Best Burger in Haarlem

With no baby in the house yet, we're killing time and looking for entertainment close to home. Sunday morning the sun was shining and it felt like the first cool day of fall. Although you won't catch me saying this often, it was a beautiful day to be outside in (North) Holland! What these days make me really want to do is go for a long bike ride, preferably through the national park to Parnassia, but that doesn't work out so well at 39 weeks pregnant, so we settled for lunch at Dijkers.

Dijkers is a little place in downtown Haarlem, just up a side street from the St. Bavo church. They used to be half the size and only serve lunch, but sometime last year, they added the adjoining building and started doing dinner as well. Inside, they've got a beautiful fireplace and a super modern interior. We, however, prefer to sit outside in the sun. You get the added entertainment of watching everyone lined up next door buying their sacks of fries. Not our favorite fries place, by the way, but that's for another post.

While I've tried a couple of other things on the menu - good salads and sandwiches - the truth is that Dijkers makes the best hamburgers in town. They're flavorful, juicy, and served up on a yummy crisp bun. The only potential down side is that the burger is all you get on your plate. A token salad or side (they don't do fries at Dijkers) would be nice, but in reality the burger is more than enough food, so no real complaints here. Given that I've done some recent reading and commenting on favorites, ordering my favorite feels better now than it used to. My natural inclination is to try more different things if possible, but favorites are ultra-satisfying. Knowing both what you want and what you're going to get are such good feelings that maybe we should take advantage of them more often. In the meantime, if you're in Haarlem or planning to visit - have a Dijkers burger!