Both Burgermeester and the Burger Bar focus on quality meat, fresh ingredients and burgers made fresh on the spot. Where Burgermeester excels at a menu of inventive burgers, the Burger Bar lets you pick and choose your own burger. You can pick from three types of bread, a number of extras such as cheese, onions or mushrooms, as well as twelve sauces. Trying to fully cater to everybody’s preferences, you can even choose the type of meat! There’s the standard Irish beef, the superb black Angus and a 100% Kobe Wagyu option.

It’s rare to see quality food and take-away in the touristy areas around the Dam and Rembrantplein and the Burger Bar is a great option when you’re around there looking for a quick lunch or snack. I thoroughly enjoyed my black Angus burger with cheese and mushrooms on an Italian roll! I’ll try the Wagyu burger next time.

Burger Bar Amsterdam
www.burger-bar.nl

Reguliersbreestraat 9
1017 CL Amsterdam
Tel.: +31 (0)20-3305968
Open daily: 11:00 – 03:00, Friday, Saturday: 11:00 – 04:00
Public transport: Tram 4, 9, 14, 16, 24, 25 to Muntplein.

Kolksteeg 2
1012 PT Amsterdam
Tel.: +31 (0)20-6249049
Open daily: 11:00 – 03:00
Public transport: Any tram, bus or train to Central Station

I went to Broodje Bert to get sandwiches for me and the others at the office. The logistics were a little difficult as Bert has no web site or menu online otherwise. He also only does take away and no delivery. So I cycled over, took a picture of the menu and sent it back to the office. Thank god for the mobile interwebs! I placed the order and had a good time with the others in the store, pretty much all of which seemed to be regulars knowing exactly what they wanted. You can also sit inside, at a small counter behind the large window and look out at the many bikes crisscrossing by.

The sandwiches were large, messy and good. Broodje Bert is known for its grilled chicken sandwich which I tried. It’s a large, thin slice of chicken breast, grilled briefly, with lots of marinade. It’s blackened from the marinade going up in flames when turned over on the grill. The sandwich is garnished with lots of crunchy lettuce, corn and other greens, and  drenched in lots of yummy garlic sauce. The healthy ham sandwich and the BLT with freshly sliced, crispy bacon also looked very good! And the burger with lamb meat on Turkish bread seemed very popular with the regulars.

Broodje Bert is located on Singel 321, Amsterdam and open daily from 9am to 5pm.

I had lunch at La Rive as part of Dining with the Stars, the Michelin star only edition of the Amsterdam restaurant week. The deal was a prix fixe lunch for € 40,=.

The overall experience at La Rive is impressive. The Amstel hotel is very classy with its marble entrance hall and doormen in tuxedos. The restaurant is just as exclusive with old school wooden furniture with golden rims, paintings of the Dutch masters of the golden ages on the walls and table cloths starched to the max. I often find that Michelin star dining experiences are overly formal and spoil much of the fun and this kind of expensive but middle of the road decor is part of the reason.

I was positively surprised by the service. First of all it was as professional and present as you would expect from a Michelin star restaurant. There are more people looking after your well being than you can imagine – receptionist, host, floor manager, waiter, bus boy, sommelier and probably a few others I forgot about. And everything is taken care of constantly – your glass topped off as soon as you take a sip, your napkin replaced as soon as you leave the table and your satisfaction with the food checked and double checked. While this is to be expected, I also found the service very friendly and with a good sense of humor, which nicely loosed up the formal atmosphere!

The food was absolutely amazing. I was most impressed by the consistency of the elaborate dishes. It’s really unbelievable how each and every of these complex compositions looks and tastes exactly the same!

As is often the case, the amuses were the highlight! So unexpected and just a little crazy. And so fun to try and experience the daring flavors and textures.

The menu was set although La Rive was happy to serve a vegetarian version or accommodate any other dietary requirements. For the carnivorous foodie there was an excellent Wagyu tartar for starters, garnished with mushrooms and paté. Next was cod with ox tail and red cabbage. I thought this worked really well as the ox tail and cabbage supported the cod really well and subtly contrasted its flavors rather than being overpowering. The main was roasted duck with Jabugo ham.

We were a little underwhelmed by the dessert, a mixed platter with mille-feuille, praline, and anise sorbet. It seemed slightly ordinary and was missing something to tie it together.

Overall the lunch was incredibly well executed. The quality of the ingredients was superb, the consistency of the dishes amazing and the service and decor impeccable. As with other Michelin restaurants, we did feel like we were missing the fun. Maybe we need to grow up, but for now we would be happy with a more daring and innovative menu and a more personal and less formal ambiance.

Hoofddorpplein is a square with shops and restaurants in a working class neighborhood just past the far end of Vondelpark. It won’t make it to the top of Amsterdam tourist sights. But it does have a number of interesting food stores and restaurants including well-known wine store Ton Overmars, recently opened Italian wine dealer Vino di Pino, eetcafe Gent aan de Schinkel, a kitchen store, an organic food store and now kek.

The interior of kek was completely redone. The owners turned what used to be a gift store into a modern and bright lunch location. The design signals healthy and the furniture is simple with a lot of wood and country style folding tables. There is a long bench along the side wall that nicely connects the small tables.

