Last week the Holland Food Festival and the Weekend of the Rolling Kitchens were jointly held on the Westergasfabriek. And on June 25, 26, 27 and 28 the Taste Festival will visit Amsterdam for the first time.

Another event that will be a lot of fun for foodies is the Amsterdam Roots Festival Sunday 21 June from noon to 9:30 pm in Oosterpark. The Roots Festival promotes cultural diversity and portrays Amsterdam’s global community. Seven stages will fill the air with music from local and international artists. And a world market with over 100 booths will tickle your multi-ethnic taste buds with exotic food, drink and more.

Momo is located on the ground floor of the Park Hotel on Hobbemakade.  It’s run by head chef Anthony Sousa Tam, formerly of Inamo, London and Nobu, NYC. According to their web site it’s a modern pan Asian cuisine restaurant with a cocktail bar. With a menu designed for sharing where you pass plates amongst friends.

The concept reminds me of the Ma and Uma restaurants Tim Raue runs in Berlin.

The reviews are polarizingly mixed – either excellent, praising the innovative food and trendy design, or outright bad, complaining about the high prices and arrogant service. Opinionated Parool critic Johannes van Dam tore Momo apart, awarding only a 5 on a scale of 10 and calling it a loud club rather than a restaurant.

Hope I’ll manage to get a table soon and check it out for myself!

The Amsterdam marathon, taking place one week later on 19 October, was sponsored by AA sport drinks.

Sometimes behaving responsibly is rough…

But first things first. Lulu Restaurant is by far the best restaurant on Malta. Lulu stands out in a restaurant scene dominated by two types of restaurants: beautifully located Italian and seafood restaurants with standard menus and sub par food aimed at mass tourism; and expensive hotel restaurants with well executed but equally boring menus aimed at luxury tourists.

Lulu Restaurant is located in a quiet side street of the tourist area near Spinola Bay in St. Julian’s. Lulu’s interior is chic but also welcoming with a focus on food – think modern, wall-mounted bookshelves filled with cook books and a wine cellar separated from the main dining room by a large glass window.

What stands out most is the extremely friendly service by owner Nick and his staff. We were greeted with a big smile when entering and given the best table, in the far corner, with couch seats and overlooking the entire restaurant. Fun conversation, jokes and interesting tidbits followed immediately.

The menu is an interesting combination of Maltese and Mediterranean dishes with a modern, eastern twist. It was hard to choose and after quite some deliberation and expert advice by Nick we decided on a Parma ham with figs and goat cheese and seared tuna with snow peas and a chili dressing as starters. For main courses we went with a pumpkin risotto with coconut and monk fish and pancetta spaghetti.

Nick’s impeccable and very helpful service stood out when choosing the wine. We had pretty much decided on going with a Gavi di Gavi and were looking for advice on which of the three on the menu was best. Nick returned with a different bottle – also Italian, a mix of Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc. We liked it but as soon as Nick saw that we were not convinced he disappeared and came back with the perfect Gavi di Gavi.

The food was excellent – well prepared and full of surprises. The risotto was very smooth and made with coconut milk. The Parma ham went really well with the warm figs and had a brown sugar and cinnamon dressing that worked really well. The tuna was seared just right and you could taste the monk fish and the pancetta very well in the spaghetti.

After great starters and mains, a perfect bottle of wine, very rich profiteroles and a strong Irish coffee to finish, Nick finally revealed a little secret. Lulu restaurant is named after Amsterdam’s own Lulu restaurant in the Runstraat. A great excuse to write about a great restaurant on Malta!