Vegetarian Restaurant Review- de Waaghals (Amsterdam)

Over the past couple of weeks some exciting things have been happening. I'll fill you in later this week, I promise! In the meantime,  I have two restaurant reviews, both about 1.5 hours from our home. The first was in Amsterdam a few weeks ago.

For the first time, I went alone with Dina on the 1 hour and 20 minute train ride to Amsterdam. I wasn't sure if her boisterous 3-year-old activities would annoy the other passengers. 

I needn't have worried.

The purpose of our trip was to see our dear friends from Australia (they used to live in Rochester) and meet them for a quick museum trip and dinner. Dina has had three 'miracle' naps in her life. The first was at Musee D'Orsay in Paris when she was 9 months old.  Those 40 minutes, drinking in the impressionists paintings, catching knowing glances from older ladies at the lovely sleeping beauty in my stroller, will forever be etched in my memory. Her second 'miracle' nap happened this day, in Amsterdam, at the van Gogh museum. Chatting about the artists life, work, and familiarity (now that we've lived here for more than 3 years his work seems to be of familiar places), with friends who I hadn't seen since before we moved, was delightful. From there, we headed to Vegetarisch Restaurant de Waaghals. It is located on Frans Haisstraat 29 in Amsterdam.

My husband has been using an app on his phone to decide where to eat in big cities we've visited recently. The app has user generated reviews. This particular place had some good reviews, and since we try to eat vegetarian as much as we can (and our friends were up for it) we checked it out, in spite of one negative review where a customer was bitten by the resident cat. Hilariously, when we sat down, a cat came over to investigate (and I had already warned Dina not to touch any cats) and the owner told us that it was best to leave the cat alone, which we did. What I liked about this place was the unique dinner options.

The spinach quiche(green egg-shaped dish above) and polenta topped with herbed butter were excellent. I also enjoyed the mushrooms and the salad (olives are always a big hit, especially with Dina) and felt fortunate that they accommodated my request for a child meal that wasn't so typical (Dina wanted fries and plain fried tofu, and they did it).

 Dina ate every last black olive on my plate, my husbands, and some from our friend's, too.

The inside of the restaurant was sparsely decorated, with strange light fixtures, but the courtyard in the back let in light and we were happy to sit near it. I'm so grateful we got to see our friends, and enjoy a wonderful vegetarian meal as well.