Nam Kee — Restaurant in Amsterdam

If you search for Nam Kee via Gmaps, you’d probably find the other restaurant at Zeedijk first. The reason might be that a Golden Film Award drama called ‘Oyster’s at Nam Kee’s’ was filmed here. It’s basically about a young minded Dutch man meeting the love of his life at this restaurant (having Oysters...) with a dramatic turn... But enough about the movie, this is also NOT filmed at this Nam Kee, but the one at Zeedijk 😉 This Nam Kee looks a bit shy from the outside. Not the first restaurant you’d probably pick by walking by. But locals know this place and this is also the main crowd going there.

I would recommend trying out this place first, if you’re actually coming for the food and not for the scenery, because it’s less crowded and definitely has the classic urban Chinese restaurant vibe. Definitely worth for a first date for young daters (which I had at this place). Not too fancy, not too pricey, but kinda cozy, busy enough to not have table neighbors listening to your conversations and they also serve the food on big plates to share. Place looks clean and tidy, well maintained.

The menu is, well, massive (!), but structured. Definitely took some time to read it all, but also found the famous “Oesters van Nam Kee”. Food portions are as huge as the variety of the menu, very tasty and well, classic Chinese food in the Netherlands! We had so much to eat, we took the food away.

Corona rules are being followed strictly, at least when we went.

Definitely...

Easily the worst "Chinese" food you will ever eat. An absolute rip off to the point of being a scam. Nothing here was good.

The aromatic duck was not aromatic duck (crispy, shredded), but chunks of dry roast duck, hoi sin sauce so watered down that it was utterly tasteless, and pancakes that were closer to western style crepes than proper Chinese pancakes. Horrible. They even served bell pepper with the spring onion and cucumber - which signifies that they have absolutely no idea what they're doing.

All the other meals at our table were at the very low end of what you would consider acceptable from a low standard takeaway, except with less taste. Why it all has to be so completely bland is beyond me.

The wanton soup, for example, was of the "salty water" variety. That is to say, it literally tasted like water with salt in it. The wanton themselves were texturally unpleasant and completely devoid of flavour. I resorted to reaching for the soy and chilli oil to try to make it bearable. Big mistake. Watery, tasteless soy, chilli oil so thinned that all taste was removed, leaving only a nasty, excessive spiciness.

Honestly, you have been warned folks. Ignore the inexplicable five star reviews. This place serves low-end, scammy, grey food at tourist prices. Every conceivable corner has been cut. I'm so glad I wasn't paying for this...

Every research on the good places for food in Amsterdam was bringing me to this restaurant called by many the best Chinese restaurant in Netherlands. I would say it seems like an overrated statement (unless the restaurants in Netherlands are seriously no good? or maybe the place changed since it made the first glamorous reviews?. Or was it just my bad luck with the choice of food?) So to start with: the oysters are OK but I was not mindblown. I tried the chicken sweet sour soup and it was very average to say the least. It also left me with a slight heratburn afterwards so there must have been something not quite ok with it (I do not have problems with spicy food normally so I suspect some flavour enhancements). The beef in black bean sauce was average and the meat was not of the best quality. The good thing is the portion was more than decent (can feed one very hungry man but can be easily shared). I would say if you like Chinese food and you are very hungry this is probably the good choice. However if you are a little bit of a foodie and look for a restaurant that will leave you with nice memories - go...