A Birthday Nightcap...

On our walk to the restaurant, we’d spotted a cool outdoor café called Kanteen25 that we decided to visit afterwards. We were fortunate to find a waterfront table in the bar section. 

We sat directly across from NEMO, the science museum. 

Check out this cool bookshelf inside the café. 

Our server surprised me with cake. We didn’t need more to eat, but couldn’t turn down a free piece of delicious Black Forest cake. 

Once it was fully dark, we couldn’t resist walking around the corner to see Mediamatic lit up. 

On our walk back to the train station, we spotted this piece of trash art. What a great birthday!
 

Fine Dining in a Greenhouse...

Our meal continued with cucumber gazpacho, a cold soup that was very refreshing, with croutons and veggie chips.

The main course was a mushroom, greens and lemon casserole cooked in parchment paper that Jimmy mistook for filo dough and took a bite of (apparently that gave the chefs a good laugh as he couldn’t resist confessing to our server). 

We were each served our own portion for the dessert course, which was delivered directly on the wooden plank. Especially tasty was the lemon and lavender meringue candy made from aquafaba (the liquid from jarred or canned chickpeas).

Due to the pandemic, we’ve stopped handing a stranger our camera or phone to take a photo of us, but since our server was wearing a mask and gloves, we happily accepted her offer to take our photo. 

Not only was the setting incredible, so was the food and service, far surpassing our expectations of what we had originally suspected might just be a passing fad. 

The sun was just setting as we were leaving. 

 

Birthday Dinner in a Greenhouse...

The signs along the side of the restaurant in a mix of Dutch and English gave us a good laugh. 

A sculpture made of old plates and cups stood in front of the large open kitchen. 

We were sent outside to the terrace...

…where we ordered local Oedipus beers by phone and were served an opening course—radishes and Moroccan spiced aubergine dip—of our five-course plant-based sharing menu, which we had prepaid for when we booked our reservation.  

We were then escorted to our own private greenhouse for dinner.

We had silverware, but were surprised to learn that we wouldn’t be given our own plates as everything was to be truly shared from the center of the table. 

Here’s the view from our greenhouse, which was placed as close to the edge of the water as possible. 

We were regularly entertained by this little daredevil of a skinny dipper who loved climbing over the railing and jumping into his father’s arms.

Our second course was a salad with lentils, tomatoes, strawberries, edible flowers and saffron dressing...

…with focaccia and whole wheat farm bread. 

The food was delivered on a long wooden plank, which ensured that the servers, who wore masks and gloves, could easily keep their distance. 

 

My 57th Birthday...

Ashlynn spoiled me with a wonderful brunch for my birthday. Although I don’t consider myself a foodie, my birthday was all about food as you’ll soon see. 

Jimmy and I had an early dinner reservation in Amsterdam. We took a scenic walk from Amsterdam Centraal to the restaurant and along the way saw: the reflection of the National Maritime Museum in the windows of the Amsterdam Centre for Architecture…

…some interesting coronavirus posters...

…lots of swimmers making use of the Marine Terrain outdoor swimming spot...

…and a sneak peek of where we’d be having dinner: Mediamatic. You might remember seeing something in the press—apparently around 1,000 articles were written globally—about the restaurant featuring individual greenhouses for truly socially-distanced dining, which allowed the restaurant to reopen before any others. Although it was often fully booked two months in advance, by some miracle I was able to book a table for my birthday. 
 

Spotted in Leiden...

Not something you see everyday: a cyclist filling up the fuel tank for his boat. We’re lucky that it fits on the back of Jimmy’s bike. 

On the negative side, our little putt-putt motor is quite loud. On the positive side, €2 of fuel lasts over an hour, which makes for pretty darn affordable entertainment.  

Some of the things spotted in early August included: incredible wispy clouds over the Old Observatory...

…a table built on top of beer crates set up on a barge for a romantic dinner for two...

…another romantic canalside table...

…a bunch of swans...

…a colorful mural on the backside of the National Museum of Ethnology...

…a funky pandemic creature...

…lovely gray and white clouds (as opposed to our usual completely gray clouds)…

…water like glass as we returned to our parking space on the far left...

…and the reflected bridge across from our dock (dock might be too strong of a word as it implies something made of wood or metal, whereas we just walk across grass directly onto our boat). 
 

More Boat Rides with Friends...

We took every advantage of the continued fantastic weather to take friends out on our boat. Next up were Sally and John, who brought their own chairs. It worked out great to call in a pizza order at an Italian place along one of the canals and pick it up to eat onboard. Jimmy learned the hard way how to avoid flooding the engine, which was a valuable lesson to learn.  

A few days later, Jim was in town from Switzerland as he had accepted a job back at the agency and would come up periodically before relocating while staff mostly works from home. 

After some heavy snacking, we pulled up to Tabu, a new Latin restaurant that had replaced one of our favorite restaurants, to see if they would be willing to serve us some tapas in our boat. We were pleased that the answer was yes and impressed with the food. Jim was so excited that he jumped for joy onto the beanbags. 

A few days later, Nina was in town from Switzerland...

…to visit her good friend Susan.

Once again, Jimmy was thrilled to have three ladies on his boat.

After enjoying a boat ride, we stopped at the brewery for a nightcap.