Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Tom Vandenhoogen and daughter Desiree are co-owners of Little Amsterdam.

Little Amsterdam's food makes a big impression

By Suzanne Cristallo

With $400 to his name, Tom Vandenhoogen, his wife, Lia, and their two daughters came to Saratoga from northern Holland in 1974. He immediately started work as a cook in the Little Amsterdam coffee shop, a restaurant his two older brothers had owned for two years.

"I had never fried an egg in my life," Vandenhoogen recalls, "so for two weeks my brother showed me how, then said, 'You're on your own.' " Vandenhoogen credits Joseph Masek, owner of La Mere Michelle, a neighboring Saratoga restaurant, with giving him cooking tips that helped him through the early years.

Tom, 51, and Lia, with later help from their daughter, Desiree, have been on their own since 1976, when they bought out the brothers, who had another restaurant and a Dutch bakery to run.

For 23 years, the Vandenhoogens have been cooking and serving breakfasts and lunches to the regulars who come for the big portions of fluffy pancakes and the special Dutch dishes they offer on the luncheon menu.

"Nothing much has changed," Vandenhoogen says of his menu, which offers items in the $2 to$7 range. This is one reason the local Dutch have frequented his counter for so many years, many of them becoming family friends.

Surrounded by shelves of blue and white Delft china--what is left of a collection greatly reduced by the Loma Prieta earthquake--they come to enjoy a conversation in their native language, perhaps over a favorite Dutch cheese sandwich made with a creamy, natural cheese from Holland.

Croquettes also are a favorite menu item. They look like corn dogs without the stick but actually are ragout meat shaped like hot dogs, rolled in bread crumbs and deep-fried in vegetable oil.

There's also uitsmyter--ham or roast beef sandwiched between two buttered slices of bread and topped with two sunny-side-up eggs.

Vandenhoogen, originally a Volkswagen mechanic in his native city of Haarlem, some 50 miles outside Amsterdam, recalls his first years in the United States as very hard. "I got six traffic tickets in the first year," he says with a grin. He also got lost often when driving his old Chevy around. "Every corner seemed to have a gas station, which made them all look alike."

But the years of hard work have been fruitful. Regulars line up at the restaurant for half an hour for breakfast on weekends. One reason could be the French toast. It's made with Dutch raisin bread specially baked for Little Amsterdam by the Dutch bakery once owned by Vandenhoogen's brother.

Little Amsterdam, 14490 Big Basin Way, Saratoga. Open for breakfast and lunch Tue.-Sat., 7 a.m.-2 p.m., Sun., 8 a.m.- 2 p.m. Closed Mon. 867-9172.

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