I am leaving on Tuesday for 2 weeks in the Netherlands on business. I will have the evening and weekends for exploring and being a tourist. I will be in The Hague (Den Haag) but I plan to go to Amsterdam on the weekend and maybe one or two evenings.

I am looking for recommendations for restaurants in Amsterdam or The Hague.

Thanks,

Marta

We really like this restaurant:
Speciaal, Nieuwe Leliestraat 142. Indonesian. We had vegetarian Rijsttafel for two in July 1999. We had eaten there on a previous trip in 1988. A nice neighborhood restaurant. The Rijsttafel consists of rice, many vegetable dishes (8 or more), peanut sauce, coconut, fried bananas.

I have it listed on my very small Netherlands page:
http://www.slowtrav.com/other/netherlands.htm

There is a good Cadogan guide for the Netherlands and they have good restaurant recommendations.

I'm leaving for AMS on Tuesday also! Can't wait, and looks like the weather is warming up too!
Pauline, do you have any additional restaurant tips from a vegetarian point of view? I think I may need to learn how to say "Raw Herring" in Dutch, just so I can be assured of avoiding it
I don't have any restaurant recommendations, but my hotel emailed me, along with my room confirmation, a wonderful 6 page list of information and web links, including these two:

www.diningcity.nl
www.culinairamsterdam.nl

Marta, if you're interested I can email you the rest of my hotel's info. In any case, have a wonderful trip!

Steve always learns all the word for meat dishes so we can avoid them!

Amsterdam was very easy for vegetarians. The Indonesian Rijsttafel restaurants, and there are many, frequently had vegetarian versions of Rijsttafel (which means Rice Table, I think). The food was great. You get several small dishes of different vegetable dishes with rice. We also went to Indian restaurants.

But we were only there for a few days in 1997 and for 10 days back in 1988 - so don't really have lots of recommendations. If you find some good places, let us know and we can add them to our Netherlands page. Have a great trip!!

Those links are great. I am adding them to the Netherlands page. Have a look at this Vegetarian Rijsttafel menu: http://www.anakbetawi.nl/engels/page17.html

On our next trip we are flying into Zurich, but on some other trip I think it would be great to fly into Amsterdam and spend a few days there before heading to Italy.

You shouldn't have any problems being vegetarian in Holland. There usually is one vegetarian item on most menus. But I would recommend learning the words for meat or vlees as Pauline suggested. A few of the dutch words are close to english if you just attempt to say them such as uien for onion or vis for fish. But others there are no similarities. Herring is Haring. The raw stuff is sold in small outdoor trailers near squares typically. There's usually a picture of someone holding a raw one over their mouth to clue you in. I think they often refer to raw as niewe haring. The season starts at the end of May.

Some useful words Kip - chicken, spek - bacon, groeten - vegetables.

My last trip was 1996 so my restaurant knowledge is a little out of date. I am looking forward to having some Indonesian.

The beginning of the trip is going to definitely not be 'slow travel'. I am staying one night in Utretch when I arrive, then I'm participating in an all day seminar and moving to the airport that night. One night at the airport Schiphol and giving the seminar again, then moving on to Den Haag for 8 nights. I suspect come Saturday I will be ready for a break.

Have a great trip,

Marta