Sunday, May 12, 2013

Dutch Design - Day 16 - Cultural Filming in Indische "What's your story?"

Today was an interesting experience as my new film group (Justin, Rachael, Yvonne, Kenneth, Elan and I) decided to explore an area of the city most of us haven't been to, the Indische neighbourhood in East Amsterdam.

We went to Timorplein and had a bite to eat at Studio/K before starting on our filming. The club slash cinema slash cafe was a really gezellig place to be. It was a mash-up of students, arts, theatre, and local culture. Exploring the neighbourhood we approached people to ask them about the area and if they had any questions they wanted to ask their neighbours. Our team's original concept was to create a chain of questions where the previous interview's question would be asked to the next interviewee. This didn't work quite so well.







We did discover some local highlights of the area and we were recommended to check out a local cafe called De PonteneurIt was a bar/cafe with a very relaxed atmosphere. It was a cold day so we decided to stop in and warm up for a bit. I tried the Spiced Moroccan chicken soup Harirasoep met kip. It was delicious, but I really liked someone else's order of the asparagus soup Aspergesoep even more. Ahhhh.



We tried to do a few more interviews without much luck and also running into some sketchy neighbourhoods with some intimidating locals. We backtracked westwards and went into Oosterpark where we met a really friendly couple who were also making a film themselves. They saw our gear and made a comment about "Hey, they're filming too" as we were walking by and a conversation started up and we interviewed them. It was a refreshing interview for sure and the wife was able to give us a really great answer/question... "What's your story?... How did you end up here in the Netherlands?"
They were so friendly, especially with our question about neighbours and where to go to eat. They invited us to meet up with them afterwards for dinner at one of their friend's who runs a Turkish restaurant on Balistraat and Sumatrastraat in the Indische neighbourhood.

Afterwards, we split up and I went for dinner at Fifteen Amsterdam which is a restaurant inspired by Jamie Oliver's original Fifteen concept. (I don't think this was Jamie Oliver's team at all and rather some type of spinoff). The food was decent. Russell, Vivian H., Rachael and I had a great time just having dinner with a smaller dining group. :D


Roasted free range chicken, bell pepper caponata, Jamie's 'salsa verde' and lemon

The free range chicken was so-so, but the tiramisu was really awesome. I initially wanted the 'Fifteen's classic' panna cotta but they didn't have it, but I am happy with the tiramisu!



Food Notes
-must eat more asparagus soup while in the Netherlands. WHITE ASPARAGUS IS AWESOME.

Highlights
-gotta get out and meet more random people. The couple we met in Oosterpark was genuinely nice people. It's sometimes hard to meet such open people but when it happens it's magic.

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