The Bassment

Great location, stumbled into once arriving in central station. I'm in a band and they immediately played my CD over and over and the people there were diggin it.

The thing that made me stop in on this particular coffeeshop out of the hundreds in Amsterdam was the music coming out of the place. They were actually playing current hip hop and reggae (I'm talking Mims and Junior Reid, for example). As a black woman, of Jamaican decent that really attracted me. So if you want to chill in a place that plays more than just your typical Bob Marley that anyone and everyone plays, you should stop here. (Also, the server was also particularly cute and sweet and they have a pac man game!).

The Red Light Bar is the ideal place to chill if you are looking to play some pool on decent tables (only 1 Euro a game), watch the weekend's Premiership fixtures (I watched about 3 different games here!) chill, have an alcoholic beverage and smoke up. The bar seemed to attract mostly English people so it creates a familiar atmosphere. You can't buy any smoke here but the staff are more than happy for you to roll up a fat doob. The only let down in this place is the seating, If you're not playing pool I wouldn't advise staying too long as your ass will probably go numb. There are about 3 to 4 TV 's and a pull down screen with a projector to watch so you're almost guaranteed a good view. They play a really random selection of music but every song I seemed to recognise, and could dance around the pool table to! Drinks are fairly priced too! Definitely worth a visit.

The Bassment features good smoke both loose and pre-rolled. Its fantastic location amidst the Red Light District is a plus, not to mention the Red Light Bar upstairs serves alcohol and is smoke friendly. The staff is cordial and helpful and the price is right.

You can't get more central to the redlight district, and this is both a good thing and a bad. The vibe was very young guys smoky bar, with a pool table and bare wooden benches, but no hassle whatsoever. Very relaxed. There was a mixed bag of nuts there too, despite being in the heart of the swarming touristas, there were a handful of locs hanging out there too. Good euro rock music and the guy at the counter is happy to talk briefly to you. About what you'd expect the back room of your local to be like if they let you smoke but didn't serve any alcohol. Minus points for the herb though, I got a pre rolled euro joint of White Widow for 8 yoyos which burned the throat off me (and living in Dublin, I'm used to the euro style joints). And my friend got a gram of snow white for 8 euro aswell which was passable.