What to eat in Amsterdam
Amsterdam eats standing up: herring with onion, stroopwafels from the market, bitterballen with beer, chips with sauce, rijsttafel and jenever.

[ ] Eat herring with onion
    Lightly cured new-catch herring with chopped onion and gherkins, eaten at the stall. You hold it by the tail and lower it in, or take it in a broodje bun.
[ ] Get a stroopwafel from the market
    Two thin waffles glued with hot caramel syrup, pressed in front of you. Fresh, it is soft and stretches rather than snapping — a different thing entirely from the packet version.
[ ] Order bitterballen
    Crisp balls with hot meat ragout inside, served with sharp mustard. The classic brown café snack, ordered by the plate for the table with beer.
[ ] Eat patat met sauce
    Thick-cut chips in a paper cone under a heavy layer of sauce. Nobody just asks for mayonnaise: there is a full sauce menu, and the classic is patatje oorlog.
[ ] Try Dutch cheeses
    Gouda at different ages, from young and mild to old, crystalline and almost caramel. Market stalls let you taste through the stages, and the difference is enormous.
[ ] Order a rijsttafel
    The Indonesian rice table: rice surrounded by fifteen or so small dishes — curries, satay, sambals, vegetables. A colonial invention that became an Amsterdam tradition.
[ ] Get a broodje kroket
    An elongated croquette of ragout tucked into a soft roll with mustard. A lunch classic, sold in cafés and from coin-operated wall vending hatches on the street.
[ ] Try erwtensoep in winter
    Pea soup thick enough to stand a spoon in, with smoked sausage and pork ribs. Winter food, eaten at the skating rink and after a walk along the canals.
[ ] Try stamppot
    Mashed potato beaten together with kale, endive or carrot and onion, served with smoked sausage and a well of gravy in the middle. Home winter food.
[ ] Get kibbeling
    Chunks of battered white fish with garlic sauce, sold from the same fish stalls as the herring. The gentler entry point for anyone who does not want it raw.
[ ] Eat poffertjes
    Tiny puffed pancakes made with yeast and buckwheat flour, served in a heap with a knob of butter and icing sugar. Cooked in a dimpled cast-iron pan.
[ ] Try Dutch appeltaart
    A tall pie with a thick shortcrust wall packed with big chunks of apple, cinnamon and raisins, served with a mountain of whipped cream. Neither strudel nor tart, and denser than both.
[ ] Try drop liquorice
    Salty liquorice, the national sweet, eaten by the Dutch in greater quantity than by anyone else. The salt comes from ammonium chloride, and the first taste is a shock.
[ ] Drink a koffie verkeerd
    Wrong coffee: coffee with a lot of hot milk in a glass, the Dutch take on a latte. A biscuit almost always arrives on the saucer.
[ ] Try jenever
    A juniper spirit built on malt wine: the ancestor of gin, but fuller and breadier. It is poured to the very brim of a tulip glass, and the first sip is taken without lifting it from the bar.
[ ] Drink witbier or a trappist
    The Dutch and Belgian brewing traditions are close at hand: wheat beer with coriander and orange peel, dark abbey beers and trappists. Every brown café keeps a local draught.

Checklist from Unload: https://unloads.me/c/food-amsterdam