Garlic Queen, Amsterdam

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“Quite true, Your Majesty, your guards are seven feet tall. But when we open our dikes, the water is ten feet deep!”
— Her Majesty Wilhelmina, Queen of The Netherlands (1880-1962)

HOLD YOUR BREATH The above quote was Her Majesty’s response to Kaiser Wilhelm II when he boasted, “My Imperial Grenadier Guards are seven feet tall and yours are only shoulder-high to them.” The exchange took place during a 1902 visit by the queen to the kaiser. The Dutch used the open-dike tactic against the Spanish in the 16th century and the French in the 17th century.

We loved the Garlic Queen Restaurant, perfectly combining good food with an entertaining setting (see photos #4 & #5). The decorating scheme takes it cue from the restaurant’s name. Images of garlic bulbs and portraits of the Netherlands’ queens over the past one hundred years keep diners amused.

Everything on the menu is made with garlic, including garlic ice cream! Under that ceramic garlic-shaped dome (see photo #2) is a whole garlic bulb swimming in olive oil and herbs. It was very good. The service was great. A polo-styled shirt can be bought there with the restaurant’s logo emblazoned on it (see photo #1).

Favorite Dish: Try the whole roasted garlic bulb swimming in olive oil and herbs: divine!

Quiet and chilled (on a Sunday evening). Food well done and tasty - yes, there is loads of garlic in everything and you do have to like it, and I maintain that the Brits make a lot of fuss about smelling of garlic when no one really cares. Thought it was quite expensive, but probably average for Amsterdam when bog standard steak and chips costs 15 euro. Friendly service - english spoken natch with less accent than me.

Favorite Dish: The "signature" dish (beef with 60 (sic) cloves of garlic) was good but I didn't believe the quantities - the prawns in garlic and chilli was excellent. Also try garlic soup.

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We’d dined in a friend’s house a night before and she’d mentioned about a restaurant which serves dishes with garlic. It sounded interesting.
After a short visit to Flower Market we were trying to find a place to dine that night. Since it was our last night in Amsterdam, we wanted something special. Then we saw this small and cute restaurant and remembered what our friend had told us about. We decided to try it and tried to enter. But the door was locked. We saw people sitting but it was not possible to enter. We rang the bell and an adorable young waitress opened the door. The place was too small. They have only 3-4 tables for 2 and 3 tables for 6 people. She asked whether we had a reservation and we hadn’t. Fortunately we were only 2 and she arranged a table.
We picked baked garlic as a starter and ate a mushroom filled with garlic, almond and –I’m not sure about this but- cheese and Caesar Salad. Everything we ordered prepared a la minute and all of them were delicious. Their breads were good, too.
If you like garlic, try this restaurant. But if you don’t they can prepare you meals without garlic, too.

Favorite Dish: Baked garlic, filled and baked mushroom

On my first night in Amsterdam my fabulous friends, Brian and Jeroen, took me to The Garlic Queen, in the Gay section. The food was great, the waiter was gorgeous and after over 24 hours w/out sleep, 2 cosmos and a shared bottle of wine, the name on this bottle "Bad Driburger" just killed me! So, naturally I took a picture of it!

Favorite Dish: This restaurant's speciality is garlic - hence the name. You can get a roasted garlic to spread on bread but I passed on that as I had that at the Stinking Rose in San Francisco years ago and still remember waking up the next morning, feeling like a human garlic clove. I had a Ceasar Salad and the Gambas which are shrimp cooked ala Spaniards. It was delicious.

If you like Garlic food, then you have to try this resturant. Every dishes we tried in this resturant was fantastic. They even have garlic desserts. The inside of the resturant is kind of small. So, I do image to reserve your seat on the weekend.

The resturant is located in the busy Reguliersdwarsstraat. There are couple more good resturants along the street as well.