Well fed and exercised occasional #2: Amsterdam restaurants, marathon weekend

Hiking the hills is a relatively gentle exercise, and given how we eat, it's probably good that we do other exercise as well.  Mrs prefers swimming and Bikram yoga; I run.  And generally run quite slowly-- it goes against my own natural laziness.  So to try to counteract this, of long habit, I sign up for and run (slowly) a marathon each spring and autumn.  If that sounds hardcore, well, it isn't-- I'm usually at the back with the guys in the rhino costumes.  It's not quite as slow as John "the penguin" Bingham, but still-- in one of my earlier marathons, I had the good luck to ride the bus to the start with the Chilean national squad: great guys, chatty and funny and giving advice to the first timers on the bus...but once we got going, never saw them again.  I count myself lucky to cross the line before the winner boards his plane back to Kenya.

Marathons present certain nutritional demands.  The real elites take this incredibly seriously, of course--food is fuel.  Like most amateurs, I've read about what they do and ape some of the practices in the lead-up to the run... more to avoid any hands-and-knees on the course than in hope of winning.  So I'll do "carbo-loading" and all that.  The flipside, though, is to my advantage: the guys heading back to Kenya are straight into training for their next endeavour--this is their job after all--while I've just burned an entire extra day's worth of calories and am looking forward to righting some of that deficit at dinner.

Nobody runs the London marathon any more--you can't get in.  The odds of getting in via the lottery are barely better than the real lottery (and a ticket is cheaper in the real lottery) so the only way to get in is to shake your can for a charity (including the Save the Rhino Foundation) committing to raise hundreds if not thousands.  Fine, but not for me and certainly not every year.  The last time I ran London, people kept asking what I was running for: I told them "cardiovascular health", without mentioning the cardiovascular health in question was my own.

So that means going further afield, and covering the marathon-food-specific bases in unfamiliar cities, in restaurants.  This autumn's marathon was in Amsterdam, and dining was more promising than you'd have expected.  The course is nice, too-- it seems there's a lively debate in Dutch running circles about the relative merits of the Amsterdam marathon vs. Rotterdam marathon; which course is flatter.  This is a bit like arguing over the driest desert.  For eating, though, the choice is clear.

This starts as soon as we arrive.  Landing at Schipol on the early flight from London on Saturday and heading straight to the marathon expo near the Olympic Stadium by train means a walk from A'dam Zuid train station that can easily accomodate walking past le Fournil de Sébastien on Olympiaplein.  We walked past several bakeshops on the way but this was the only one with a queue out the door.  We stopped in for breakfast (my third: one bite before leaving home, one the toy food on the plane; Mrs.'s first brek) where Mrs. chose something solid then a macaroon and I had something that looked like a giant pretzel but was flaky and sweet... for €4.30 all in.  OK, we ate it on the bench in the parkette opposite but this is a promising start.
  
From the expo (which was rammed with too many people in too small a space--no exaggeration, probably the least enjoyable part of the marathon) we walked to our strategically located hotel, a gentle walk to start/finish and a gentle walk to the center, we mooched our way past a number of places not yet open where we made mental notes for "next time", to get a carbo-loading lunch at Forno Communale, with pizza and prosecco for Mrs. and tap water for me.  And while it is just a charming neighbourhood place, the pizza (spicy salami is not exactly carbo-loading but there was bread on the side) was lovely.  After that, we continued the walk to the hotel.

Now, research into restaurants is a fine thing.  Mrs. does most of the research for our travels and I'm glad she does-- she's good at it.  But some of the best finds are serendipity, particularly when wandering around foreign cities, and sometimes you wander past a place and it just exudes an atmosphere.  This can happen anywhere, though it seems to happen more often in Italy for some reason, and when we wandered past di Sale, well, it rang the bell.  The English on the menu was quirky but that added rather than detracted.  And it was much closer to the hotel than the place we had planned... so we changed plans rather quickly.

Four hours (and a little nap) later, we're sitting down for an early dinner.  My choices are limited: marathon in the morning, so it must be pasta.  Mrs. and I split a plate of tagliatelle with Parmesan cream truffled sauce, which was wonderful--pasta cooked just so and the truffles came through very clearly as a crisp high note against the density of the cheese cream sauce.  The couple next to us had a starter that was white and wobbled but also wafted truffle aroma whenever the front door opened, so we were hardly surprised to look up di Sale and find "chef has a particular affinity with truffles."  Main was pasta again for me--pappardelle with cinghale ragu, which was nice though not at the high notch that the truffles had set; Mrs. ordered osso buco which came with risotto and the bone to pick the marrow from.  From the tone of other reviews, I gather this is a little on the pricey side for pasta in Amsterdam, but when the bill came to €74 (including wine for Mrs but sadly not for me) we walked away happy.  We even booked in for an early meal on the Monday, as we were on a 9pm flight back to London and didn't want to eat at the airport.

In the morning, with a drop of porridge and a banana, I made it round the course in a not-bad time, inspired more by dinner and the threat of heavy rain around noontime than out of athletic zeal or ambition.  And after a shower and a long hot bath, it was time for a drink.  Research led us to the Taverna Barcelona after a medium-length but relatively slow walk.  And this was a hit: where Michelin gives Bib Gourmands for restaurants that offer quality at value prices, we propose a Bib Soiffard for the cavas on TB's list.  We had one of each of the Parxet (rosé for Mrs + brut for me) were very good--in the rose, you could taste the reddishness very clearly without compromising the crispy clarity...brut was also crisp and clear but again had real flavour and heft.  One wine blogger clearly agreed, with a review descending from highminded professional tasting notes to "winner winner, chicken dinner" presumably as he worked though the bottle.  The second round was almost as good-- Mrs. complained that hers, a white Garnatxa, had a sweaty feet tang, but mine, the Marques de Alella Pansa Blanca, was wonderfully clear and crisp that was sometimes overpowered by the berry-like olives we were munching on, with not much meat but eathily flavourful.

Dinner was steak across the road at Carlitos Gardel, a new-ish Argentine place.  Steak- glorious, though Mrs.'s came in two parts held together with a wood skewer, huge and tender and tasty, frites w mayo and eccentric Dutch version of Greek salad. The skewer meant one steak went back for a quick re-grill, but they got it spot on the second time.  Wine was more value: Bosca Finca la Linda Malbec for €19.50...and then you pay in the Balti House next door, which was when we realised why it was such value.  But then a great steak meal involves sourcing excellent meat and fiddling with it as little as possible, so whether it's restraint or cost control, the result works both ways.

Monday was spent in the re-opened Rijksmuseum, which has been covered elsewhere better than I can.  After, via a beer, we head back to di Sale: the wobbly white is a truffled leek flan, and tastes every bit as good as it smelt on Saturday night.. and better again as it goes with a splash of white wine.  Mrs. opts for a starter with scamorza cheese, which is nice but the truffles still are the winner.  The mains are a little step down: a stuffed venison main is nice but it's not clear what exactly it's stuffed with, and Mrs.'s lamb shoulder is pleasant but a bit pedestrian after the chef has shown off what he can do with truffles.  Yet all of this, washed down with a Baglio di Pianetto 2007 Nero d'Avila that Mrs. suggests smells and tastes of blackberry leaf still sets us back less than €90 as we head for the door and the airport.  I do hope they're making money-- we might need them if we find ourselves running Amsterdam again next autumn...