Amsterdam

Summer 2009

Amsterdam. City of great culture and architecture, omni-present canals and bikes, the Red Light District and the Rijksmuseum, and food, food, food. Oh, and cheese.

The last few times I’ve visited Amsterdam bakeries and steakhouses beckoned from every corner, waffles glistening with chocolate of every shade and sprinkles of every colour, doused in sugar or steeped in caramel, strawberries adorning their sweet lattices, so I wondered how I’d fare for convenience food what with having to eschew the delicious crisp yet chewy with just the right amount of sugar waffle option. Oh, and cheese.

We camped this time, at Zeeburg, which I recommend most highly, so there was no real option to cook food. As such, we turned to Albert Heijn for succour. There is one on practically every corner, and they must have sprung up in the last year or so, because neither I not Holly (my other Amsterdam frequenter) remember there being quite so many. Still, good for us!

One day, I swear I will travel vegan and attempt to eat properly, but as it is, we all survived on a diet of tigerbread (and they do wholemeal tigerbread in Holland!), hummus and crisps. I also had an apple a day, and popcorn. Lots of delicious popcorn. The Albert Heijn ‘extra puur chocolade’ with 72% cacao mentions nowhere that it contains milk, so I stocked up on that too at 82 cents a bar. As you can see in the photo below, there was also a large array of pre-packed salads. For some reason I didn’t think to buy one, but they’re there, they’re vegan, and they’re convenient.

As for places to eat, there were plenty. Before I left I checked out Veggie Place and Happy Cow, making a list of around eighteen places that looked good, including a couple of health food shops. While I was there we managed to make it to Bolhoed on the Prinsengracht, which deserves, and will get, its own post. For sheer convenience, there is a Falafel place in every district. There are five Maoz Falafel places in Amsterdam, and having not come across one before, I have to say they’re pretty good. It was 4€ for quite a hefty serving, but the best part is the salad bar. (Isn’t it always?) We didn’t take full advantage, I pushed some cucumber and cous-cous in the nooks between falafel and pita before we rushed for our tram, but there was a couple in there who were clearly experts. They would take a couple of bites of their pita, revealing new crevices which were perfect for spooning a little more taziki into, or tucking some more lettuce around, then sit down, take a couple more bites, and repeat. You probably can’t get away with this so much when it’s busy, but we were there around ten or eleven in the evening.

For breakfast the next day, we ended up at the Soup Kitchen and had Sweet Potato soup. After checking the website just now, I realise that it probably wasn’t even vegetarian, but it came with soft white bread and was damn tasty. Perhaps I should learn to say ‘Is there milk in this?’ as well as ‘Thank you’ when I travel now. (Bedanke, by the way.)

I think three days is probably an adequate amount of time to survive on hummus and crisp sandwiches, and if you have a little more money than we did (and a tin-opener, or camping stove…) then Amsterdam does cater well to vegetarians, and vegans, alike.