Where To Eat & Stay In Amsterdam

You may already know that last week Karl and I went to Amsterdam (I may or may not have instagrammed around 1000 times while we were there) so I thought I'd split my blog posts about it into a couple and in this one tell you guys a little about the hotel we stayed in and the absolutely fantastic food we stuffed ourselves with while we were there.

THE HOTEL

When Karl and I travel, we look for two things; location and cleanliness. We hardly spend any time in the room so the size or facilities don't really matter for us so we can usually keep the costs down as city breaks can get quite pricey if you aren't careful! We stayed in a little hotel called Hotel CC, a really cheap but lovely hotel in central Amsterdam, literally just a couple of minutes walk from Amsterdam Central Station. This made it a perfect base camp for us and we could easily find our way back from anywhere we visited. The hotel was bright and modern, with most of the interior being black and white, which is right up my street to be honest. It had a little lobby area with some seating, magazines and a fridge full of snacks you could buy and although they didn't have breakfast, it was absolutely surrounded by little pancake cafes (more on that later!) I'll be honest our room was really small but it was perfect for us. There wasn't much room to move about at all and the bed took up most of the room but it was clean, comfortable and had everything we needed. 

Overall I would definitely recommend Hotel CC to couples wanting to visit Amsterdam. I can't say anything about the twin rooms as ours was a double and although it was quite cramped it didn't bother us at all and everything else about it was lovely. Fantastic location, lovely, friendly staff and it was so cheap.

THE FOOD

If I could sum up Amsterdam's food in three words it would be cheese, Nutella and pancakes. Now if that doesn't sound like heaven, I don't know what does. Out of all of the places I've ever been, Amsterdam has been my favourite for food without a shadow of a doubt. Literally on every street there is a cheese shop, a little cafe serving crepes and waffles and all of the pastries and cakes any girl with a sweet tooth like me could ever ask for. In most of the shops, you could taste little pieces of the cheese and it was a delight! I'm a huge cheese lover so naturally I tasted just about every flavour from traditional cheddars to cheese with pesto, chillies or pepper. NOM.

We had pancakes at least once a day and one day we even had that huge slice of rainbow cake for breakfast and I have no regrets. In my eyes it's perfectly okay to indulge when you're on holiday - I mean, how else are you supposed to taste all of the wonderful food!? The bakeries offered all of the flavours of macarons you could think of (I of course ate more than my fair share of raspberry flavour) along with homemade truffles, lemon meringue pies, cake pops, waffles... You name it, they had it. I challenge anybody to "eat clean" whilst in Amsterdam.

THE RESTAURANTS

Mondial Crepes and Waffles

This little gem was an absolutely tiny crepe restaurant right outside our hotel. It was the first place we ate upon arriving in Amsterdam at around 9am and it was absolutely perfect for breakfast, serving a huge variety of breakfast food from crepes like mine (I had Nutella and banana - uh-MAZING) to strawberry waffles to croissants to chocolate eclairs. There wasn't much seating inside but we managed to squish onto a tiny little bench on the side and to be honest, the crepes were so good I would have sat outside in the rain to eat them!

Argentino Madre Maria

We came across this restaurant on our first night in Amsterdam and I'll admit it was definitely Karl's choice. I'm not really a meat eater (at all usually!) so a steakhouse is a bit out of my comfort zone but it was actually really nice! We both opted for a burger with salad and chips - quite standard but really enjoyable! The interior was lovely too with wooden booths, ivy climbing over the seats and fairy lights on the ceiling it had such a peaceful atmosphere. There was also a little cat which kept moving around the restaurant purring at people which I loved - anything to do with cats gets a thumbs up from me!

Kessens

This little cafe was recommended to me by someone on Instagram and boy were we glad we listened! We visited here after we'd been to the Anne Frank Museum as it was just around the corner. Kessens has really simple, clean and minimalistic decor, serving breakfast, lunch and light bites throughout the day to take out or to sit in. We sat in and I had the mushrooms on brown toast while Karl opted for pork with hoi sin and we both loved it. The portions were perfect for lunch time and they had a huge range of sandwiches and salads available for both veggies and meat eaters. Perfecto!

Pancakes!

Well, at least we know we won't be forgetting the name of this place anytime soon!! I'd hear some amazing things about this place on Twitter and although it was a little bit of a walk from our hotel, I just had to try their famous American pancakes. I had banana and maple syrup whilst Karl had bacon on his and all I can say is yum. If you love pancakes, sweet or savoury, this is the place for you! It is really small though so get there early. We got there at about 11am and got the last available table and when we left about 50 minutes later there was a huge queue starting to build up so it's best to be on your toes for this one!

Pasta Pasta
Finally we have this little Italian place, another one just down the street from our hotel. We both loved the idea of this restaurant as you literally build your own meal. Choose the type of pasta or pizza you want, the cheese and then the topping - although I'm not one, it is a dream come true for the pickier eaters like Karl! I chose ravioli with spinach and ricotta, mozzarella cheese and tomato and basil sauce NOM. I love pasta anyway but most places near me don't do my favourite veggie kinds like this one and although we did leave the restaurant in a bit of a carb coma, it was absolutely delicious and I would definitely recommend it!

Amy x