Karavaan — Restaurant in Amsterdam

TL;DR: I ate raw oysters in a beach shack in El Salvador but this place gave me food poisoning?! Yes. It's that bad. Don't go unless you want food poisoning or Covid.

Full review: The food itself is between fine (spicy chicken pita) and bland (falafel, also filled under 'dry'). Side salad came with rotten leaves, which I returned (because I actually wanted the salad) and the replacement came out with a suspicious amount of topping (pomegranate seeds, roasted red pepper slices and dressing)... sure enough it still had rotten leaves throughout. Once is a mistake, twice is negligent. I don't know who was in the kitchen, but it wasn't a chef (or at least not one with any respect for themselves or their guests).

Staff were pleasant by Amsterdam standards (which are low) but did a great job at: avoiding customers (surprising difficult to do when there were so many of them and not that many customers... to be fair, they were no worse than the average Amsterdam cafe) making as much noise as possible when bussing tables (tip to the manager: add silicone stickers inside the cupboard doors to soften the noise of staff slamming them shut then you just have to do a training on not chucking plates in plastic trays next to customers) avoiding basic hygiene protocol... with a pandemic going on you'd think it's a nice excuse to clean your hands frequently but no, it's a nice excuse to eat ice cream directly from the serving station between serving and bussing tables (shout out to the waitress in dirty tracksuit bottoms and a spaghetti strap top- maybe the rest weren't as bad as you). It also would have been nice if they had a QR code to a digital menu or sterilised the ones on the tables, but no. I didn't see a menu changed or cleaned once.

It's a shame... the location is nice enough, the decor is lovely but writing this 16 hours later I'm haunted by that salad (and based on the stomach cramps I'll continue to be haunted for a while yet).

Maybe the owners should 'eat their own dog food' instead of adding another place to their combined portfolio (what is it? Panache, Bukowski, Botanique, Ramona, Waterkant, Ebeling, Pacific?). I get it, it's Amsterdam, as long as the beer is good and the place is cool you can get away with a lot but there's a reason this location has had a high restaurant turnover in the recent past (high rent, high costs, large space to fill I suppose and the standards weren't fabulous at the last ones either but at least LouLou and Du Cap only caused me hangovers not sickness).

There's nothing that couldn't be solved by decent staff (or training) and a bit more thought to the details. (Owners, managers: Just sit there with a notepad and observe what's working and what's not.)

Maybe chucking out lettuce that's gone bad costs less than mixing it with fresh stuff and sending it out to customers? (The beer they took off the bill as an apology is the immediate loss of revenue, but if half the customers got sick last night how many will be back? I'm happy to pay for my beer but I'm not happy to suffer the consequences of a jerk who sends out rotten food.)

Maybe a well-paid, well-trained member of staff will serve more tables (and have a better influence on others) than cheap, inexperienced but friendly servers?

Entrepreneurs and restaurateurs need support right now (it can be tough at the best of times) but wow, this place is not...

Decided to stop by again since they still carry Grolsch Weizen on tap. A rare thing to find around here lately.

Heaven forbid you arrive alone and although waiting for friends to join me, I was alone. There were plenty of empty tables but the "hostess" direct me all the way back to the unprotected "bench" seats - which are fine but my concern was no wait staff would ever see me. It was also streaming with second hand cigarette smoke (which usually doesn't bother me, but with the parasols covering this place, no air was moving...so solid smoke and possibly Covid blowing around. I requested another table area further apart from others but she didn’t accept my request.

There appeared to be many people working this day, so staffing shouldn't be a problem...so I thought. I soon learned why their other place, Waterkant, probably gave up on a waitstaff (self ordering at the counter which is why I don't go there either).

After sitting down, I patiently waited for service, never getting a chance to even flag down someone. I wish I could have ordered through an app but it only showed the menu. I eventually I watched them wait on people who sat down at the table I wanted long after I arrived! She then turned around and go back to the restaurant without so much glancing around for anyone else needing help. This truly infuriates me.

So after a few more puffs of second-hand smoke, I decided to cut my losses and go to a place where I know the service is good, air is safer & cleaner and they take pride in their customers.

Lesson learned: go somewhere else.

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Previous review 2020: ——-

A huge space in Amsterdam. Julia said it best below about the space and how glad we are to have something opened in the prime location. I've only been here about four times, but the take-aways are, HUGE space, very high-end finishes inside with multiple levels to sit. Plenty of outlets for your laptop or phone charging! Huge bar (two bars actually) One bar is take-out for the outdoor seating! Nice clean bathrooms, open kitchen view, huge separate dining areas available too.

The staff is plentiful and very friendly. You can get help in a matter of seconds.

You can also feel free to come here and work all day long if you want to! It's open very early and closes at 1 AM. They have multiple menu times...

Update 8 Nov. Went there again today and had an unexpected lunch. This time, I had shakshuka with pita sticks, and my partner had a lentil soup. Both were tasty; I found the lentil soup very flavorful. My shakshuka was good, but I've had better. It was well-seasoned, but next time, I’ll try something different. A convenient meeting place to get together. I had a coffee date, and it turned into more than just a cup of coffee. I still needed to have lunch, so I did that as well.

I had one slice of sourdough bread with pulled chicken, yogurt, and roasted bell pepper. It was tasty, but I was disappointed to get only one slice of bread. There was so much chicken on that single slice that it could have easily been spread over two slices. For €13.95, I find it an expensive lunch. You can't go wrong with a mint/ginger tea. Since my companion can't tolerate much, she stuck with a glass of water.

Additionally, I found it quite noisy. It was very irritating to have difficulty hearing my...