Summer, seafood, seafood and again seafood!
Last week I was in Brussels and Amsterdam. Hot summernights, my friend and I had a great time.
In Brussels we invited a few friends for a "gaumenperlen - soirée des amis" with a lot of different fried cold fresh vegetables on the table - iatlien style:-), a few fresh goat chesse arrangements, butter with basil and dried tamtoes and a marvellous sellerie mango salad flollowed by a great melon dessert in the end: fresh sliced water melon with a menta-cinamon-lemon yoghurt. The guests, my friend and I spent a wonderful evening at the terrasse with a nice Cremant from the Loire region and a gentle midnight breeze around 29 degrée.-)
Then we went for a short trip to Amsterdam, my beloved city which I hadn´t visited for a long time. Too long.
Imposed by the reopened new Rijksmuseum with its unbelievable tresures we got stuck in Vermeer, Rembrandt, Claesz and all the other wonderful dutch painters and artisans. Unbelievable, we did not manage to see one hundreth of one percent of this amazing museum and the other ones. I would love to go back to Amsterdam for two weeks and do nothing else than to look at all the treasures every day for 3 hours.
But we discovered another real treasure in Amsterdam:
www.theseafoodbar.nl
An unbelievable nice and relaxed bar/restaurant with fantastic fresh seafood, raw or enhanced by a decent modern and inspiring preparation. They also care about organic ingredients and the latest fish-farm certificates.I fell for their menta paesto served with the clam shells, but everything else I tried there was excellent - especially the scallops with a gentle safran sauce. The fine fresh seafood can be accompanied by a small but well chosen wine selection in all price levels. Friendly people, fantastic relaxed atmospheere, a bit raw cantine style. To cut a long story short: I love this place and I hope, they will soon open a spin-off in Berlin.:-)
Being back again to my Berlin day by day routine, re-feeling my deep passion for seafood and especially scallops, I went immediately to Galeries Laffayette to buy some fresh ones. Unfortunately not half of the quality I ate in Amsterdam. I did not get any fresh menta but a marvellous balm and fresh eatable flowers from my organic shop at the corner and so I mixed a paesto out of balm, a bit dried mentha, a dash of fresh lime, a bit of home-made very decent garlic-salt and saffron - pureed in a fine and decent sunflower oil. Marvellous, even if it was far from the delight for my taste-buds in Amsterdam.
I have to travel to Amsterdam again as soon as possible!
