For our last night in Amsterdam, my boyfriend and ...

For our last night in Amsterdam, my boyfriend and I wanted to check out the Red Light District. Since Cafe in de Waag was on his list of places to try, and it happened to be in the neighborhood, we made a resso for two.

The restaurant itself looks like a castle. From the outside, you wouldn't think it was a restaurant. Once inside, it's perfect for a date. It's quiet, but not too quiet. It's dark, but not too dark.

What I liked about their menu was that they had a recommended wine OR beer pairing with each of their entrees. Most places just do wine pairings. We went with the beer since we're beer drinkers. We also decided to order a pint of Heineken, because when in Amsterdam, right? I don't normally like Heinekens when I drink them back in the U.S., but I actually enjoyed this one. It tasted crisper. Must be something in the water here.

To start, we had the North Sea crab with nagelhout (smoked meat), old Reypenaer (Dutch cheese) oranges and walnuts. It was weird. There were too many flavors going on - salty, tart, nutty. My taste buds were very confused. There was also not much crabmeat so I can't really speak on whether or not that was fresh.

For my entree, I ordered the Dutch beef (from the charcoal grill - "Opperdoes" - asparagus - lemon-thyme gravy). It was cooked perfectly (medium-rare) and even though I don't normally like asparagus, the white asparagus they served was really good.

For his entree, he went for the Dutch piglet (cooked with hay - potato truffle mousseline - crispy garlic - smoked garlic sauce). I don't usually order pork because most places make it super dry, but this restaurant was the complete opposite. It was tender and I ended up liking this dish better than my own.

So the common theme with Cafe in de Waag is - order something that you normally wouldn't order/like, and you might end up loving it.