In most supermarkets vegetarians can find replacements for meat in the form of sausages, hamburgers, shawarma, minced meat, cordonbleu and many other products made from soy or milk.
Meat replacements
Supermarkets also have wine and beer, but if you want something stronger than that you have to go to something called a “slijterij”. Many times there is a separate slijterij within the same building as the supermarket. Oh, and by the way, it is not allowed to buy your own beer and sit outside and drink it unless it’s wrapped in a paper bag. You actually can and will get a fine for it, if you’re seen by the police.
Amsterdams has lots of markets; some are open every day like Dappermarket in Amsterdam Oost and Albert Cuypmarket in Oude Pijp; others are only open one or a few days of the week, like Anton Komplein in Bijlmer or the organic market at Noordermarkt in Jordaan. Apart from shoes and clothes and all kinds of other things you can also get lots of fresh, uncut and unwrapped vegetables and fruits and (sort of) fresh fish and poultry.
The butcher shops in Amsterdam are mainly halal, and in the Netherlands it’s allowed to sell meat, vegetables and fruits from the same shop, so most do. The meat from these shops is normally fresh and relatively cheap, and the service is often much better than in any of the larger supermarkets.
In Amsterdam you find many tokos and other ethnic shops with food, and what they sell depends very much on, in which part of town you are.
A toko
There are quite a few shops with only organic food (for example Natuurwinkel). Many of them are real supermarkets and they also have better service than normal supermarkets.
Bread in Amsterdam is something … I don’t know. I guess you have to try it. You can buy it in supermarkets and in bakeries, and you can get many different kinds. Unless you ask for a whole bread they will always cut it. All Dutch bread taste the same, they taste of nothing. If you like rye bread you can get that too. They only have one kind: imported from Germany. If you want to buy bread from a bakery, you have to look for a “Warme bakker”.
The Dutch love to eat cake or Vlaai as they call it. It’s normal to bring a cake to work if it’s your birthday or you have something else to celebrate, and in larger companies it’s not unusual to eat cake several times a week or even several times a day.
Nobody makes their own cakes though, they buy them in shops which only sell cakes, and you can get them with many different tastes and looks, and usually they taste really delicious.
A cake shop
I can’t imagine anybody going to Amsterdam because of the food, unless they are crazy about raw herring, casseroles or cakes. Luckily there are lots of other reasons to go there.
My writers block 