Cafeteria

Celebrities-favored restaurants are like quantum physics – you don’t have to understand, just simply accept it. Why are all the actors, musicians, media people and wannabe artists accumulating on the corner of Seventeenth and Seventh, Lord only knows. Well, the elementary particles behave both like particles and like waves.
Cafeteria is ear-splitting like combine harvester testing area; relatively expensive, with tiny, slimy tables, moody personnel, absurd waiting times (40 minutes is no oddity) and painfully untamed pubescent clientele. Kids are scanning around, so as not to miss some semi-famous face that might appear. The food is absolutely divine.
I dive into my goat cheese & tuna salad and not come out before the plate is completely licked clean. The last thing I savor is a perfectly seared tuna steak – a piece of meat surprisingly, notably thick. Just like the waiter, who forgets half of the orders and comes with water after 45 minutes.

To die for: Cafeteria is open 24 hours and the food is unbeatable. Pure and breathtaking.

Turn off: if you’re a bit sensitive, don’t even try it. The staff are uniquely blunt and if they don’t like you, you might leave in tears.

Cafeteria, 119 7th Ave (at 17th Street), New York

Café De Zuid

It could appear that Amsterdam is just as nasty as all other European cities in February. The truth is, it’s even nastier. Vexatious rain gives wet smacks left and right and gripes even more so, given that locals obviously don’t give a damn about it. They pedal joyously along in short jackets, faces unfrowned. Me - not such a hero.

I crawl miserably into a random café, and voilá – I change from a severely beaten dog into one evidently cosetted. I let my coat dry and while waiting for the food, I drool a little.

A salad with pear. Lolo rosso, pine nuts, capers, sour sundried tomatoes, goat cheese, honey, thyme. Baguettes to choose from: brown and white. Tiny bowl of herbed butter. Brash New York feel. I melt immediately.

Maybe this month won’t suck that much after all.

To die for: fluffy blond waitress lost in dreams, eyes all sky-blue and deep. Food’s immense.

Turn off: opening hours are suited for brunchists – eleven ‘til five real food is served, after that only cakes and little things. I’ll still come back.

Café De Zuid, Azartplein 2a, Amsterdam