Palladio

Grandma and grandpa are babysitting the girls so we can celebrate our sixth anniversary of being together. We decided to not travel half the city for a nice restaurant but just try the Italian just around the corner where we never have been before and Palladio turn out a nice surprise.

For starters the ladies that are serving us are all really Italian, so there is a lot of ‘Prego’s’ and they really are very nice and professional. They have a good Italian menu but the best dishes, as we presume, are on their daily specials list. They make a very nice pasta vongole, one of our favorites, and their rib eye from the grill is one of the nicest I’ve ever had in a restaurant. The antipasti and deserts are also very good and they have a nice selection of grappa’s to finish the evening with.

We’re just sorry we haven’t ‘discovered’ this restaurant way before; it would have been a great place to frequent every now and then, especially in the summer when they have their terrace out.

Don’t pay too much attention to the picture, I don’t want to flash in a restaurant so restaurant pics are always terrible.

Burgermeester

One thing we miss in Amsterdam in ‘de Burgermeester’. When not in the mood to cook ours

elves dinner, this was one of the places we really frequently visited to pick up some burgers. Especially in the weeks after the twins were just born.

Their concept is that they serve about ten different burgers and only use organic products. They mainly use meat on their burgers, but also always have at least one fish burger and two veggies burger. You can get them in 2 sizes, which defer very much. My regular order was two small burgers and one of their grilled corn cobs. Tonight we only have one girl with us while the other two are with grandma and grandpa, the actual plan was to really go out for dinner but we realize on time that this will not be a party for both her and us and we decide to go to the Burgermeester instead.

Two small veggie burgers, coleslaw and a Bionade. Very good. They have several establishment in the city, so if you stumble upon one around lunch time I would definitely recommend one of their veggie burgers, biefburger royaal or a mini trio if you’d like to try a couple different ones.

London Police

Noordermarkt

While in Berlin almost every Kiez has its own farmers market on Saturday, in Amsterdam we just have one: the Farmers market in de Noordermarkt. It’s, as on Kollwitzplatz, a place where tourist and locals meet.

In Berlin we visit the market weekly. Mostly for a sausage, fish or falafel lunch while the kids are enjoying themselves on the playground, but also because it’s the only place I know so far where you can get good fish and seafood.

The Noordermarkt in Amsterdam is a real only organic farmers market and it’s very nice to visit every once in a while, but it’s (for us) not suitable for the weekly stuff because it’s just too expensive.  They do have beautiful products though from the best organic lam to a stall specialized in mushrooms and very good homemade fries with homemade mayonnaise. A big part of the market also is the only weekly second hand market of Amsterdam, every Saturday and every Monday. When in Amsterdam I would definitely recommend strolling around the farmers market on Saturday morning. We only went for the fries and mayo this time.

Hutspot

We returned to Amsterdam again, mainly because one of my grandma’s celebrates her birthday turning 80. Last time we were here we were so eager to see all of our friends that we hardly had any time together let alone had a nice walk through our old neighborhood like we used to do on Saturdays. This time the plan was to only stay for a couple of days and not let people know we were back. This first Saturday we really want to spend like we were used to, even in the three months we’ve left there are so many cool new places in the area.

We start off our day having coffee with my sister and her family in a brand new and very cool place called Hutspot on the Rozengracht. They already have another location in Amsterdam, but recently opened this one, because of the big hit the other place is. It started out as a place for young creatives to be able to sell their stuff, it now is a mishmash were you can either buy fancy looking sunglasses, a vintage cabinet or a stuffed parrot. In the back is a nice café were you can chill out , have coffee and pancakes while your kid plays in their teepee or plug in your laptop, order a ginger & licorice water and work for a couple of hours.

It really is a nice place to relax, if you don’t have any children under two. We manage to keep them sitting down for about half an hour by feeding them pancakes with blueberries and maple syrup, but after that there just are too many interesting things to discover. That is just a bit too much for our nerves with all the glasses, bugs, bottles and stuffed animals standing around.

Later this week I returned with just my mum and our oldest and then having coffee and lemonade on one of their couches is just perfect.

Not the very best pictures by the way, have a look on their site to get a real impression.