I had tweeted during a recent trip to Amsterdam that I was having my mind blown at Frank's Smoke…read moreHouse, and you can expect the types of responses I got.
Despite what Amsterdam is known for by many foreign visitors, Frank's Smoke House is NOT a coffeeshop, but specializes in something else that's hard to come by in the rest of Europe: Alaskan salmon.
Living in Paris, the firm, orange-tinged flesh of Pacific Northwest sockeye salmon is but a distant dream, a rich memory of a past life on the west coast of the United States. The occasional wild North Atlantic salmon makes its way onto my dinner plate or sushi platter, but more often than not I'm turning my nose up at the farmed stuff.
So imagine my absolute pleasure when my wife dug up information on Frank's, and my subsequent fish-gasm, if you will, upon getting there and seeing the hundreds of real Alaskan salmon bellies hanging in the back room. That, ladies and gentlemen, was how my mind was blown.
I normally try to eat local, organic, and all that other stuff. But I'll easily sacrifice my foodie principles for one bite of delicious sockeye salmon from halfway across the world. A small Chinook smoked sockeye salmon broodtje (sandwich on a roll) isn't exactly cheap at €7, but it's so worth the price for a subtle wave of salmony flavor you simply don't come across in this part of the globe. I don't even want to calculate what the carbon offset would cost, but it's still worth it.
On top of that, the service is friendly and despite having a bit of a cold cafeteria setting there's a somewhat "gezellig" vibe to the joint, with lots of locals stopping in to buy varieties of smoked fish, fish eggs, and other things that would go nicely on a buffet table.
The lovely lady behind the counter at the time told us that Frank himself is originally from Maryland -hence the Maryland crab cakes in the deli case. I'll be trying those next time, if I'm not stuffing my gob full of sockeye.
