Amsterdam Restaurant & Tapas Lounge

Even though I have a sensitive tongue and am very picky about western food, I have to admit I like the food here.

Unlike most western food restaurant at this price range which always tastes like some ready-to-cook meal from supermarket, the food here tastes like they are made with care. I've been here many times and have tried about 1/3 of food on their menu. And I could tell that each dish, the combination of meat, veggies, spice and sauces, were designed with consideration. The results of this are absolutely flavorous and fabulous!

They also have a great range of healthy selection. Oh and I love the brunch menu on weekends!

For deserts, I have only tried their tiramisu so far, and it's great! It has this airy sweetness with a hint of coffee flavor.

I'm so glad it's just by my apartment ;)

Went here with my bf and another couple. Decided to order food and the waitress was very nice and patient. Food is priced decently. Menu was ok, not impressive but better than some.

Our party decided to go downstairs, where there was music, and umm interesting dancing, or a sad excuse for it, either way, like I said, interesting. Mixed crowd, acceptable music, mostly r&b and hip-hop...couple oldies mixed in.

Bathroom was clean, major plus. Watch out for stairs lol.
Probably wont be back....

Great chill place around Columbia

Recommendation
*There's a lounge in the back, go down the stairs and you'll see couches, tvs, and a bar
*Tuesday afternoon/evening: $5 Sangrias and $5 tapas special.
*Tapa ($5)--honeydew and prosciutto, i thought this was an odd combination but it tasted pretty good. very light with a hint of sweetnesss
*Sweet potatoe w/ apples soup($5): I think it was the special soup for the day, but also very good. creamy, but I could definitely taste crisp apple in it.
*Friend ordered the artichoke dip ($11)and it looked very amazing. I will probably get this next time
*Overall a solid place to hang and eat.

Romantic ambience but food is only so-so. I thought my Mahi mahi wih mango salsa and yucca was pretty bland. without the salsa, the mahi mahi was completely flavorless. and the mango salsa was also disappointing - it wasn't sweet nor spicy enough. not salsa-worthy.

there's a separate lounge area downstairs - good for private parties.

My friend and I had a fun happy hour in their outdoor seating area. The Almond Joy martini is a must -- liquid coconut and chocolate -- and their coconut mojito was refreshing. We ended up ordering two mojitos, though, and they were noticeably different in sweetness.

Nonetheless, a great happy hour deal near Columbia, for sure!

Cute place but extremely limited vegan options--even the veggie burger is on a egg bun!

I got the Black Bean Hummus and Grilled Vegetable Wrap (black bean hummus, eggplant, zucchini, squash red peppers, onions, tomatoes, whole wheat wrap) with sweet potatoes fries.

The fries were great, the wrap was average at best. The enormous pieces ('sections' is more accurate) of red peppers and eggplant made no sense and unceremoniously plopped themselves out of my wrap as I took my first tentative bites...

My omni friends got the pumpkin french toast and pancakes with sides of scrambled eggs and sausage. One was clearly dismayed that the french toast was really 'pumpkin spice added' not actual pumpkin. One was underwhelmed with her pancakes but they all agreed that the Cinnamon butter was on point and saved the meal (not exactly a ringing endorsement, but...eh, there ya go!)

I've been downstairs for a surprise birthday party and we had a great time (no eating, just drinking), so I think that's what I will stick with when I find myself @ Amsterdam!

Stopped in for drinks and dinner. I love tapas and theirs were good, solid choices. We had the Saganaki which is seared goat cheese on croutinis. Spreads which was black bean hummus, roasted peppers humus and classic . Very good. The beet salad and potato gnocchi were great and they had no problem with our sharing these main course meals.
Could see it being very noisy if college was in session.

Amsterdam Restaurant & Tapas Lounge is really bad... seriously avoid. Very over priced. I tried the macaroni and cheese and it was flavorless and mushy not in a good way. The options for food places in this area just aren't good... I'm still looking for something actually good...

My experience with this restaurant was very short. Went in...had a drink and left in 30 minutes. Overall, during this time, the service was good and the place was nice.

Would like to go back to check it out.

I came here for drinks with an old professor from New Haven now at Columbia (since 1998).

The company was so amazing--she is one of my favorite and most admired people in the world, up there with my 74-year-old mother--that I wouldn't have cared if everything was terrible, but it happened to be nice.

Ketel One Martini was strong and good. The specialty cocktails were mostly of the sweet, girly variety and precisely what the New York Times discussed not long ago, though this is not fine dining. The very long cocktail list is pitched to those who don't really like booze and need to obscure the taste with a lot of fruity nonsense.

This may have to do with its setting near a university. I drank vodka rocks in college (Absolut because I didn't know about Ketel
One or Grey Goose, if those even existed in 1990), but that's because I was a dancer conscious of calories from a young age. Most college kids aren't obsessed with staying a size 2.

The wines by the glass are SO cheap (7-8) and my Syrah was more than decent. I was surprised to find as extensive a wine list (bottles), though they bill themselves as a tapas bar, so I suppose it makes sense.

The chicken and veggie dumplings were good but for 10, kind of small (4 only).
We weren't eating but the menu looked good.

This obviously doesn't rank among the city's best tapas (Boqueria at the high end and a place in the Bowery at the mid-level price point both come to mind). But many dishes looked appealing.

It gets loud around 9:30 or 10, but somehow you can still hear your dining or drinking companion. The decor is nothing to speak of and it's extremely dark. Again, this may have to do with its setting: low lighting encourages, or at least facilitates, hookups, and colleges have a hookup, not a dating, culture.

This is as true in the Ivy League, where students are extremely driven and focused on grad school admission, as at a fourth-tier state school where students do nothing but go to sporting events and play beer pong.

Our server was very nice but a bit absentminded.

Sezz Medi closed, which is really too bad. They had good flatbreads and salads and also cheap decent wine.

I don't know why restaurants by Columbia have such cheap wine, but it's lovely! Manhattan restaurants slaughter you on wines by the glass.

If not at a happy hour, you feel like a gift dropped from the heavens if there's even a choice for 12. 13 is about the lowest at places I go. Anything decent will be 14, which is why I tend to drink Martinis when out and paying.

A Manhattan girl on a budget needs to drink wisely. That means keeping a bottle or wine and gin or vodka or whiskey in the apartment so that you aren't doing all your imbibing when out. And happy hour is a life-saver.

The Upper West Side's Chowder House (Lincoln Center area) has a 9-12PM HH, with wine at 7-8 and select cocktails at 7-8.

Drinking in the city will kill you if you don't negotiate it in the ways I've suggested. And New Yorkers drink a lot. Far more than LA people, because we have the DUI problem. Unless you weigh as much as a horse or cow or other farm animal, you get to .08 pretty fast.

The glorious 24 hour subway (cheap vs DC Metro, which is a pathetic cousin to the MTA, with egregious and hostile service to boot) makes the culture of drinking in New York possible.