Aid Worker Restaurant Reviews: Schiphol Airport

by Michael Bear · 2009-02-16 11:17:00 UTC
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This is part of a semi-weekly guide about where best to eat in some of the various humanitarian crises and catastrophes around the world.  Or, at least where to eat when in transit to said destinations.

Transit, in this case, invariably meaning an extended wait in either Schiphol Airport or Heathrow Terminal Five.

Which are sort of like aid worker purgatory.

(The Kinshasa and Khartoum airports are hell.  Jomo Kenyatta is more like limbo, tho limbo with uncomfortable plastic seats.  There is, of course, no airport heaven.  At least not outside of business class.  Dare to dream, dare to dream.)

Or, as Brooks wrote a few months back, one of the Top Ten Reasons You Know You're Working at an Aid Organization Headquarters is when "you realize that your favorite and most frequented cafe is located in Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam."

Anyhows, spent quite a few hours in Schiphol last weekend - normally, I wait around Cafe Amsterdam until it opens at 7:00, then order the English breakfast and hot tea.  Because you can never have enough eggs and mushrooms and sausage and bacon and beans and toast.  Especially before a long flight.

(On a related note - how anyone in the UK escapes morbid obesity is completely beyond me.)

During my most recent layover, I decided to vary my routine. So, instead of Cafe Amsterdam, went to the somewhat more upscale Brasserie, near the food court.  And though the service staff were wonderfully nice, the food left a little something to be desired.  Their version of the English breakfast was heavy on the sausage, and somewhat lacking in everything else.

An experience which made me taught me two things: 1) change is, indeed, bad, and 2) there is only a finite amount of sausage that a human being can (or should) consume.

As for Heathrow, I've had friends highly recommend the Wagamama, while I'm partial to Gordon Ramsey 'Plane Food'.

Finally - can anyone explain the Terminal Five website / aquarium motif? Anyone?  At the least, the swimming turtle makes me question whether I ever want to fly BA again.

[Photo of Schiphol from Wikipedia Commons]

Michael Bear
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