Month: October 2007

Het Stuivertje – will try again!

Went to Het Stuivertje last night, a traditional eetcafe in the Jordaan, with kip sate, tournedos and dorado on the menu, all dishes served with fries, and lots of old photographs and pictures on the wall.

Anyway, the dinner went wrong: It took forever to get the rather straightforward dishes; the mobile phones at the neighbouring table kept ringing; and the rib-eye I had ordered was hard and full of tendons.

So all I wanted to do was pay, get out of there and never come back. The waitress came, we asked for the check, she asked whether we liked our food.

Now it gets interesting. I always give detailed and specific feedback to restaurants, no matter whether I liked the food a lot or not. Amazingly, most of the time the personnel seems surprised and overwhelmed and quite simply unable to do anything with that feedback. It really seems like the question is only asked out of courtesy not to solicit an actual answer.

Not so tonight. Our waitress wanted to know what I didn’t like. So I explained and when she came back with the check, the rib eye had been taken off.

I must say that I was very surprised. This does not happen often.

And I must also say that it worked. Instead of going home with the intention to never come back, I will now try again and hope for a better experience next time around!

Red Bergerac 2005 at Tromp Winkel

I have always liked red Bergerac wines – strong, aromatic wines from the region east of Bordeaux, along the Dordogne river.  Bergerac wines are usually made mainly from Cabernet and Merlot grapes. They are tannin-rich and fruity with red fruit, black fruit and vanilla aromas.

Bergerac wines are not as dry as Bordeaux wines and much more easily combined with many sorts of dishes. They are great for meat and cheese and also go very well with pastas or risottos with cream sauce. Some people will even combine a red Bergerac with fish in a buttery sauce.

Another advantage is that – as a region – Bergerac is a lot less famous and renowned as Bordeaux. So while you pay for the reputation of a Bordeaux, you mainly pay for the quality of a Bergerac. My price range for buying an everyday wine is usually between 5 and 10 euros. Anything below 5 euros is too risky – there might be some great finds but the majority is just plain bad. And spending more than 10 euros is not only a lot of money for drinks. But also not many people have a fine enough palette to taste the difference every day.

So I was quite pleased to find a great Bergerac at the Tromp Winkel – a cheese store on Beethovenstraat – the other day. It’s a 2005 Chevalier de la Rogère, made by a Dutch couple who emigrated to the south of France to make wine:

Red Bergerac 2005

The Tromp winkel on Beethovenstraat frequently has some great wines next to its great selection of cheeses. The Chevalier de la Rogère will set you back 9,95 euros per bottle. During the special offer in October you can get 24 bottles for the price of 15.

The wine has a dark red color and is full of fruity aromas. I find that it still has a rather alcoholic nose, so I might leave it in the cellar for another one or two years. It’s made almost 100% from Merlot grapes.

One of my favorite restaurants, De Witte Uyl, used to have a great Bergerac, the Château Grinou 1999, which was 100% Merlot. Guess I was not the only one who liked it – they ran out.

If you like red wine and cheese, head over to Tromp for some Epoisse and a bottle of 2005 Bergerac before they run out, too!

Samosas – easy and yummy

I find starters the best every time I eat at an Indian restaurant. The bhaji, pakoras and samosas are often so good that I end up having too many of them and feeling somewhat full even before the main course. All the starters are delicious, but samosas – Indian, fried, triangular-shaped pastry with a spicy potato and veggie stuffing – are my favorite.

The other day I decided to try making my own samosas. At that time, I wasn’t really sure what I was getting myself into. But was pleasantly surprised to find out that samosas are actually quite easy to make. Most of the ingredients are easy to find and it took me less than an hour to make 8 super yummy samosas. The dough was made in minutes and the stuffing is very easy, consisting of only potatoes, veggies and spices. Folding and stuffing the samosas took a little trial and error, but proved quite doable. I definitely recommend trying it: they are super yummy and something you can impress your friends with!

One thing that helped greatly was watching a video of an expert doing it. I found two great ones on youtube, with expert Manjula – a lovely Indian lady with a cute accent – demonstrating all steps of making samosas. They are quite funny, but even more so instructive and spot on. I am including them below. The first video is 8:30 minutes and shows how to make the dough and the stuffing. Part 2 lasts 5:30 minutes. It starts with Manjula folding and stuffing the samosas and ends with the frying process.



I only made two changes, substituting corn starch for semolina flower (which I didn’t have in the house) and using broccoli rather than green peas (which I simply preferred).

The hard to understand ingredient is “garam masala”, a mix of spices that is used a lot in Indian dishes and good to have at home. Among many other spices it includes cumin, clovers, and cardamom. And I also made some tamarind sauce, by mixing tamarind paste with some water and sugar. You can get both garam masala and tamarind paste at your local toko or Indian / Asian store.

Oh, and in case things go wrong, here is a great place for Indian delivery. Just give Indian Express on Pieter Langedijkstraat, behind Overtoom, a quick call. And they will bring you some great samosas, bhaji and pakoras. And they will even be happy to bring a main course if you still feel like having one after all those super yummy starters.

marqt opening soon near Leidseplein

marqt is a new type of supermarket that focuses on selling fresh and tasty food. It has gotten a lot of attention in the press and many of us have been eagerly awaiting the opening of the first store. From well-informed sources I have now heard that the first shop will open on Overtoom, near Leidseplein, in December.

The focus of traditional supermarkets like Albert Heijn is clearly on convenience (“new extended expiration date!”) and price (“price permanently reduced on another 3000 products”). And the recent trend towards biological food has been shamelessly exploited by above supermarkets and chains like De Natuurwinkel to offer food that is not much better but definitely more expensive.

I buy most of my groceries from the turkish store on the corner. Why? Because it’s *good* – good as in tasty; good as in fresh, savory ingredients that make all the difference in cooking; good as in flavors coming from fruits, vegetables, meat, spices and herbs rather than from some mass-produced ready-mix. In Amsterdam, every saturday morning, thousands of people flock to Noordermarkt for exactly the same reason. So I must not be the only one…

What is the secret behind *good* food? The Slow Food movement has seen substantial success in promoting *good* food. Slow Food was founded in 1989 to “counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world”. Slow Food members consider themselves “co-producers, not consumers”.

marqt’s concept is to focus on local products rather than mass production; to employ personnel that loves food and is knowlegeable about it rather than students in pursuit of extra cash; and to partner with the producers through revenue sharing.

I am sold and cannot give it a try as soon as the first marqt opens its doors to the lucky co-producers of Amsterdam!

For more info see: