Amsterdam - Food hunting at Marqt Overtoom 212

Event date: 11th October 2015

Marqt is the most important place that may help the foreign tourist to find food that tasted just like home. Marqt is a Netherland franchise supermarket dealing with only good quality of food not only locals produced but offers an imported international wide range of food. What the tourist need is a microwave to heat a ready to eat packed meal that is on the rack. I would love to re-name this place to a tourist friendly bazaar instead of Marqt. There are altogether 18 Marqt in many parts of Netherland's important cities. You may find it's 18 outlet locations by checking their website as provided here, click HERE. 

Elegant food shopping at Marqt

It was Sunday when we arrived in Amsterdam. Not knowing that most restaurant are closed on Sunday, we have identified few halal restaurant for us to go for lunch on the first day. Our first choice was restaurant Zina, located plus and minus 600 meters from the hotel. For Muslim tourist out there, you may download Zabihah for Halal eating to search for a halal place to eat. Restaurant Zina offers a North African and Arab cusine, which we wishes to give a try. Using the saved google map in Anne's handphone, we found the place without much difficulties. Upon reaching at this lovely area (see below photo), we were so disappointed when we saw the door was locked. Thereafter, we tried a few other Asian restaurant nearby, but apparently all seems to be close. 

Restaurant Zina, Bosnoo, Toussaint Street 70, 1052 WS Amsterdam

We spotted the Marqt much earlier before, after we passed by a Thai restaurant by the name of "Sawwadee Ka Tha". This groceries market seated only about 350 meters from the hotel and reachable by foot within 5 minutes. It has everything that you may need, the fruits, the fresh vegetables, meats, seafoods, cheese, etc etc. Most important above all this, they have a ready to eat packed meal i,e, Biryani rice, Thai noodles, Paratha, Humus and Arab bread, Fresh salmon, smoked salmon, kimchi so on and so forth. In other words they offers food from all the globe such as from Asia country, Africa, Arabian and others,  

Wet market section, Meats and Seafood

All sorts of cheese in the house

We were in heaven discovering at what was available in the store and looking at so many things that we could buy. Therefore, we decided to had lunch at the hotel room. We bought all what we need and went back to hotel to cook rice. Looking at the fresh salmon, we bought smoked tuna and big portion if smoked salmon beside fruits, side dishes, fresh salads and bread. Back in the hotel, I quickly cooked rice. While waiting for the rice to boiled, we happily enjoyed the smoked fish and the side dishes.

We ate so much that day until my tummy got ache. Below photo was what Anne snapped and shared in her social media. 

Take note that cash money is not accepted in this place. You either used your debit card or credit card to pay what we purchased. I have no choice but to use the one and only credit card that I'm using for it. Ever since Nazhif is studying in Glasgow, I have to be very careful when spending using my credit card as I have provided him with a supplementary card for his easy use. Nazhif told me that the Tesco nearby his hostel has only 1 cash counter and the rest of it is cashless counters. We should started similar system in Malaysia to discourage people from carrying cash money with them. It's good for our own safety too.

English speaking cashier