Branie

Branie – I finally remember the name without looking through my notes and messages. Because after you try it, you’ll probably remember it too.

Last weekend, Hayden and I helped our friends move from beautiful De Pijp to the beautiful West. Closer to us, and close to plenty of amazing restaurants that they’ll add to my list. Win win.

For their first night in the neighbourhood, they visited Branie, and couldn’t stop talking about it. Naturally, 3 days later, we went there ourselves.

Branie is a fusion restaurant. It makes asian dishes, mostly Indonesian ones, with a modern twist or some sort of unexpected touch. The plates are meant to be shared, so for 2 people we went for 5 – and that was more than enough.

As we were having delicious drinks, we’ve noticed 2 members of the staff have “Branie” tattooed on them. I thought “wow, that’s dedication – or losing a bet”. One of them actually told us the story (turns out, they didn’t lose a bet – it was a conscious decision). The guy we spoke to was prepping to move the USA a couple of years ago to play professional football! But life had other plans, and he ended up investing (and joining the team) in Branie instead. He said he always said that “if football doesn’t work out, i’ll have my own restaurant/bar”. And there he is. His sister actually works along him too. A beautiful story of friends and family coming together to run a great place.

Oh, I also found out what Branie means: having guts. It’s an indonesian/dutch fusion of a word. Much like their food.

Alright, let’s move on to the real star: the food!

We got the KFC (it’s not what you think – it’s kentucky fried champignons and it’s delicious), the chili won tons, the goat sate, the sticky sesame chicken and an extra item, not on the menu: flank steak with chimichurri.

There wasn’t a single item here that we weren’t happy with. However, our favorites were:

the goat sate – a really nice twist to the classic chicken sate. The pretty dish is below.

the chili won tons – some of the best dumplings I’ve tried in Amsterdam. I could eat about 50 of them, and if that’s how I go…that’s how I go. Pictured below.

the starry star: the chimchurri steak. We got this because they were out of the rund ribvingers, and they replaced it with this beautiful plate. I wish they’d put it on the permanent menu, because it’s BOOOOOMMMMB. Seriously.

Branie’s an Amsterdam star. Good drinks, good food, and fun people that do their job super well explaining how the menu works.

Oh, and at the end, you get a bill that says: “we hope your experience here was just like Bon Jovi’s hair…full of highlights”. 110/100 points from me.