Where's The Food?

Well I can tell you where the food is. You can find allllll the food at the Foodhallen in Amsterdam!

My mum took me there in December and I have loved it ever since. My boyfriend and I went again (and again, haha) so we could try most of the food (so pictures in this post are from multiple sessions, I promise we didn't eat so much in one go ;)). The crappier pictures are taken with my phone, btw :(

'De Hallen' used to be a tram depot, but since last year it's home to a library, hip companies, beautiful stores, a cinema, restaurants and.. the Foodhallen! The Foodhallen is an indoor food market - a concept previously unknown to the Netherlands. Think of a food court combined with London's Borough Market. A place where it's all about good, fresh, authentic food. And boy let me tell you, it is good.

There's truly something there for everyone. From the cutest little tartelettes ever, to different kinds of hummus, flame grilled burgers and even a 'simple' grilled cheese sandwich (there's so much cheese on them you can hardly call them simple :P). There's a stand that only sells food featuring Iberico ham, and there's a stand that only sells vegetarian goodies. There's even a froyo stand that also sells Nutella waffles.

As you can imagine, the first time we went there, we had a little trouble deciding on what to get. We started off with some oysters and bubbly at Le Big Fish while making up our minds. Le Big Fish is the brain child of three renowned Dutch chefs. Excellent oysters! They also do fish soups (with mussels or shrimp dumplings), caviar and fish tacos.

Price per Fines de Normandie oyster: €3,00

We decided on a veggie puff pastry pie from Wild Moa Pies, a company that brings a little New Zealand to the Netherlands. So good! A man next to us was eating a meat pie, and he was like 'sometimes pies are filled with vegetables and potatoes, but fortunately this pie has none of that crap, it's allll meat!', haha.

Price per pie: €4,00

We also had the pizza 'Almodovar' from Pink Flamingo: an Italian crust pizza version of paella. That means thinly sliced chorizo, shrimp, chicken and lots of cheese. I mean, all my favourite things on one pizza! What's not to like? A decadent pizza if there ever was one. 

Price per slice: €3,75 for a 1/4 Almodovar pizza. Pretty reasonable!

This particular stand had a line but it was totally worth the wait. Việt view sells Vietnamese streetfood which means they sell gỏi cuốn which are these delicious unfried spring rolls. They're still crispy because of the fresh vegetables (like carrots and cucumber) inside. It is soooo good. I greedily ordered two kinds, not knowing how large they would be. It was prepared on the spot and while they were making them I thought yikes, that's a lot for people who already ate plenty. OH WELL. :')

We had one with shrimp and one with rib-eye. I loved the rib-eye but the shrimp was even better!

The first time I had these rolls was in Japan. We were in a tiny conveyor belt sushi bar, and suddenly this huge roll went by on the belt. I took it off and shared it with my boyfriend. It was damn good. We've been craving a roll like that ever since. I only just found out they're actually Vietnamese. Explains why we've never seen those rolls at other Japanese restaurants, and it never crossed my mind to go to a Vietnamese place as I didn't know they were Vietnamese. I'm obviously not very familiar with the Vietnamese kitchen haha, may have to investigate some more :D. The banh mi sandwiches also looked delicious!

Price per roll (4 pieces): €6,50 - 7,00
Price per banh mi: €7,50 - 8,00

But this ^^ was the best part of it all.
The guy behind the counter actually spelled my name correctly. That has never, ever happened in my entire life. There's a possibility they can only put 8 letters on the receipt, but still! My name! It's (understandably) always Kristen or Christine or some other variation. So I was very, very pleased to see my name spelled correctly for once. Extra kudos go to Việt view!

We walked past Meneer Temaki, and saw some yakitori on the grill. I'm half Indonesian, so I'm always up for a good satay. Yakitori is essentially a type of satay, so I obviously couldn't miss out on these charcoal (organic!) chicken skewers! Let's just say I didn't like sharing these :P 

Price per 3 yakitori: €5,50

Then it was obviously sausage time, so we headed over to Bulls and Dogs for a hotdog!

Even though they had some pretty original and funky flavours (truffle and hazelnut? Mmm), we went for the classic dog, and (as with all the food here at the Foodhallen apparently) it was delish. I especially liked the pretzel bun! The sausage was also really good, filled with herbs and onion. Homemade mustard. Yum. Next time I want the Texas one!

Price per dog: €4,00 - 6,00

Looking to eat some Indian food? You Shirkhan at the Foodhallen (terrible pun :D). Inside this cool tiger wrapper is a freshly baked naan bread, filled with veggies and the most juicy chicken tikka. Deliciously spicy and very well seasoned.
I unknowingly spilled chicken tikka juices all over my scarf, and I kept smelling chicken tikka like an hour after we left. I wondered if it was my own breath, but after inspecting my scarf more closely I discovered why I kept smelling that delicious chicken tikka hahaha.

Price per wrap: €7,95 - 8,50

I absolutely love steak and could probably eat it every day, so this sandwich at Entrecôte Mobile seemed like a great idea. Fabulous butter sauce? Yes please.

The buns are slathered with that special butter sauce and are put on the grill. Then, when the steak is done, more of that butter is added. Veryyyy promising!

I have to admit, the photos of the end result don't do any justice to this gorgeous sandwich. It was insanely good. Large chunks of rare meat, so incredibly soft and tender. Just one leaf of lettuce - more would only distract from the meat anyway. Drenched in indeed, fabulous butter sauce. The bun fluffy on the inside and crsipy on the outside. 10 out of 10, best dish at the Foodhallen.

Price per sandwich: €6,50

My conclusion? I can honestly say that everything we tried was really, really good. All the food is definitely worth coming back for! If you want to try different things I admit that it can get pricey real quick, but in return you get high quality, good food from passionate craftsmen. We still haven't tried all the food available (yet!!!), but I'm pretty confident that everything else is also excellent. So if you're in the neighbourhood, why not head over to Bellamyplein for a great meal? If you go on the weekend it can get unbelievably crowded, lunch on weekdays is not as busy. We've never had trouble finding a table though, crowded or not!


Foodhallen Amsterdam
Address:
Bellamyplein 51, Amsterdam
Take tram 17 from Central Station  to Kinkerstraat

Opening hours:
Sunday - Wednesday 11:00 am - 11:30 pm
Thursday - Saturday: 11:00 am - 01:00 am