Amsterdam: Puri Mas

Lange Leidsedwarstraat 37-41, Amsterdam, NL
www.purimas.nl

Mirta and I spent the afternoon in Cologne, then collected Kruno from his office, and got on the road. There are only three of my friends who drive at supersonic speed yet in whose control I feel safe: Vernon, William and Kruno. So in his car, I knew what I was getting. But talk about contrasts: one minute we are under the soaring spires of Cologne Cathedral, which took 632 laborious and snail-paced years to build; the next we are speeding along the Autobahn/ autoweg to Amsterdam at breakneck speed in the dark and in the lashes of rain. It’s no surprise we got there in less than two and a half hours.

We had been dipping in and out of British Forces radio before we crossed the border into the Netherlands, catching the first minutes of the historic Rugby Six Nations between Ireland and England at Croke Park, possibly the best stadium in Europe. However, we lost the signal quite quickly as we moved deeper into Dutch territory. We checked into the Golden Tulip Apollo in Amsterdam and had just enough time to get to the rooms to see the final minutes of the match. Ireland had beaten England 43 to 13. It was shaping up to be an auspicious evening.

Taking the tram from the hotel into town took just a few minutes, and we alighted at Leidseplein. The hotel concierge had responded to my inquiries as to good Indonesian or Surinamese restaurants by indicating a handful scattered around the central canal areas – and as we knew we would be passing through Leidseplein at some stage or another during the night, we selected Puri Mas (the name means "Golden Temple" in Bahasa Indonesia) and turned the corner into Leidsedwarsstraat.

We climbed a narrow stairway (is there any other kind in Amsterdam?) and arrived into a first-floor dining room that was coloured blue and white, but seemed to radiate a green hue under the subdued lighting. Was this temple not going to be the golden experience advertised, perhaps? As I'd mistakenly assumed that neither Kruno nor Mirta had eaten Indonesian before (oh, that misconception has since been corrected!), I suggested that we go with the Rijsttafel. When the Dutch colonised what the called the East Indies, they brought not only their designs on trade, mineral wealth and subjugation with them, but also their voracious high-living appetites. So they took the traditional Indonesian Makan Besar assortment of food, added as many dishes as possible and turned it into a veritable banquet, fit for any seventeenth-century merchant with one eye to ostentatious conspicuous consumption, and a blind eye to the inevitably-resulting gout. What is served in Indonesian restaurants as popularised in contemporary Holland is a scaled-down version of the imperial-era feast, yet never fails to astound as a seemingly-infinite series of dishes arrives at the table.

Puri Mas offers four sizes of Rijsttafel, ranging in price from €19.50 to €39.00. Mirta and I ordered the €24.50 model, while Kruno’s frugal appetite led him to the less substantial version. The difference amounted to inclusion in the dearer menu of some excellent soto ayam (chicken curry soup with scallions) to start, and ice cream and tropical fruit as dessert; both were absent from the economy option, and replaced with a fried banana (we assumed it was for dessert, but as it arrived with the main courses, you couldn’t be certain). A large bowl of krupuk (shrimp crackers) was brought to our table at the outset, together with sambal (a chilli condiment); both were tasty and kept us going in the brief interlude between ordering and taking delivery of our meal.

At this stage, we also took possession of a bottle of 2004 Cousiño Macul Cabernet, from a Chilean vineyard of renown and which has remained in the hands of its founding family since establishment in 1856. It is a wine that would be appreciated both by red wine connoisseurs (Kruno and Mirta) and red-wine-averse (me); so good that I would actively seek it out again at an off-licence/ liquor store, or choose it on another occasion from a restaurant wine list. The vineyard also has a beautiful website: reward yourself and click through the links.

The arrival of the main courses at rijsttafel is always a grand spectacle: this time, three attractive waitresses in traditional Indonesian dress descended on our table, and spread an arrangement of silver dishes and china bowls over the immaculate white cloth, classifying the food from right to left by increasing intensity of spiciness and explaining to us the contents of each dish and its associated piquancy. Allow me to attempt to do justice to the variety now:

Sides and condiments
Acar Kuning - Fresh mixed salad
Sambel Goreng Kentang - Small fried marinated potatoes
Serundeng - Fried coconut powder

Gado Gado - Various kinds of vegetables with peanut sauce
Sayur Harian - Vegetables of the day

Nasi Putih - White rice
Nasi Goreng - Fried rice

Main courses
Spice factor 1:
Sate Ayam – six skewers of succulent grilled chicken, topped with a peanut satay sauce. I loved these.

Spice factor 2:
Babi Kecap – seasoned pork in a soya-based sauce – very tasty.

Spice factor 3:
Kari Ayam – a perfectly adequate dish of chicken in curry sauce - though I would prefer the chicken brochettes a few spice factors back. Come to think of it, there was not much evidence of this increasing scale of spiciness by now, but we kept trying level after level.

Spice factor 4:
Telor Bumbu Bali – the great surprise of the evening. These were cut hard-boiled eggs, treading a sweet and glutinous orange spicy Balinese sauce. Ho hum. I decided to add some of the coconut powder. This combines two foods I would not normally eat except under torture, but my God! Together they were a killer sensation on the taste buds.

Spice Factor 5:
Sambel Goreng Boncis – these green beans in a spiced marinade were tangy, and provided good contrast with the meat in most of the other main course platters.

Spice factor 6:
Daging Rendang – a beef stew, billed as “very spicy”, but which was actually quite mild. Until I ate a mini red chilli, after which I more than tended to agree with the original description. Not so brave after that! The chilli scale had been proven and evidenced. Document that, kids!

I would have to say that this was a fine meal to start off our evening in Amsterdam, and set us up well for our subsequent tours of bars and cafés (yes, those ones). By the time we left, it was approaching 23:00, and the restaurant which had been at 90% capacity on our arrival, was now just a quarter full, with those guests left certainly enjoying their experience.

One thing I would mention – and I find this about many restaurants offering shared meals: I am convinced that once you double or triple an order, you rarely get double or triple the amount of food that a single order would elicit. Don’t expect modern North American portions at an Indonesian Rijsttafel in Europe, and certainly don’t imagine you’ll be getting portions of the order of a Dutch colonial merchant. You won’t be. And you may have decreasing returns to scale as your party grows in numbers. But what you will come away with is a certain satisfaction of a good European-targeted meal based on Indonesian ingredients, and a headful of bravado-knocking chillies. It’s worth it.

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The Damage (EUR)
Menus

• 49.00 Rijsttafel Puri Mas (*2)
  
• 19.50 Rijsttafel Speciaal
  

Drinks

• 23.50 Cousiño Macul Cabernet
  
• 11.00 San Pellegrino Sparkling Water (2*1 litre bottles)
  

Service 12.00
Total 115.00
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The Score
4.0 Food and Drink
3.5 Service
3.0 Décor
3.0 Ambience
2.5 Value
3.5 Overall Rating