Hotel Arena - Amsterdam

Had a meeting there today, and as you can see on the picture they use TO for everything in there hotel / restaurant / banqueting / dancing. You will eat at TOEAT, your coaster says TODRIP, your sugarstick says TOOSWEET, the maintance team wear shirts with TOMAINTAIN. It's nicely done in a very good way. The interior of this place is like the photo, combined with modern stuff, like black toilets, long curtains in black ... terrific place with a nice terrace in the sun.

Website : http://www.hotelarena.nl

Afternoon BBQ

Katie Melua (call of the search) versus my afternoon barbecue


Katie Melua wrote and sang Blame it on the moon and that's exactly what I imagine these people are who I've seen and talked to today with exeption of the last two (good luck with your new business, I'll be your customer for sure - send me an invitation for the opening ;-) ).

Crawling up a hill is what people should do more ... minute after minute, hour after hour, life is just a slow train crawling up a that hill. And I think it's going to rain but we kept it dry till now and it was a perfect temperature for this barbecue I attended with Dean. I walked today with him in a "summers day" on this mansion in Aerdenhout and we heared a faraway voice since we met people we haven't seen since high school, grown up with children and through the years over these hills not much has changed. This is the closest thing to crazy I've ever seen. It's so easy to break a heart, it so easy to close your eyes, how could these people treat you like a child, how can anyone feel so wise. It's good to see though and hope we still can keep our feet on the floor. And now the tables are empty and the dance floor is empty, that's the beginning but we're on the right track for our first lesson in Learning the blues. Out in the crowd the blues will haunt your memory. Now that we know our "way" is the good one we'll call of the search.

Katie Melua sang (among others) the numbers above in bold on her album Call of the search. And how appropriate these words were today. But for your food & beverage lovers, yes there was good wine (champagne was terrible) Maison van Wely had perfect ice cream, Chateaubriand excellent meat, Bawykov great salmon, L'amuse perfect cheeses and we enjoyed the oysters of Schmidt Zeevis,

the last espresso was terrible though, but what do you expect from a pad ... (sorry to all the senseo lovers ...)

I had a great afternoon,

Dean thanx - Paul.

Amsterdam Culinair 2005 - part II

Amsterdam, June 2 - 2005

Hallowie, For all you people out there, yes again this is about food & beverage, but he ... who can blame me. Today we should go to the opening of Amsterdam Culinair 2005. Unfortunately the three gentlemen couldn't make it (one forgotten, one business excuse and a sprained ankle) well sorry guys, Ninke and I went for it, and to humor you guys this is what we had ....

We started off with champagne, I know it's not my favourite but ... Of course visit our host first, Sanday's the new sandwich shop in town, watch out for them, it's good, different than you use to get and incredible tastefull.


And than it was time to get our first course .... croquette de crevette by Restaurant Dorrius, If you want to taste the real Old Dutch culinary delights, you should pay a visit to restaurant Dorrius. You will get to know the delicious Dutch cuisine, which has made our restaurant world-famous since 1890, in a typically Old Dutch atmosphere. Almost the best I've ever tasted ... delicious!

Website : http://www.dorrius.nl



The next course was by Blender. I've never been there but someone told me to visit the place, so we did ... we both had duck combines with a duck mousse on toast and rucola salad ... divine taste, need to go there soon, so any of you been there, let me know and say what I need to try from the menucard.

Website : http://www.blender.to


So now we needed a stiff drink as well so we went to Restaurant Local ... we took a Caipirinha, you know the drink made from Cachaca



And that was a good choice, lovely ... shaken not stirred !

We had a perfect match with it, a sate of rib-eye, a sate of lamb and a sate of ostrich combined with three very well made sauces and turkish bread ... Never been here as well. You were there, let me know and say what I need to choose, the food was perfect so ... I'm anxious to here about this restaurant. We took an espresso from Rombouts .... and had a lovely evening also without the three "losers"

Well gentlemen you missed a very well organised and entertaining, food & beverage evening.

Till we eat again ... sleep tight - kiss Paul

Amsterdam Culinair 2005

AMSTERDAM CULINAIR 2005 THURSDAY JUNE 2 UNTILL SUNDAY JUNE 5 - 2005 Click on the image for information on the poor website