Showing posts with label amsterdam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label amsterdam. Show all posts
The Upstairs Pannenkoekenhuis
or Upstairs Pancakes is one of the most special places I have ever been. As
hyperbolic as it seems, I remember it as clearly and beautifully as the Eiffel
Tower at night. Probably because Upstairs Pancakes was equally, if not more,
surprising.
I remembered the café from photos I’d seen of a pancake
house with teapots covering its ceiling. I had clearly gotten carried away with
the oh so American idea of a pancake HOUSE and remembered the place much larger
than it is in reality. MUCH, MUCH LARGER. Upstairs is in fact, the smallest
restaurant in Europe with only four tables. We walked single file up the
steepest flight of stairs, tempted to use our hands as if it were a ladder, and
arrived eye to eye with the sole chef and full house of patrons. All six. It
felt like a mistake. Luckily, there’s little time for bullshit in a place this
small. We all could heard the sound of more guests climbing the stairs and there
very literally would’ve been nowhere for them to go. The
chef quickly let us know that without a reservation, we were out of luck. We
had the option of enjoying pancakes at 5:00 that evening or 1:30 the following
afternoon. We decided the initial shock and awkwardness was meal enough for the
day and opted to try again the next day.
We were so pumped. It was all we could talk about. How good must the pancakes be if you can run a whole restaurant with six seats and have people crawling back, literally, day after day? The pancakes are INCREDIBLE! We returned the next day 30 minutes before our reservation and people watched outside. The best part was watching couple after couple take that awkward climb up the stairs only to be turned away just like we were the day before. There was even a group of six! We DIED laughing with no words.
We were seated at the window (in the second window box
pictured) and we agreed to let a solo traveler dine with us. He was chill and didn’t’ speak English. I ordered the banana with chocolate sauce and Brittany
ordered the rhubarb and plum special. The menu is lengthy but fairly simple.
Each pancake has no more than three ingredients and typically just two. As
delicious as they were, as with most great meals I’ve ever had, the best part
was something seemingly insignificant—the house made cream. BABYYYYYY we licked
those plates clean, you hear me?
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