also like chicken curry and thought maybe that would be more flavorful. So I changed my mind and got that.


But the chicken had more skin than it did meat:


The coconut rice was good. The meat that I did get had a very mild flavor but it was good when mixed with the rice. It was just disappointing that it was so much skin and bone, and not much actual meat on the chicken. I should have gone with my first instinct and gotten the nasi lemak. Oh well. But, really, can't complain too much - it's free!

I'll be keeping an eye out for their tweets to see when they're in the neighborhood next. I can't wait to try something else!

Around Schiphol

After our delicious snack at Vlaamse Frites, we walked around other parts of the Schiphol "mall" including the grocery store. I love grocery stores. Visiting grocery stores on vacation is something I love to do - to see the different products, brands, foods that are important to the local culture. Here, at the airport store, I expected to see drinks, sandwiches to go, or other things that people might bring on board.

The first thing that caught our eye was the stroopwafels. A stroopwafel is made from two thin cookie-like waffles with a caramel-like filling. Gouda, in the Netherlands, is the home to the stroopwafel. In our trip preparation, one of the day trips we were considering was Gouda & Utrecht, on which we were definitely going to look for stroopwafels. (Spoiler: we never made it on the day trip, since there was so much to see in Amsterdam!) I was looking forward to trying them for the first time but didn't want to buy them just yet.


The second thing that I noticed was how much "real" food there was. Food that you wouldn't just take to go or take on a plane. Lots of cheese. Raw meat. Frozen foods. Premade meals that needed to be microwaved. I loved looking at all of it, but wondered who was buying it. They also had premade sandwiches in boxes to go, but those were less exciting (other than putting my Dutch food vocabulary studies to work).


The chips were also really interesting, mostly because of the different flavors. There were lots of snack foods in paprika flavor. (We made a mental note that we had to try paprika snacks before leaving.) But it wasn't just the paprika flavors that were different. Barbecue ham or bolognese flavored potato chips? Why don't we have these in all of our grocery stores?


Large sections of the store were devoted to drinks, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic. There were lots of orange drinks, including beer bottles and orange sodas. Heineken had orange designs. Orange and beer everywhere. We also saw Budweiser (not pictured) which was "Czech imported lager."


We had on our "to do" list for later that day to take a trip to the Albert Heijn supermarket after we checked in at our hotel so we could stock up on granola bars for breakfast and drinks. We didn't buy anything at the airport grocery store, but it was a fun and fascinating visit!

Detox

After a weekend of indulgence (Shacktoberfest, 4food burgers, BBQ, 3-course anniversary dinner), all I wanted to do for lunch was to eat something "clean." I've previously written about Just Salad, which I find is the most reliable place to go in Midtown for salads of good quality and flavor.

Today it wasn't that busy, probably because of Columbus Day. When it came time to chop my salad, I noticed that the person before me had gotten broccoli, which unfortunately causes a really bad reaction for me. From a previous exchange with them on Twitter, I learned that if you have a food allergy, they can switch out the cutting board for you. I felt bad asking the guy to do it since he had to go into the back for it, but I had no choice and he was really nice about it. I got my salad, got my 5% discount for the loyalty card (yay!), and was on my way.

The salad was huge today. I don't know if it's because it was Columbus Day or they were just being generous with spinach, but there was so much in my salad that it was hard for the bowl to close! It was full of healthy goodness.


Spinach salad with grilled chicken, grape tomatoes, chickpeas, beets, white beans, barley and red peppers. I can't believe I forgot my usual red onions! But it was still tasty and nutritious (photo from after I had eaten an entire layer of salad):


What do you like in your salads?

Auf Wiedersehen Shacktoberfest Part II

It wouldn't be a proper recap of Shake Shack or its Shacktoberfest without talking about their concrete specials. This year they had two specials:

Cranberry Almond Streusel

Vanilla custard mixed with cranberry compote and almond streusel. Topped with a little schlag (whipped cream)

German Chocolate

Chocolate custard blended with coconut, toasted walnuts and caramel. Topped with a little schlag (whipped cream) except they didn't put on the schlag which is okay by us.

A preferred the Cranberry Almond Streusel as it had a nice ginger-y flavor to go with the tartness of the cranberries and the sweet crunch of the streusel and almonds. The schlag wasn't necessary, but it was okay.

M preferred the Cranberry Almond Streusel because of the cranberries. She likes cranberries. Also, her thought was that the German Chocolate was good because of the coconut, but overall wasn't anything special.

A agrees that the German Chocolate overall had good flavor, and coconut is always a treat, but it was nothing overly special. The walnuts added a nice bit of texture to the concrete, but the caramel was lost due to the overall sweetness of the concrete.

We definitely enjoyed both concretes as they each had their own merits. Overall, we still think the Jelly's Last Donut is the best concrete they offer in the Theater District.

Auf Wiedersehen Shacktoberfest Part I

Today was the last day of Shacktoberfest at Shake Shack. (We have mentioned Shacktoberfest before, but never actually discussed the Shacktoberfest specials.) Since it was our last chance to enjoy the Shacktoberfest specials for the year, we had to go back for lunch to try whatever we hadn't tried before and have our favorites one last time.

We each got our favorite Shacktoberfest sausage, which happens to be the same one: the garlic sausage. According to the Shack menu, the garlic sausage is "a Polish-style garlic sausage cooked flat-top style topped with a bacon n' beer cheese sauce featuring Shackmeister ale, finished with crushed pretzels." It's delicious. It probably doesn't even need the crushed pretzels. That bacon beer and cheese sauce is the star.


We tried one of each sausage last time and split them all in half, so here's a cross-section of the garlic sausage:


Another Shacktoberfest special was the "Hungarian smoked sausage" which according to the Shack menu is "split and griddled, served with Dusseldorf mustard." Of the 3 sausage specials, this came in second for M. (A doesn't really have a preference between the 2 other sausages and just ranks the garlic sausage on top.) This may have something to do with the fact that the mustard is really good and M loves mustard.


Last of the specials was the currywurst, which was served with fries. According to the Shack menu, it's "traditional style bratwurst in a Shack-made tomato sauce with curry." This was ok. The sauce was definitely a tomato-based sauce, but it didn't taste like much more than that. It also probably didn't help that we had currywurst the night before at Hallo Berlin.


Can't wait to find out what's in store for Shacktoberfest 2011! But before we drop Shacktoberfest entirely until next year - one more post about the Shacktoberfest special concretes!