AMSTERDAM 2026-06-13
Dutch travelog, part 4. Read part 3 here.
Saturday was spent completely in Amsterdam. After a light breakfast of coffee and one slice of toast, Daniel and I made our way to the restaurant, which was over an hour away, because it was located in the neighborhood of Borgerbuurt, west of the city center.
TIMELINE:
Staring at Jacob
I met B, my co-worker from a previous job, for an all-American brunch. B hadn't tried this place but said his American colleague recommended it, so it should be good. I couldn't find an "About" page on the website, but I assume that the name, Staring at Jacob, comes from dining outside and with a view of Jacob van Lennepkanaal, the canal that runs through this neighborhood. I like it. It's intriguing.
The restaurant is known for their chicken and waffles, so it was a no brainer for me. B is vegetarian so he didn't get that, and Daniel ordered the eggs royale, which was a kind of eggs benedict with salmon.
I was so glad I ate a little bit before, because we waited nearly 30 minutes for our food to arrive. The most negative reviews on Google say that the restaurant is "chaotic" with long wait times. B made a reservation and the staff was very friendly, but yeah. We were catching up and at one point, B got quiet and just said, "Sorry, I'm getting hangry." He hadn't eaten anything yet.
Finally, our food arrived. And guess what? It was worth the wait. Also, the Americano I ordered was €3, which was the cheapest I'd seen so far.
My recommendation: If you come here for brunch, make a reservation and eat something light in the morning. That will stave off the hanger and impatience.
We took a group selfie and sent it to our group chat, then parted ways. It was short and sweet. B and I aren't particularly close anymore, but it was nice to finally meet up again, and also motivates me to visit NL more because he also wants to stay in Europe indefinitely. Of course, we welcomed him to Lucerne and mentioned our new-and-improved guest bed. Hopefully, I'll get more visitors next year!
Lopen
One of the Dutch words Daniel and I picked up was "lopen," which means, "to walk." We learned it when my cousin asked me to read his Dutch homework to see if we could understand it (y'know, cause we're German speakers and all). He actually used the word "hardlopen," which means "to run," and I jokingly asked if "lopen" then meant "to walk." And I was correct!
So Daniel and I tried to use it as much as we could, in a joking way of course, because we don't speak Dutch. From the restaurant, we walked towards the nearest tram station that would take us to the Amsterdam Centraal.
Staring at Jacob.
Some street art, as we made our way to the museum of street art:
STRAAT Museum
We got off at Amsterdam Centraal and walked through the station to where the ferries are located. From there, we took ferry number 4, which is a free ride across to the NDSM-Werf*. The ferry was crowded and people were dressed to go to a festival, which was happening next to STRAAT.
* I visited Art City back in 2021, but that's for another time.
Entrance to STRAAT. It's encouraged to add to the art on the exterior of the building. Next time!
STRAAT is currently the world's largest museum dedicated to street art and graffiti. From the About page:
Our current exhibition displays more than 180 artworks by 170+ artists. The artworks were created on-site and most of these mind blowing visual experiences are as big as outdoor walls.
Both big names and up-and-coming artists have their work displayed here, and the museum also aims to educate the public about this art form. In fact, you can book a graffiti workshop, but unfortunately the times didn't align with our schedule.
There was a large panel explaining the timeline of how graffiti and street art came to be, as well as common terminology, pictured here.
Fun fact: When I was 15, I really wanted to try tagging. I started sketching out my tagger name (Klee, after Paul Klee lol). I used to look up techniques on how to stealthily put up street art, from stickers to stencils, but this hobby was short-lived because ultimately I was too afraid to do it. So the art remained in my sketchbook, never to be seen.
Recently, I started drawing out a new tag, this time dedicated to my old cat, Spyder. (I think that's a pretty sick name, though it's probably taken already). This rekindled hobby was the reason why we decided to visit STRAAT, as Daniel was also working on some graffiti-inspired illustrations, too.
The works are MASSIVE and go all the way up towards the ceiling. The idea is to mimic the streets and display the art closest to their natural environment.
Humans for scale.
As stated in the About, all the pieces were painted on location, which must've been super cool for the artists. There were several documentaries playing on loop, and you can tell all the artists were very excited about the opportunity.
Here are some of my favorites:
This untitled piece is by Konrad Karsten. It's a sculptural installation made out of wood and Formica. I went inside and filmed it, but since there were people waiting to go in, I left quickly.
Later, I went back because I wanted to take some photos. That's when I noticed that those two people were drawing on the walls! I completely missed that. Once they left, I went back inside and left my mark:
Spyder furever.
Tools of the trade.
I wore an outfit that I thought would be great for another photo op. However, I disliked how I looked in nearly all of them. This was the best one.
"Perpetual Lozenge" (2017) by Astro. Shirt is from 3 Women, which I bought before they permanently closed their brick and mortar shop in Long Beach. Hair clip from Chunks.