Owners Piet Hein and Frederique run kek and create a very friendly atmosphere. When I visited for the first time, Frederique found time to sit down and explain the menu choices and Piet Hein appeared from the kitchen to personally deliver the food. Other guests, including the owner’s parents, shared their positive thoughts about the food and decor.

The food is simple but good. The sandwiches are made from fresh ingredients on thick slices of dark bread. While not masterpieces, a nice step up from the all too frequent bread and cheese. kek also serves simple dishes such as soups and pasta. All dishes are available in the restaurants and also to go – hence the name “kant en klaar”.

Besides the welcoming service, my highlights were the house wine and the free wireless. The wine is provided by Ton Overmars – a nice touch to help your neighboors. And the bright and open design combined with free wireless makes Kek an ideal destination for checking email or writing a blog post while enjoying lunch.

kek
www.kek.nu
Hoofddorpplein 29, 1059 CW Amsterdam, Tel +31 (0)20 753 94 03

I first read about the guide on Mevrouw Gerritsen blog. Turns out that it has been put together by a group of Dutch food writers and journalists, including bloggers Mrs Gerritsen and Petra de Hamer. Other than a few photos of sample pages and the usual marketing blurb, I could not find much information about the guide online. So I decided to order it and share my thoughts with you.

First thing to note is that the guide is written in Dutch, although I would say that basic knowledge of the language is sufficient given the many photos and its address book format. And as an additional benefit of ordering it in spite of the language barrier, you might pick up just enough foodie Dutch from it to bluff your way around Amsterdam’s food scene.

Also be aware that it’s a guide for the entire Netherlands. You may be disappointed if your center of the universe – like mine – is Amsterdam, and you rarely venture out to hard to pronounce places like Middenbeemster, Oosthuizen and Zuid-Scharwoude, let alone anywhere beyond the borders of North Holland.

The section on North Holland has several editorials on organic meat and bio fruits and vegetables. Along with the descriptions there are addresses of butcher shops, farms and markets where you can acquire the produce; some of them in Amsterdam. There also are sections on cheese, bookshops and kitchen supply stores, which for example includes a good description of the authority in Amsterdam, Duikelman on Ferdinand Bolstraat.

Another feature of the Foodloversguide are best-of-lists. Among others, you will find the top 5 lunch places of Amsterdam, including my favorite Small World Catering on Binnenoranjestraat; a list of who makes the freshest bread with amongst others recently opened French franchise Le Fournil de Sebastian on Olympiaplein; or an overview of the Amsterdam Noordermarkt and other farmer’s markets.

The restaurants included in the guide seem to be the ones that purchase their ingredients from the food producers listed in other sections. For Amsterdammers, the guide recommends well-known high-end restaurants Le Garage, De Kas, and Altmann. I found two restaurants that I have not yet been to: Stylish and set menu only Beddington’s on Utrechtsedwarsstraat and A la Ferme, ominously themed after Matisse’s “luxe, calme et volupté” on Govert Flinckstraat. Neither would be high on my want-to-go list because – at least on first sight – they seem to put too much focus on appearance.

Other notable addresses in the Foodloversguide NL are local brewery and summer hotspot Brouwerij ‘t IJ as well as recently opened but expensive concept super market Marqt.

Overall the Foodloversguide NL is a visually pleasing food directory with many useful addresses. Personally, I find it too broad with its focus on the entire Netherlands and everything from far out eco farms to urban kitchen stores and from basic ingredients to high-end dining. I do think it’ll make for a nice christmas gift and will be useful for newbies who like to roam around.

There are two Burgermeester restaurants now, one in De Pijp and one in the Jordaan. Both provide an interesting variety of richly garnished burgers in a modern minimalist diner-like setting.

The set-up of Burgermeester is no frills. You sit in booths around plastic tables that seat four to eight. The walls are painted white and bright red. And there is no further decoration except for a band of pictures of cows that goes around the entire room. You order your burgers directly at the counter and pay up front. The kitchen is open and you can watch your burgers being made. Service is friendly and kept to a minimum.

Burgermeester is all about great burgers. There is an extensive menu with a great variety beef, lamb, turkey but also lentil, goat cheese and salmon burgers. There are a few extras such as corn on the cob and baked potato, but otherwise it’s all burgers. The burgers are served either in regular size or as a popular “mini”, of which you can then also order a trio to sample three of the ingenious burger compositions.

The burgers are prepared masterfully – the meat is top quality and plenty, ingredients are fresh and all burgers have very distinct and flavorful spices and sauces. Last week I tried the burger of the month, which was a “Tokyo burger”, a Japanese beefburger with bok choy, wasabi mayonnaise and a surprising and super yummy ginger flavor! Too bad I only found out on the 30th of the month… The current burger of the month is cod and olive.

I think the fresh and quickly served burgers as well as the friendly no frills setting make Burgermeester an ideal lunch venue! You can find Burgermeester de Pijp on Albert Cuypstraat 48 and Burgermeester Jordaan on Elandsgracht 130.