Local Cuisine

The concept of "Dutch cuisine" is generally considered a contradiction in terms. Dutch national dishes tend to be ungarnished, hearty, and wholesome -- solid, stick-to-your-ribs stuff. A perfect example is erwtensoep, a thick pork-accented pea soup that provides inner warmth against cold Dutch winters and is filling enough to be a meal by itself. Similarly, hutspot, a potato, carrot, and onion "hotchpotch," or stew, is no-nonsense nourishment that becomes even more so with the addition of klapstuk (lean beef). Hutspot also has an intangible ingredient -- a story behind its name that's based on historical fact.

Seafood, as you might imagine in this traditionally seafaring country, is a big deal. Common options, depending on season, are Zeeland oysters and mussels (Zeeuwsoesters and Zeeuwsmosselen), and herring pickled or "new" -- fresh from the North Sea and eaten raw. In fact, if you happen to be in Holland for the beginning of the herring season in June, interrupt your sidewalk strolls for a "green" (raw) herring with onions from a fish stall, or haringhuis. Look for signs that say HOLLANDSE NIEUWE (HOLLAND'S NEW). Great excitement surrounds the season's first catch, part of which goes to the queen and the rest to restaurateurs amid spirited competition. At fish stalls, you can also get snacks of baked fish, smoked eel, and seafood salads, taken on the run.

Dutch explorers and traders brought back recipes and exotic spices -- and the popular Indonesian rijsttafel (rice table), a feast of 15 to 30 small portions of different dishes eaten with plain rice, has been a national favorite since the 17th century . If you've never experienced this minifeast, it should definitely be on your "must-eat" list for Holland. Should you part company with the Dutch and "their" Indonesian food, you'll find the cuisines of China, France, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, Spain, Turkey, Yugoslavia, and other nations.

At the top of the restaurant scale are those posh dining rooms affiliated with the prestigious Alliance Gastronomique Néerlandaise or the Relais du Centre. They're likely to be elegant and sophisticated or atmospherically old-world and quaint. They will certainly be expensive. Then there are the numerous moderately priced restaurants and little brown cafes. Dutch families gravitate to the restaurants, while brown cafes are cozy social centers with simple but tasty food, often served outside on sidewalk tables. Sidewalk vendors, with fresh herring, the ubiquitous broodjes (sandwiches), and other light specialties, are as popular as the brown cafes.

Good-Eats Cafes -- For good, low-cost food, look for examples of that Dutch dining institution, the eetcafé (pronounced ayt-caff-ay). Many of these -- some of which are reviewed below -- are essentially brown cafes (bars) with a hardworking kitchen attached. The food is unpretentious, mainstream Dutch (though some are more adventurous). The dagschotel (plate of the day), which might come with meat, vegetable, and salad on one plate, is usually 10€ to 15€ ($13-$19).

Terminology

The first step in getting to know Dutch gastronomy is to forget that in American restaurants, the word entree means a main course; in Holland, entrees are appetizers, also known as voorgerechten, and main courses, hoofdgerechten, are listed separately as vis (fish) or vlees (meat), and in some restaurants, as dagschotel (dish of the day). Other courses on Dutch menus include soepen (soups), warme or koude voorgerechten (warm or cold appetizers), groenten (vegetables), sla (salad), vruchten (fruits), nagerechten (desserts), dranken (beverages), and wijn (wine).

The next step is to understand that Dutch is a language of compound words, and just as Leiden Street becomes Leidsestraat -- one word for two ideas -- the same goes for menus: beef steak becomes biefstuk, pork chop becomes varkenscotelette, and so on.

Similarly, you'll find listings for gehakte biefstuk (chopped beef) or gebakken worst (fried sausage). Look for the following key words and postfixes as you scan menus:

• For modes of preparation: gekookt or gekookte (boiled), gebakken (fried), gebraden (roasted), geroosteerd (broiled), gerookte (smoked).
• For meat cooked to your taste: niet doorgebakken (rare), half doorgebakken (medium), goed doorgebakken (well done).
• For cuts of meat: -stuk (steak or, literally, piece), -scotelet or -scotelette (chop), -kotelet or -kotelette (cutlet).

