Review of lunch place Himalaya Tea House, Amsterdam

The Himalaya Tea House is part of the Himalaya book store and lies close to Central Station in the Red Light District. My friend suggested this place, because he had spotted it the other day. When you get to the place you have to go through the book store to the back where the restaurant part is located. Then we realized there was also another entrance that went straight into the restaurant part. Anyway this gave us a chance to look at the bookstore, which is New Age oriented with books about yoga, tai chi, meditation, selling incense, crystals and other alternative stuff.

The whole alternative atmosphere is carried over into the tea house. Not only in the food, which is mostly organic and prepared on the spot. But also the people! There were some strange characters running the place. The girl behind the counter reminded me of a stepford wife, smiling all the time. There was one older man hanging around the place doing nothing. Maybe he was the security guy or something, but nothing showed that he was. And when a customer came in who had brought his own orange tablecloth and put it on a table (I guess he was a regular), I decided I had been transported to the Twilight Zone.

Anyway on the menu they have different kinds of Yogi tea, juices and smoothies (not all fresh though) and for eating they have bagels, toasted sandwiches, salads and a soup and sweet things. I decided to take a bagel with feta cheese spread and a blueberry smoothie. The smoothie came in a bottle, but tasted okay and was completely organic. The bagel though had to be flown in from the Himalayas. I think there were three or four girls behind the counter and at one moment two of them sat down for a break and some food, but by then my bagel still hadn’t arrived. I think we had already been waiting for fifteen minutes then, so I found it a bit strange. On the menu it said that it could take a while, because they make everything fresh. But then another girl asked if the stepford girl needed some help and she said “No, I only have one order for a toasted sandwich”. I think the look on our faces said it all, because then she came to our table to apologize and said she would make the bagel straight away. We got a free tea for the delay.

When the bagel finally arrived, I was famished, so I dug in. The feta spread tasted very good and was quite sharp. The salad that came with the bagel was a bit sad though, more like a garnish than a salad as promised on the menu. After the bagel, we decided to a have a little dessert with our teas, so we ordered a piece of chocolate cake and a piece of banana cream pie. The chocolate cake was quite nice, but the banana cream pie was quite bland for my taste, although my friend seemed to like it. So I finished most of the chocolate cake and he the banana pie. We then paid up, where the girl asked us what we had had (another occasion for lying and saving some money but we didn’t cause we are honest people). And then we left the Himalaya Twilight Zone through the other door.

Himalaya Tea House is an okay place to grab some bagel lunch. I think it is more appealing when you are more into the New Age scene and looking for an organic meal and don’t mind the floaty people too much.