I got shipped off to Amsterdam this week for work, just for a few nights but I had a ball! I didn’t get to spend much time wandering the city or anything, but I did get out for two great meals and thought it was worth sharing the experience. I’m lucky to have a good girl friend of mine living in Amsterdam, so on the Monday night of my trip she chose a restaurant that she hadn’t been to before for us to test out. The restaurant in question was Juuls (http://www.restaurantjuuls.nl/), sold to me as a French restaurant – although I couldn’t actually be sure of that as I never saw a menu! Huh? So how does that work? Once we were comfortably seated our lovely lovely waiter explained to us that on Monday nights the menus are thrown in the bin and the chefs are given free rein to experiment with new recipes. Hurrah, I thought – this sounds fun, and fun it was. It was €36 for two courses, €44.50 for four and €52.50 for five. We went for the three as it was only a Monday night and they were really quite good. There was nothing too out-there or anything – scallop and lobster followed by steak for me and fish for my friend – but everything was well cooked, a little bit experimental and tasted good although the dessert was maybe a slight disappointment. I just thought it was such a great idea that I promised to give them a bit of a plug! It provided a real talking point for the evening, and I’m going to keep my eyes open for any similar ideas in Dublin, outside the realm of the expensive tasting menu.