Archives for “amsterdam” tag

In between the train tracks just outside Sloterdijk station stands a beautifully renovated trolly car. This car was about to be turned into scrap metal when a persistent entrepreneur came along and, with a lot of hard work, turned the wreck into a unique lunch spot. After searching for a permanent location the trolly found its pitch at the spot mentioned above, where it is expanded with a nice terrace. This already makes it worth a visit.

But, and probable more importantly, the friendly and talkative entrepreneur serves tasty sandwiches, small salads and good coffees. If you want something refreshing, you can choose one of the smoothies (100% fruit). And there are different (tapas style) hot snacks and toasted sandwiches on the menu. Everything is prepared fresh from the pretty compact kitchen inside the tram. A lot of employees from the companies in the area know this place, but also more and more commuters swing by for a bite to eat.

The place is open for group lunches, company drinks and other events as well. Inside there’s place for twenty people, outside on the terrace for another fifty. It also hosts a couple of events itself, one of them “Trammeland“, a monthly house party.

Enough reasons to check it out, I would say. Especially now the weather is getting better.

The New Art Space Amsterdam N.A.S.A. – formerly known as Smart Project Space -  is a contemporary art center: a center because it houses a restaurant, a cinema and an exhibition space for contemporary art. All of them would actually deserve an article on their own. And all of them cover something quite unique in Amsterdam. Well, there are art house cinemas in Amsterdam. There is even EYE with its own programming covering pretty much everything which is not shown in the other art house centers.

Still NASA has its own programming, different from the rest: screening films which are closely connected to the art scene, and/or have its own idiosyncratic qualities. Just recently I’ve watched the documentary about Ai Wei Wei, and the one about Sol LeWitt is on my list.

The restaurant is nice, stylish but not stiff, a meeting place for the people who are around NASA, artists, culturally interested, or neighbourhood folks. The menu sounds really good, but as I am not such a foodie, I haven’t been eating there yet.

The picture above is taken at the latest exhibition “the dark universe” which was a great exhibition about light art/installations. Now there is another exhibition, with a more theoretical approach, based on the correspondence archive of the late Dutch anarchist Karl Max Kreuger.

It’s a terrible shame that Baut is a temporary restaurant and will only exist till the 31st of December 2014 ’cause I absolutely love the place. But this might also add to the charm, and luckily they still have a year and a half to go which gives me and you plenty of time to enjoy their great food and atmosphere. 

Baut is situated in a building that used to be the head office of the Volkskrant, one of the biggest Dutch newspapers. They’ve created the name of the restaurant out of calender paper on one of the walls, every day one of the days is taken off untill at the end the name will entirely disappear. The restaurant is nicely decorated and has a warm vibe because of the lighting and different seating areas. 

And then of course there is the food. The menu consists of different smaller dishes which can be ordered together to share complemented by side dishes. The dishes on the menu are subdivided to origin: France, Italy, Asia, and of course the Netherlands. The two of us had three dishes and one side dish to share which was exacty the right amount of food altogether. We had planned to have a dessert but in fact there wasn’t any room left! I must recommend the steak tartare and soft shell crab. Both are absolutely delicious!

Make sure to make a (online) reservation well in advance as Baut is a very very popular spot. 

De OCCII (pronounce “okki”): an independent music venue – one of my regular spots to see live bands. Nothing much more than a music venue. It is not a bar, you should check it out when there an event. But the Subbacultcha events circle around a couple of locations, and the OCCII is one of them. They have a programming of their own, and you should check the event calendar to be up to date. I finally got a good pic of the bar and the location (by Kasper Vogelzang) – usually in this location I am right in front of the stage.

Well, everything about Amsterdam is small, and a venue with about 200-250 m2 is considered a large space, even if it is not, if you are accustomed to spaces in other cities. If you think of a larger garage you come pretty close to what the OCCII originally was: It used to be one of the first (horse-) tram sheds in Amsterdam. Squatters occupied it in 1984, and it now operates as a volunteer-run, independent concert/event hall.

The programming ranges from indie/ free jazz/ hardcore/ electronic to dance parties of all kinds of style. It is not an expensive place, € 7 entry for an evening full of live music is reasonable, and you might bump into a surprisingly high quality performance.

I would be an abominable Jamaican. Despite growing up next to a coffee shop, weed makes me scream at non-existing men in trees and despite always giving it my all, I can’t dance the way the Jamaican girls can. I always blow my cover. But I do so love reggae. I don’t care that all the backpackers in Thailand do too, I love it. And I love spicy Jamaican food.

Amsterdam, whilst full of the herb and full of great Surinamese restaurants (as fellow Spotter Gisela can confirm) doesn’t have enough Jamaican restaurants as far as I’m concerned. Thank Jah then for Rose and her saltfish fritters, goat curry and ackee & cheese vol-au-vents. Rose hails from Jamaica and London and her cozy Planet in Amsterdam-West has been my number one destination on lazy summer nights, when everyone sits outside on bright plastic seats, dub beats pumping through the open windows, and on winter evenings when I need a little sunshine.