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Sunday 15 November 2015

The Seafood Bar Spui, Amsterdam

The Seafood Bar has two branches in Amsterdam, we visited the newer Spui branch on a chilly Sunday night. It was near capacity and to our horror I had my dates mixed up and actually reserved a table for the previous night, the host however assured it was fine and they had a table free luckily. The Spui restaurant is huge and split on three levels in a long dining room elevated in the middle and gain towards the back. There is a seafood bar along the side followed by the open kitchen, just walking to the table is a treat as you can eye up your favourite crustacean and fish before being seated.
Selection of oysters - Fines de Normandie no 3, Spéciales Tsarskaya no 3
Fruit de Mer mixed grill - lobster, salmon, prawns, squid, mussels
Fruits de Mer - a mountain of langoustines, lobster, crab salad, king crab legs, razor clams, winkles, clams, mussels, oysters, king prawns
The two tiered seafood feast in all its glory!

I don't ever recall being stuffed to the absolute brim so much that I couldn't finish a seafood meal before, but it happened here as we had to leave some salad and mussels. The sheer mountain of seafood was too much but very good value for money. The whole meal including drinks and service charge came to 120 Euros which is great value compared to anywhere in the UK. The pick of the seafood had to be the mixed grill platter and the crab salad from the cold fruit de mer, but overall it rivalled any other seafood platter that we have tried anywhere. A must visit for seafood lovers in Amsterdam.

Friday 13 November 2015

Rijks, Amsterdam

On a recent weekend trip to Amsterdam we visited Rijks restaurant for lunch after a whistlestop tour around the Van Gogh museum. We didn't anticipate the large queues at ten in the morning but ended up on time for our reservation. As we trawled through the menu we were presented with some stunning amuse bouches. A cream of oyster, radish and champagne foam which packed bags of flavour and a deep fried leaf. We noted that there were deep fried leaves on every vacant table and were tempted to eat them as well! The menu features a small plate concept with a few larger plates.

Roasted langoustine tail, curry cream, trout eggs, linseed, quinoa - a food bloggers / instagrammars heaven, each dish was very photogenic and the curry cream on the bed of quinoa worked very well with the langoustine.
Gasconne veal shank, crème of foie, apricot, crispy buckwheat
Bbq sweet cornchickenparfait, crispy chicken wing, dried onion - this was Mrs Noms favourite dish as she is a big fan of corn
Roasted beef tenderloin tartare, chopped egg, tarragon, spinach - the title baffled us as the beef found in the onion cups were three quarters cooked. Not sure if thats how it was supposed to be served but the tartare name was a bit odd and resulted in it being the least successful dish of the meal.

Duck, germule, lingonberry, Dutch plum sauce - this dish would have been exceptional if the duck was cooked less, it proved to be tough and not in the slightest pink.

We enjoyed lunch at Rijks, on the main the food was at a high level. It was noted that as lunch service picked up we began to find flaws in the dishes as well as in the speed of service, this meant we skipped dessert in order to make use of the last of our time in Amsterdam.