Cafe Restaurant Polder — Restaurant in Amsterdam

Based on food, Polder would easily get four to even five stars but it's the staff that I have to retract points from...

I've eaten multiple dishes here: nacho's, the steak, their lentil-salad, and the key lime pie. All of them were extremely delicious and I couldn't get enough. When going for a snack shared with others, I can highly recommend their piping hot nachos. Deliciously crunchy with still half-melted cheese, it comes with a very generous helping of sour cream (which I normally always have too little of, so this made me happy) and a nice salsa. It was a bit of a bummer that they didn't serve guacamole with it, but in the end it wasn't missed much.

As for dinner, I ordered the black lentil salad as a starter, the entrecote as main, and the key lime as dessert. All were extremely well cooked! The lentil salad had a perfect mix of a bit tangy lentils, sweet pomegranate seeds, and a tad bitter tasting goat-cheese. While all these ingredients would be overwhelming on their own, when mixed together they compliment each other strongly. As for the steak, it was perfectly cooked to medium-rare (and medium for my companions) in a nice sauce while complimented by some vegetables and potatoes. I liked the fact that the plate wasn't filled with these side dishes, because when eating a nice steak I prefer enjoying that instead of filling up on a huge plate of potatoes or vegetables. As for the key lime, it was a nice light palate cleanser at the end, but it would have been nice had it been served with coffee, and this is where this review takes a bit of a nose dive.

I've encountered the same problem with the staff of Polder multiple times now: they rush and pay little to no attention. It took us a while to get the attention to be served, and at the end the coffee we ordered (around 7 cups) was completely forgotten. When we went to check, after almost an hour wait, we were told they forgot about the order. We weren't offered that they would make them right away, it simply wasn't mentioned at all. In a later experience the staff took the order of one drink, and almost walked away immediately even though there were more people at the table and we also wanted to order something to eat. We got to order, that wasn't the problem, but it almost felt as if our order was an inconvenience. It's too bad because the restaurant itself is beautiful, the seats are very nice and comfortable, and the food is utterly delicious. This will result in that I will in fact come back and order again, but not for...

Was eating with my company here. Ten people approximately. Might have been understaffed. Could be. But the service we got was horrible...and we're Dutch! So we already have low standards. They forgot some of our starters, during the main course one of us didn't get their meal. Only after asking. We had to wait for an hour without any service or attention. The tables around us did though. And they were groups as well. Finally one of us walked to the counter asking if we could get some dessert. Waiter came. But we only had one menu. Asked that it would be nice if we had more menu's. Waiter walked away shaking his head. Unforgivable The food was OK but pretty unremarkable. I will never...

This place deserves a 2 star review but the average of all reviews is too high for what it is so I think it is important to bring the average down to a more realistic rating. Location is excellent, close to Flevo park, lots of outdoor space, rustic indoor setting. Service is excellent, friendly staff and super speedy delivery. Food quality though is, as we say in Italian, underneath the shoes, that is terrible. A salad has a sort of chemical taste to it, I wanted to puke, we could not touch it. The bread has a super hard crust. Courgettes were tasteless. The large orange juice is actually small, with 2 sips I drank half of it. I recommend this place on a sunny day if you want...