I just returned from a long weekend in Amsterdam and inadvertently celebrated the Queen’s birthday, along with half of Europe. The Dutch call the designated birthday of Queen Beatrix Koninginnedag, or Queen’s Day.
Although the holiday has been observed since 1885, setting it on April 30th only happened since 1949, when Beatrix’s mother, Queen Juliana, ascended to the throne. Beatrix kept the date the same when she became Queen to honor her mother. So to celebrate, the festive folk of Holland (indeed, all of Europe) converge on Amsterdam for the big day.
Koninginnedag is like Mardi Gras, only orange instead of green, gold and purple. There are parades and trinkets are tossed to the crowds lining the sidewalks. Most of all, there is public drinking on a massive scale all over the city. It was this scene that met us as we walked out of Amsterdam Centraal train station into the sunshine Thursday afternoon after a six hour train ride from Luxembourg.
Everywhere I looked my eyes met bright orange. Feather boas, t-shirts, tube tops, cowboy hats, face paint, mohawk hairpieces, codpieces. All were in brilliant hunter orange. It was as if a Wembley Stadium Village People concert was stopped halfway through and everyone, performers and audience alike, suddenly decided to go deer hunting together. The aroma of marijuana filled the air. I later discovered that was normal (or NORML) and not a symptom of the Queen’s birthday.
Amsterdam has both hash bars and coffee shops, which can be distinguished (to my inexperienced eyes) by the fact the neither serve coffee and both serve marijuana.
While the rest of the city sought their bacchanalian satiation, our family pursued more sedate activities like touring the Rijksmuseum, visiting the Anne Frank House and traipsing through the Artis Zoo.
And more than anything, we ate. Here is a log of three memorable meals experienced during five days in Amsterdam.
Being the cultural capital of a former colonial power, Amsterdam is blessed with an abundance of Indonesian restaurants. I’m a big fan of the former Netherlands Indies. I lived there for a few years. My honeymoon happened there. I love the people, the culture and the food. So I was really looking forward to a plate of makanan Indonesia (Indonesian food). When asked, the concierge at the Victoria Hotel immediately recommended Puri Mas (Golden Temple) on Lange Leidsedwarsstraat Street.
A word about the Victoria Hotel. It was simply a wonderful place to stay. The place was clean. The staff was friendly and knowledgeable. And it couldn’t be more central to everything we wanted to do. The hotel is directly across a canal from the Amsterdam Centraal. Most bus and trolley lines, as well as canal boats, run right by it. And although it can be a little like Times Square, our room on the third floor was remarkably quiet. Our room (#308) was an Executive Room, with a balcony that overlooked Prins Hendrikkade Street. One of my favorite moments was on a sunny Sunday afternoon, when I picked up a couple of gin and tonics from the lobby bar. We threw open the French doors to let in the breeze and the sunlight and enjoyed our cocktail hour.
INDONESIAN
The menu at Puri Mas looked authentically Indonesian. Even the servers actually looked like real Indonesians. I bring this up because a lot of Indonesian restaurants I’ve encountered are run by Chinese looking for a niche. This isn’t bad on the surface, but they’ll typically serve up a base of your average popular Chinese dishes, like kung pao anything, add some sate and an Indonesian curry or two and call it Indonesian.
Poring over the menu, I was deliriously happy without having even taken a bite. Call it the anticipation of fulfillment. I’ve experienced the same thing walking into a Harry Potter or Jason Bourne movie--I didn’t know what lay in store, but I knew it was bound to be entertaining.
Not being able to decide among many favorites, I opted for the rijstaffel (“rice table” in Dutch), a dish that came into being when Indonesia was a Dutch colony. To see a picture of it, check out www.purimas.nl. It is essentially a sampler platter that lets one try dozens of more dishes. Traditional Indonesians didn’t get to eat this way because it’s expensive and time consuming to prepare. Indonesian dishes, like Indian food, is complex both in its ingredients and its process. Most families would have a single dish, maybe two, to accompany their rice staple at meals.
Among my favorites were gado gado (cooked vegetable salad with peanut dressing), soto ayam (chicken stew) and daging rendang (dry curried beef). The rendang was my favorite, spicy and slightly sweet, with complex flavors of coconut, lemongrass, garlic, ginger and lime. I could have eaten it for every remaining meal in Amsterdam, but Cammy is as much a fiend about Mexican food as I am about Indonesian, and we had a date with Tio Pepe.
More about that in the next posting.