Menu Choices

Lunch & Snack Specialties -- Below are clarifications of dishes you may see on lunch menus:

Bami/Nasi Goreng & Nasi Rames -- Miniature versions of an Indonesian rijsttafel ; they come in a bowl on either noodles or rice, with spiced meat and possibly a fried egg or satay (a grilled kebab) on top.

Bitterballen -- Fried potato balls, or croquettes, that usually come quite spicy.

Broodjes -- Small sandwiches on round buttered rolls made with ham, cheese, roast beef, salami, or other fillings. They're often ordered in pairs and eaten standing up or perched at a narrow counter in a broodjeswinkel, or sandwich shop.

Croquetten -- Fried croquettes of meat, prawns, or cheese that may be gooey inside. They're are at their best when served piping hot with a blob of mustard for dunking.

Erwtensoep -- This pea soup is thick, creamy and chock-full of ham, carrots, and potatoes -- a meal by itself. (This is a winter dish, so it may be hard to find in summer.)

Nieuwe Haring -- Chasing herring is what got this city started, and Amsterdam folk are still in hot pursuit. Vendors sell new herring -- fresh-caught fish that's eaten whole (minus the head and the tail) with minced onion, or chopped if you're squeamish -- at stands all over town during summer; you can also eat them pickled as maatjes.

Pannekoeken & Poffertjes -- These Dutch pancakes are the equivalent of French crepes, and they're served flat on a dinner plate, topped with confectioners' sugar, jam, syrup, hot apples, or -- typically Dutch -- hot ginger sauce. Less common are pannekoeken with meat. Poffertjes are small fried-pancake "puffs" coated with confectioners' sugar and filled with syrup or liqueur.

Saucijzenbrood -- A hot dog, except the bun's made of flaky pastry and the hot dog is a spicy Dutch wurst, or sausage.

Tostis -- Grilled ham-and-cheese sandwiches.

Uitsmijter -- An open-faced sandwich consisting of a buttered slice of bread (or two) topped with cold cuts and fried eggs -- tasty, inexpensive, and a good lunch choice. (The name, incidentally, is the same for "bouncer," the burly doorman at nightclubs.)

Vlammetjes (little flames) -- These belong to the same family of borrelhapjes (drinking snacks) as bitterballen , but are more like diminutive spring rolls which, like Napoléon, make up in fiery aggression for what they lack in size.

Dinner Specialties -- With the exception of one excellent taste treat -- the Indonesian rijsttafel -- the Dutch may seem to be less inventive with dinner specialties than they are with lunch and snacks. This is partly because many traditional Dutch dishes closely resemble dishes popular elsewhere in Europe and the U.S. But mostly, it's due to Holland's ongoing, ever-growing (and somewhat tiresome) love affair with French cuisine. Here, however, are a few typical Dutch options you may encounter, particularly in winter, when real Dutch cooking can be best appreciated:

Asperges -- Asparagus. The thick, white cultivated variety grows during a 7-week season beginning on April 30 until late June. Most of it comes from Limburg, so it's marketed as "the white gold of Limburg" -- but most folks just call it asparagus.

Capucijners Met Spek -- Marrow beans with bacon.

Gember Met Slagroom -- A sweet-and-sour dessert of tangy, fresh ginger slices topped with whipped cream.

Gerookte Paling -- Smoked eel (most of which come from the IJsselmeer -- though many are now imported). A typically Dutch appetizer.

Hazepeper -- Jugged hare.

Hutspot -- A stew made of beef ribs, carrots, onions, and potatoes, often mashed together. This is a dish with historic significance, particularly for the people of Leiden: It's the Dutch version of the stew found in the boiling pots left behind after the Spaniards were evicted after a long siege during the Eighty Years' War.

Krabbetjes -- Dutch spareribs, usually beef rather than pork.

Mosselen -- Mussels, raised in the clean waters of Zeeland's Oosterschelde (Eastern Scheldt) estuary. Mussel season begins in mid-August with great fanfare (it runs until Apr), and the first crop is eagerly awaited. The mollusks are often steamed and served in a bit of white wine-and-vegetable stock.

