Amsterdam’s Foodie Paradise : a Millennial’s Guide to Rystaffel

Navigating culinary treasures from Indonesia

“It’s not a random mish-mash — it’s more of an orchestration of dishes,” explains author and Dutch culinary historian Peter Rose.

A foodie can make a great travel companion in a foreign country. A millennial foodie who can look up restaurant reviews and train schedules in a flash with her pocket technology is someone to treasure for many reasons.

We had not chosen Amsterdam for a culinary vacation, but happily, it ended up that way.

Turns out that my millennial companion knew where we would be eating the famed Rystaffel extravaganza in Amsterdam for a long while before the trip.

As I buckled my seatbelt for the landing in the lowlands and mused about what we might be eating for the next week, she said, “I started making a reservation for Rystaffel weeks ago! We just got off the waitlist before we left.”

Rystaffel = Rice Table

“4.4 out of 1000 Google reviews,” she stated. A millennial can often quote details of online reviews from memory. They dare try any dish above $10 without at least five hundred reviews.

Okay, wow. I was happy she was on it. Must be great rystaffel, I was thinking at customs.

It was probably one of the best meals I’ve ever had in my life.

The millennial foodie pointed me to the correct tram on our first day in Amsterdam. She had never been there before, but her phone told her which tram to take to the chosen Rystaffel restaurant, Blauw.

It’s a nice change to follow along when traveling. It felt like a reward for all the vacations I had planned in my thirties that included a stroller with the millennial in it.

Rystaffel is a uniquely Dutch invention thanks to the spices the Dutch colonialists in Indonesia capitalized on. More than a few Dutch people felt compelled to emphasize to me that Rysstaffel is not a meal found in Indonesian cuisine.

It’s a Dutch adaptation.

For a few centuries, courtesy of the Dutch East India Company, the world was supplied with nutmeg, clove, mace, and black pepper from the Spice Islands in Indonesia. (Moluccas). Back in the day, access to spices was a big deal. The Dutch had an exclusive.

Indonesia consists of about 18,000 islands, but only 6000 are inhabited.

That’s a lot of islands and a lot of different cuisines in a geographical mass that stretches longer than the distance from L.A. to New York.

The Rystaffel menu became popular after World War II when many Indonesians migrated to The Netherlands. They knew the Dutch liked the dishes served to them in their homeland archipelago, so they opened restaurants to serve them in Holland. The tourists also liked it and suddenly everyone asked for rystaffel.

Here are a few of the dishes often served in a rystaffel:

Beef Rendang — Slow cooked but crispy beef in coconut curry sauce

Tempeh Blado — Spicy and sweet tempeh

Saté — Creamy yet slightly spicy peanut sauce covering various meats or vegetables

Pisang Goreng — Crunchy fried banana fritters

Sambal Goreng Telor — Fried egg with tart and spicy Sambal sauce

Typically, roasted coconut and sweet and salty pickled vegetables will also be served as palate cleansers and tongue coolers.

_Kenny Dunn, “What on earth is a Rice Taffel anyway?