Almost Christmas… :/
As I mentioned before, we’ve been to Amsterdam previously – back in the 80s when I had just left school (16 years old).
The city is exactly as I imagined it would be – chilled out, friendly and busy!
We met up with a few Steemians yesterday evening and went for a meal. Due to the size of the group, they could only accommodate us if we had a set menu.
Unfortunately, I’m allergic to molluscs and some shellfish and couldn’t have the crab bisque – which looked amazing!
Instead I had steak tartare – something I’ve never really fancied, but hey, when in Rome, so to speak… Still, it was ALL delicious. The tastes and flavours were amazing.
The cheek of it!
To start, we had a chocolate olive – bitter chocolate over pureed olive – sorry, but the way I describe it is a ‘brittle slug’ I’m not enthusiastic about ever trying that again… but it was an experience…
A selection of ‘wild tomatoes’ and mustard ice cream for the starter – as I said before, the flavours were amazing, clean, fresh and complemented the tomatoes to perfection.
The aforementioned bisque and steak tartare next. Crab bisque with lemon grass and a shrimp ravioli – I really do wish I could have tried that! My steak tartare had lemon grass and crème fraise and again, the flavours were divine!
Then we had cheek in a red wine jus with pureed potatoes. DELICIOUS!
The sweet was ice cream with fruits of the forest and a couple of discs of gingersnap.
Then we went on to a ‘Coffee House’ – recommended to us by a group of revellers.
Down the steps we went and on into the back of the bar.
I’m not sure if it had once been a jail but it was certainly ‘decorated’ like one!
Graffiti, pictures of gangsters and prison bars – complete with a wooden slat bench chained to the wall – completed the look!
The whole evening kicked off SteemFest with a high – in more ways than one ;)