Like I said earlier, the food in Amsterdam isn’t exactly world famous cuisine. They seem to have imported a lot from other countries; for example, there are a ton of hamburger places in Amsterdam. That being said, we still wanted to find a place that had local cuisine. Lonely Planet rarely misses, but in this one case they weren’t up to par.
For good local fare, I would not go with their recommendation of Bistro Bij ons, which is near the Anne Frank House. I’ll just make a long story short, the service wasn’t good. They weren’t mean or anything. Just very, very inattentive. They never took our food order, but when the bill came, they tried to charge us for food. And it wasn’t like the place was packed. It was me, my friend and a couple – that’s it. The waitress was apologetic, but it’s not worth wasting your time going there.
Where should you go? The Pantry.
The Pantry had fantastic service, a really cool eating in someone’s dining room feel, and good, hearty food for the chilly Amsterdam weather. The place is small, so there’s a solid chance you’ll need to wait a little while. We ordered some Bitterballen beef croquettes as an appetizer and we each ordered something off the “Traditional Dutch Dishes” menu as an entree. I ordered the “combination” menu which consists of three different types of mashed potatoes (a carrot/onion/beef, a kale, and a sauerkraut) with either a meatball or a sausage. It’s definitely worth trying.
Here and There 