Rolpens -- A combination of minced beef, fried apples, and red cabbage.

Stampot -- Cabbage with smoked sausage.

Zuurkool Met Spek en Wurst -- Sauerkraut with bacon and sausage.

Dessert -- Desserts tend toward fruit with lots of fresh cream, ice cream, or appelgebak, a lovely and light apple pastry.

Secrets of the Rijsttafel

The Indonesian rijsttafel is Holland's favorite feast; it has been ever since the United East India Co. sea captains introduced it to the wealthy Amsterdam burghers in the 17th century. The rijsttafel (literally, "rice table") originated with Dutch plantation overseers in Indonesia, who liked to sample selectively from Indonesian cuisine. It became a tradition upheld by Indonesian migrants to Holland who opened restaurants and, knowing the Dutch fondness for rijsttafel, made it a standard menu item. Rijsttafels are only a small part of an Indonesian restaurant's menu, and there's a trend among the Dutch to look down on them as "just for tourists"; the Dutch generally have a good understanding of Indonesian cuisine and prefer to order an individual dish rather than the mixed hash of a rijsttafel. However, rijsttafels remain popular, and many Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Thai restaurants have copied the idea.

The basic concept of a rijsttafel is to eat a bit of this and a bit of that, blending flavors and textures. A simple, unadorned bed of rice is the base and mediator between spicy meats and bland vegetables or fruits, between sweet-and-sour tastes and soft-and-crunchy textures. Although a rijsttafel for one is possible, it's better shared by two or more people. In the case of a solitary diner or a couple, a 17-dish rijsttafel will be enough; with four or more, order a 24- or 30-dish rijsttafel and experience the total taste treat.

Before you begin to imagine 30 dinner-size plates of food, it's important to note that the dishes are small and the portions served are gauged by the number of people expected to share them. Remember, the idea is to taste many things rather than hunker down with any single item. Also, an Indonesian rijsttafel has no separate courses. Once your table has been set with a row of low, Sterno-powered plate warmers, all 17, 24, or 30 dishes arrive all at once, like a culinary avalanche. The sweets come alongside the sours and the spicy, so you're left to plot your own course through the extravaganza.

Among the customary dishes and ingredients of a rijsttafel are loempia (Chinese-style egg rolls); satay, or sateh (small pork kebabs, grilled and served with spicy peanut sauce); perkedel (meatballs); gado-gado (vegetables in peanut sauce); daging smoor (beef in soy sauce); babi ketjap (pork in soy sauce); kroepoek (crunchy, puffy shrimp toast); serundeng (fried coconut); roedjak manis (fruit in sweet sauce); and pisang goreng (fried banana).

Caution: When something on the menu is described as pedis, meaning spicy, that's exactly what it is. Beware in particular of one very appealing-looking dish of sauce with small chunks of what looks to be bright-red onion -- that's sambal badjak, or just sambal, and it's hotter than hot. A fire extinguisher would be a useful table accessory; for an equally effective (and better-tasting) alternative, order a witbier (white beer).

What's in a Name -- There's Chinese food and there's Indonesian food. In Holland, there's Chinees-Indisch (Chinese-Indonesian) food, too. Watch out for this not-here-and-not-there genre. Chinees-Indisch restaurants are rarely, if ever, any good (there are plenty of these restaurants in Amsterdam, but I can't think of a single one worth recommending). Places that attempt this crossover style can't get either one right, so you end up with a kind of Oriental dog's dinner.

Picnic Picks -- You can pick up almost anything you might want for a picnic, from Dutch cheeses like Edam and Gouda to cold cuts to freshly packed sandwiches at AH (Albert Heijn) supermarkets around town. From the AH supermarket at the corner of Leidsestraat and Koningsplein (tram: 1, 2, 5), you can head over to Vondelpark, only a 10-minute walk. At AH's Museumplein supermarket, across the street from the Concertgebouw (Tram: 2, 3, 5, 12, or 16), you can haul your brown bag right up onto the sloping, grass-covered roof, a prime spot for sunbathing, hanging out, and picnicking. Don't forget a bottle of wine.