The Best "Surinamese' Food in Paramaribo

It's difficult to talk about Surinamese food and only identify one type of food -- since there is such a diversity in Suriname... the roti we serve here is Surinamese, as our bamie is completely different from bamie in Java/ Indonesia -- so this too could be categorized as Surinamese food.

When people speak of Surinamese food though, they're usually talking about the creool food.
The best restaurant to get this type of food is at De Gadri.  De Gadri is located between Fort Zeelandia and the Waterkant -- walk in front of the Fort Zeelandia towards the water, and you will arrive at de Gadri.  It's more a terrace than a real restaurant.

They serve excellent creools food -- peanut soup, okra soup, moksi alesie, etc etc.  They have sandwiches in the morning and hot food from early afternoon until 10 pm (they are closed on Sunday).
I've had several dishes -- stick to the creoolse dishes especially the soups.  They do have bamie, but I don't recommend it very much.  The bruine nasie though, is very good.

The portion sizes are quite good and they serve a variety of vegetables every day -- which all taste good.

Go to the website eteninsuriname.com and you can see what the specials of the day are:

http://www.eteninsuriname.com/Eis/Fof/Crd/ShoCrdPhp.php?Cmd=CrdIni&ResNum=37&SitLan=1&ResLan=1

Snootie Foodies International

One of the original Snootie Foodies members, Lenny, has moved to Tanzania and started a Snootie Foodies chapter in Dar Es Salaam.

The group gets together and eats out or cooks for each other/ potluck style dinners.

This was Lenny's contribution to the dinner -- an awesome paella .... makes me want to move to Dar Es Salaam.  :)

The BEST hamburgers in Suriname

It's official - the very best hamburgers (only just squeezing out the d 'Optimist's burger) can be found at Bar Zuid at the van Sommelsdijckstraat.

Umar Nazier, who lived in Texas for several years, started Big Tex Burgers at Bar Zuid.  Bar Zuid has it's own menu -- the quality is what you would expect in a bar.  The Big Tex burgers are a different story all together.  They are handmade and absolutely fabulous.

Another delicious menu item is the garlic french fries -- when they say garlic/ they mean garlic!  They also have nice crispy fried chicken wings -- the only thing missing is the blue cheese.

Umar has turned into quite the culinary aficionado and the menu is occasionally expanded with things such as ribs and green bun burgers on St. Patrick's Day.  Or even better the special on March 15th was ginger wasabi marmalade tuna, pan seared with sesame oil served with a side of fresh snow peas sauteed with garlic in duck fat....  not sure where else in Suriname you will find anything like it.

To find out what the specials are follow Big Tex Burgers on Facebook.  If you want a special make sure you arrive early, because the specials sell out fast.

New sushi restaurant - Wasabi

There is a new sushi restaurant in Paramaribo - Suriname.  It is called Wasabi, and is located where Roline's used to be located on the Weg naar Maretraite (or Gompertstraat).
I went and had dinner there -- and I must say that my review will be somewhat biased because they have..... Thai ice tea.... ooooohhh be still my heart AND plum wine.  Yum yum yum.  :)

The menu is a very nice book with all pictures -- every dish (well nearly every dish) is shown with a nice big color picture and the prizes are listed with A, B and C -- so you can decide whether you'd like several small portions or just a few large portions.

We tried the miso soup -- delicious full of seaweed and very nice, the edamame -- don't bother, they were undercooked and ice cold, the fried dumplings -- we tried the chicken variety and they were very very good -- thin wrapping and a lot of very tasty filling/ strangely though they were served with a sauce similar to mayonaise... (?), and salmon sashimi -- delish served over some veggies and ice.  For sushi we tried some rolls with roe -- don't quite remember the name with it was a dish with three rolls all different types, and the unagi roll -- the proportion seemed a bit off -- there was no way to put the entire roll in your mouth at once given the amount of rice and the size of the piece of eel; if however, you tried to eat it in several bites the whole thing fell apart since the eel wasn't really attached to the rice.  We also tried a different roll with cucumber and crab -- it was pretty good, but again huge sized rolls.

The menu is quite extensive including unagi, lobster or shrimp fried rice, udon noodles, grilled fish -- even an intriguing sounding sake salmon, chicken, steak and pork chops.

The highlight of the meal was the Japanese soda -- which required the waiter to open the bottle -- it was delicious and kinda cool.  :)

The interior is unrecognizable -- if you were a Roline's client.  It looks very nice/ nice atmosphere and there is a nice wooden deck outside dining area.  :)

I will definitely be returning if they keep up the quality of their food and service.