Amsterdam Foodie

While it may not be the first time that I’ve been in the office till gone midnight, this week’s overtime was the cause of one first for me: I went to the same restaurant two nights in a row. Usually a person who can’t even eat the same dish as someone else on my table for reasons of ‘variety’, I haven’t done anything this uncharacteristic since I watched Romeo & Juliet at the cinema twice in two days back in 1996. Yes, it was late, and yes, some eateries had stopped serving, but I work on the Leidseplein: though quality may not be guaranteed, choice is everywhere.

Stoop en Stoop is a simple Dutch eetcafe nestled between neon-ed Argentinean grills, Greek restaurants covered in faux-vine leaves and more pizzerias than you’d find in Naples. The menu is a meat-and-two-veg affair (though actually it’s more like meat, chips and salad), from which I chose the chicken satay and the pork schnitzel consecutively. The satay consisted of three large skewers of chicken breast that hadn’t been cooked for a moment longer than necessary; the pork had seen more time in the frying pan and had become a little tough, but for under €10 it’s hard to complain. Thick-cut chips came with mayonnaise, and the salad was decently dressed. For dessert, my colleagues and I shared crème brulee and chocolate mousse. I was pleased to see that the thinly-caramelised brulee contained vanilla seeds, though I was more dubious about the provenance of the chocolate in the mousse.

Despite the overwhelming sense of deja-vu (we even sat at the same table), the food and service were such that I would return to Stoop. Hopefully my next visit will not be a dinner break between editing jobs.