According to one of my guide books, there are over 1,200 cafés in Amsterdam. And I am going to try and sample as many as I can!
Today started off great, I got the dog walked and my run all in before noon. Then, because it's Sunday, I had to go into the central part of town to run an errand. The shop I needed to go to is on one of the more popular shopping streets. The street is closed to traffic, so it has the effect of being one huge open air mall, and today it felt like a huge open air mall on Christmas Eve it was so packed!
So after braving the crowds for something the store was out of anyway, I decided to treat myself to lunch at café Luxembourg. It truly is a grand place, and I got lucky and nabbed a table right out front with a view of Spui square. I had a salade niçoise, which I order a lot, as I am always in search of the perfect one. They almost got right, but they left out the potatoes and the dressing wasn't the authentic mustard vinaigrette, but instead some sort of garlicky mayonnaise based thing (leave it to the Dutch to put mayo in a niçoise salad). Overall it was good, and the service was excellent, which is rare at cafés. I sat there and tried to read a bit of a newspaper with my Nederlands-Engels dictionary, but gave up and just people watched from the window.
I rode home on my bike, enjoying the crisp air and sunshine. I started carrying around a little packet of Kleenex cause my nose gets a bit runny in the cold and wind. I kinda like it. It makes me feel a bit like a kid again.
What exactly constitutes a salade nicoise? I'm serious, I've never gotten the same thing at two cafes. Are there essential and optional ingredients? And there does seem to be a difference of cafe society opinion on the vinaigrette vs. creamy, disgusting dressing. There must be rules. If not, can we get an international tribunal to lay some down?