Eating in Europe
I had some great meals while traveling. The thing I learned is that Holland doesn’t really have its own cuisine, but it’s a mix of many. This is not a complete compilation of my meals, but an idea of what I devoured while traveling. I was walking over 20,000 steps each day, but wasn’t snacking as much, so I was hungry when it came time to eat my main meals.
Pre flight dinner in Minneapolis St. Paul Airport. It was fine, but nothing super special. Typical sit down airport food.
If you’ve never taken an overseas flight, they actually still feed you. It’s a pressurized metal tube 30,000 feet in the sky, so don’t expect an amazing meal, but they are decent. For this flight we were served dinner, a snack, and breakfast. For dinner I had chicken, it was fine. These tiny little round carrots were so adorable I had to take a picture. Does anyone know what they are?
For our first meal in Amsterdam (lunch time) we found a cafe on a random street we were walking by. This is a double-decker veggie burger. Why two patties? I have no idea, and I could only eat about half of it.
I had this amazing veggie curry in Tilburg. Honestly it was really delicious, and it looked amazing too! We also tried Bitterballen, which I’m told is more of a late night snack after you’ve been drinking. It wasn’t bad but it is just the weirdest texture ever. It’s almost like a meat pudding in a fried dough. I’ll leave you with that, Google it!
Funny story, at lunch while working, I thought I was grabbing vanilla yogurt. However, when I opened the container I thought “well this looks like pudding” and it definitely tasted like pudding. At dinner I asked our client if it was pudding and he said “yes, not yogurt.” Whoops! For some reason I didn’t take a picture of my dinner, but I had the most amazing duck and then this meringue and sorbet dessert. I didn’t have the frozen yogurt on the same night, but the next night. I got the tiniest amount ever and they only had “natural” yogurt flavor, so I didn’t think it was that unhealthy. Maybe the sprinkles and half an Oreo were unnecessary.
There was an Italian place called “Happy Italy” in Tilburg. I believe it is a chain restaurant. I went there for lunch by myself on Thursday. When I ordered both the pizza and a salad, the waitress looked at me and said “the salad is really big.” I told her it was ok and I could have leftovers. This pizza was over a foot in diameter and the salad would have been three meals for me. Now I know, but it tasted pretty good!
My first night in Cologne I had Thai food. I know it’s not German, but while walking around the city I kept passing this Thai place and it sounded really good. It was really good, or I was starving. It was probably a little of both. Then I swung by this little cafe right beside my Airbnb for an ice cream cone. I got mango and vanilla!
After visiting the Cologne Cathedral I stopped by a little cafe and decided on this lentil soup with smoked duck. Once again, I was starving, and the food was so good. The duck was a little salty, but the soup was amazing, and I wish I could recreate this at home!
I finally had my German pretzel on the train to Amsterdam. I found a green juice at the grocery store the night before, so I took that with me too.
My first night in Amsterdam my hosts recommended a restaurant, Labyrinth. They had a mix of food, but I settled on the fried chicken and the roasted veggie salad. I also got this drink and the glass totally reminded me of the Genie’s lamp from Aladdin. “Prince Ali Yes it is He, Ali Ababa…” It was delicious.
After spending hours at the RijksMuseum I decided to go to a pasta place, because I’d been craving it since Germany. It wasn’t amazing, but it was pretty good, and I was starving. I didn’t eat lunch until about 4pm. My hosts then invited me to join them for dinner around 9pm. Danka made a zucchini soup and a fresh veggie salad. It was delicious and the conversation was fun!
My flight home left at 10:30 am, so we were served lunch and two snacks. For lunch I chose the pasta. For airplane food it was pretty good, it came with a small salad, cheese & crackers, roll, and dessert. The snack was a mixed box, and then we also had an ice cream snack closer to when we landed.
I definitely didn’t take pictures of all my meals, but I enjoyed myself on this trip and didn’t feel guilty about it one bit.
I also brought back a ton of treats. The chocolate wasn’t for me, as it’s not my favorite, but the gummy bears were for me :-). This is only about a quarter of the chocolate I brought back, but I already gave a bunch of it away. Iris gave me the stroopwaffel and the “Zoet & Zout.” She told me not to eat them until I was home, that way I didn’t want to buy more. The Zoet & Zout translates to sweet and salty. The sweet ones have a black licorice flavor and the salty ones are so salty! It’s the weirdest combination I’ve ever had, but I don’t hate it! I am kind of sad I may never have these again. The stroopwafels are delicious, and for those of us that live in the US, you can buy them at Trader Joe’s. The package says “Product of Holland” but I’m not sure if it’s made there or just saying that it’s a Dutch item. Either way, I bought a back at TJ’s and did a blind taste test with my coworkers. I like to do experiments. They tasted very similar, but the real deal Dutch version snuck by with a 6/4 lead over the TJ’s option. Regardless, if you’re craving stroopwafel, TJ’s is pretty decent.