Located in Central Village Noho is a petite restaurant called Bodhi Tree.. I thought the food here was Thailicious! I have a weakness for the combination of Asian food & pretty places. Affordable and tasty, take a look at the pictures (and menu) to decide if this is something for you:
My friend took me to the Mermaid Inn last Tuesday and I was already excited because of the name! Between 5 PM and 7 PM, it’s happy hour which means the oysters will be sold for 1 dollar each! Look at the pictures and stop by there whenever you’re near!
The staff was friendly, the vibe was good and the food was nice. You’ll get chocolate pudding after your dinner from the restaurant. With the bill they will give you a fortune teller fish which predicts your mood. Sitting outside and watching people during the oysters is a must!
A sneak peek of the menu:
When it comes to food it´s definitely something my boyfriend and I always agree on, we love Asian cuisine! Thai food is nice and it seems difficult to really mess these dishes up! I never had bad experiences with Thai food, so I had good expectations when we were trying a new restaurant called Maenaam Thai in Amsterdam. This restaurant is located at the Spuistraat, which is 2 minutes walking from the famous Dam Square. It’s also 5 minutes walking from the restaurant to Central Station. So this was an ideal place to grab food before we had to catch our train for a 2 hour ride to see my parents 🙂 Little detail: Maenaam ( แม่น้ำ ) means river in Thai.
A few pictures of our dinner:
Tom Kha Koeng
In my opinion there’s no other soup that can compete with Thom Kha Koeng. This is because I prefer soups with a coconut milk base. This soup contains coconut milk, prawns, mushrooms and coriander.
Plaa Shoe Shie
Fried fish in a red curry sauce with coconut milk and sweet Thai basil. The fish was fried pangasius fillet, normally we prefer other fish than pangasius, but this main course with white rise was tasting ok.
Phad Thai Kai
Pad Thai are typical Thai fried rice noodles. I took the pad thai with vegetables, egg, tauge and chicken. I like taking Phad Thai as a side order next to white rice.
The dish I liked most was the Tom Kha Koeng. This soup was delicious and I can recommend this as a starter. The menu is not expensive, average as other Thai restaurants I know. Starters are around 5-7 euro’s and main courses are around 14-18 euro’s. I have seen lots of vegetables sculptured into various animals like swans of flowers. But I’ve never seen an onion carved into a flower as a decoration on a plate. I found this quitte original 🙂 There are no desserts on the menu, but we had 2 scoops of vanilla icecream with almonds and whipped cream. Staff is friendly and mostly English speaking.
The ‘Utrechtsestraat’ is a street in Amsterdam with nice boutiques and restaurants. It’s near the well known Rembrandt Square, the second city area where the nightlife happens. U6 is a cozy restaurant with a French and International Cuisine. Because it’s near the Rembrandt Square, the restaurant is quite findable for tourists. The staff is from different international backgrounds like Spain and Turkey. There is a regular menu, but also the famous chef’s 3 Course Menu. This menu costs € 22,50.
If you choose a 3 Course Menu, there are various choices of vegetarian, meat and fish dishes. For the starter we choose the puff pastry with chopped salmon, onions and lettuce. The puff pastry dough was very light and crispy which matched with the salmon pretty well.
Here are 3 options for the main course:
Sweet sour noodles with shrimp and broccoli
Nile perch with Parma ham and mashed potatoes
Pork medallions with mushroom sauce
And here are some desserts!
Crème brûlée
Strawberry Cheesecake
Red fruits lattice pie
What we thought about U6: The location is ideal because it’s in the center. Whether you finished your shopping spree in Amsterdam or going to a club after dinner and drinks, the restaurant is close to pretty much everything you need. The noodles main course were not our favorite because the sauce was a bit too sweet. The other dishes were really nice, especially the nile perch with creamy mashed potatoes. The staff were warm, friendly and patient. Last but not least 22,50 EUR for 3 courses is not expensive at all!
It´s time for Dim Sum Dishes Part 2! If you haven´t read the first part yet (with more explanation about Dim Sum and the 7 first dishes), click here.
Today 4 new dishes to read about:
Custard bun 奶黃包 (nǎihuáng bāo)
These buns are filled with a mix of butter, eggs and custard, instantly reminding me of good days in Singapore or Taiwan when I’m eating them. Also a good dim sum dish for friends to start, who haven’t eaten dim sum before.
Deep fried shrimp dumplings 水饺 (Sui Kau)
This is also a typical Cantonese Dim Sum dish, the dumplings can be deep-fried als you can see here but also cooked and served with soup. I love dumplings most when they are served with noodle soup or pan fried. The dumplings are filled with shrimps, meat, bamboo and other vegetables.
Beef shu mai dumplings 牛焼売 (xíu mại)
These shu mai dumplings were already served during the Qing Dynasty and there are various ways to make shu mai dumplings. This variant is the beef shu mai and they are steamed in bamboo baskets before served. A good alternative when you don’t want to eat the original shu mai with pork.
Steamed chicken and shiitake buns 鸡仔包
Shiitake is a type of mushroom and combined with chicken in a soft white bun, It will taste delicious! These buns are actually easy to make, as long as you have the right flour to use. If you use the regular flour from the supermarket, the bun itself won’t have the same soft texture and will turn out to be more yellowish instead of white.
I went to eat at Little Buddha this weekend. Little Buddha is an Asian fusion Restaurant and Lounge located in the touristic party hotspot Leidseplein.
We had the All-you-can-eat buffet. You can choose out of 2 soups, 2 sushi plates with either containing 10 sushi’s, the fish of the day, orange chicken, Mongolian beef, egg rolls, steamed rice, noodles and mixed vegetables. My first order was the egg rolls served with sweet chili sauce and the fish of the day, which was cod. The egg rolls were okay, not good because it contained coriander, which does not resemble the authentic Asian egg roll recipe. The cod was tender and the sauce spicy. For my second course, I ordered the Nigiri and Maki rolls platter. These tasted very good and the fish was fresh. Afterwards, I had the orange chicken with the noodles and coconut soup. The orange chicken tasted very good. It is actually my favorite at Little Buddha. I even make it at home sometimes. It’s very delicious and easy to make. The noodles tasted good. For dessert, I had the pineapple cheesecake. I could not taste the pineapple; nevertheless it was a great ending of a fun meal.
Dining at Little Buddha is a nice experience. The decoration is beautiful, the music not loud and relaxing. Does it have the best food in town? Probably not. It is a good place to have some cocktails (cost around 13 euros) with friends before going out or a small gathering or just making beautiful pictures. The one weak spot of Little Buddha is the service. Though the waiters and waitresses were very friendly, but sometimes our orders were given twice and do not expect to get out quickly as it took us 15 minutes to get our bill and another 15 to get our money back.
Overall, it was a nice experience. Definitely worth seeing in Amsterdam.
This City of Gold 