Finally, we exited through the gift shop†, which had these amazing Royal Delft x STRAAT tiles, a collaboration with different artists from around the world. I really wanted to get one, but since Delft was one of our destinations, I decided to wait.
† We were instructed to leave via the gift shop, but I wonder if it's a play on the documentary, "Exit Through the Gift Shop," which was about Banksy. The title refers to the "selling out" of street art, as it was originally a counterculture movement.
My favorites are from the Schiffmacher x Royal Delft collab.
Once again, we were running late. We were set to meet Mozzarella, Daniel's long-time gamer friend for the first time.
Happy hour
We had to run to catch the ferry. This is not the first time we've had to run to catch some form of public transportation. I hate running for things. If we were in Switzerland, I would've just said "fuck it, let's take the next one." But the ferry comes every 10 minutes and we had an appointment to catch.
We managed to make it at the last second. The ferry back was less crowded and I took some videos of the journey. Once we were on land, we had to walk 20 minutes to our destination as there were, once again, no direct trams/buses that would take us there.
We planned on meeting at Winkel 43, a café known for their apple pies. However, after Daniel texted an update on our status, we received a message:
"We're already here. We don't like the vibe, so we're gonna move to another place."
Daniel became concerned. Was Mozzarella a picky guy? I assured him that things always seem more intense over text, and that it'd be fine, it's nearby, and I'm actually no longer feeling apple pie anyway.
Mozzarella sent the location but not the actual name of the place, so we wandered up and down the side street a bit before he came outside and greeted us warmly. We ended up at De Blaffende Vis, a bustling pub. M's girlfriend, C, was sitting in the back. We were all meeting each other for the first time.
They explained that they had gotten a seat at the other café but it was dirty and it wasn't a place to just have a drink and talk. No matter, we were all together now, and Daniel finally got to see his online friend IRL! I chatted with C while the two caught up.
This was Daniel's beer. I really liked the glass. (I had a glass of red wine.)
We left around 18:00 because Mozzarella needed to feed his cat and I told my cousin to meet us at another bar, since we had ample time before our dinner reservation. R was already there, so we didn't want to make him wait any further.
R was waiting for us at Bar Americain, which was suggested by B earlier in the day. It's attached to a hotel and B said their cocktails are pretty good there. So I went with my default drink to assess:
A whiskey sour.
While the portion is considerably larger, the whiskey sour from Niko was more to my liking: sweeter, with a stronger taste of whiskey. This one tasted more watered down and bitter.
We chatted about various topics and I got a little tipsy. Around 19:30, we made our way slowly towards the restaurant on foot.
Surinamese cuisine
Han suggested a restaurant called Warung Spang Makandra. She hadn't been herself yet, but said that it's supposed to be quite nice. When we arrived, the place was packed and abuzz. We had reservations for 20:30 but there was a slight mixup. Luckily, we were seated within 5 minutes at the only empty table.
I'd never had Surinamese food and had to look up more information about the country:
Suriname is the smallest country in South America, sandwiched between Guyana and French Guiana. The Dutch colonized it during the late 17th century and turned it into a plantation colony, labored by enslaved Africans until the the abolition of slavery in 1863. The Dutch then brought indentured laborers from "the Dutch East Indies" (modern Indonesia), India, and later in the late 19th to early 20th centuries, laborers from China and West Asia. The country was granted independence from the Netherlands in 1975, and the Dutch government provided aid during its first decade of freedom. (Source)
So the current population there, aside from the indigenous, are pretty much all descendants of slavery. The fusion of migrants from various backgrounds developed Surinamese cuisine into what it's known as today: a mix of Indian, Indonesian, African, Chinese, and Dutch kitchens.
I ordered the nasi rames, which came with fried noodles, green beans, chicken satay, beef, chicken fillet, and potato sambal. (I also ordered another whiskey sour as they were out of amaretto sour.) I can't remember what the other two ordered, but they looked like variants of the dish I got.
The food was flavorful and hearty, like a home-cooked meal. There were options to make it spicy, but one whiff of their homemade chilli told me that I would regret it. Since this was my first time eating Surinamese, I went with the recommended option, but there's so much more. Soto ayam is one of my favorite Indonesian dishes, and saoto soup seems to be the Surinamese counterpart. I'm definitely getting that next time!
This was one of my favorite meals, mostly because I got to learn about a culture I had no prior knowledge of. Amsterdam is the capital of Surinamese food in Europe. While I recommend Warung Spang Makandra for the vibes, I'd love to try more restaurants the next time I'm in town.
Previously, we had discussed seeing a live jazz concert in Amsterdam, but all of us were beat. So we made our way to the nearest train station and then it was a 40 minute journey back to Den Haag. We rode in silence, exhausted from the day.