you, sir, are bogus.

Nelson had to go to De Hallen yesterday, and we made the mistake of being reaallllllly hungry by the time we got there. She also made the mistake of being vegetarian and I made the mistake of eating like one.

When you're in a Blood Sugar Emergency you make decisions that you wouldn't normally. For example the first thing Der Nelsker did was to order four pieces of baklava from Filiz Manti. This was the one ray of sunshine on an otherwise dark and stormy afternoon of eating: after 30 seconds of careful num-numming, the rating was 8/10.

Then she ordered a falafel roll from Maza, who normally make one of the falafel options you see in the supermarket, so it seemed reasonable to expect a serviceable chomp experience. In short, "this thing was not very good" she said, in addition to being "bloody expensive" she said and to add insult to injury their bottled water cost "3 euro each" she said. I wouldn't eat there if I were you.

So to save the day. I decided to fucking spring into action, you know, cheer us up and all by ordering something unusual and exciting! This ended up being a veggie dog from Bulls and Dogs, whose sausage-related concoctions looked like one of the most unusual and exciting! or best and/or most decadent things people were walking around with.

Until you took a flash photo of them that is. OK I admit, these two pictures were taken after we had thoroughly sampled the sandwich and declared it "insultingly bogus", and so we were really just trying to insult the sandwich back with these photos. I think the sausage is even missing by this point. And yes that is fucking popcorn on this hotdog.

I know, it looks gross enough to be good, but since we ate the two thin slivers of sausage out of it already you can't tell that there's just wayyyy too much dry and uninteresting pretzel roll, and that the slaw was cut too thick, plus it didn't complement the sandwich in any way taste-wise. And then whatever that is that was supposed to be a hummus mayo or something? I don't know. Ugh. It wasn't bad, exactly. The sausage itself really was pretty delicious, so, props! but the rest....."just because you have all the ingredients doesn't mean you have to put them all together in one sandwich." Our biggest issue was the pretension.

Today we go back for another round, weirdly enough. Targets are vegetarian sushi at Meneer Temaki and/or banh mi at Việt View.

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capsules.

Oh, hello there. What a...surprise.

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So I've been doing an unusual amount of restaurant eating lately, I thought I'd share some one-sentence insights.

Pomorosso Trattoria, Amstelveenseweg 41. P-Woe has been telling me for about 4 years now, "you gotta try this pizza", and last night we finally did, a rucola-truffle oil version and a margherita: solid, honest, real Italian pizza, not as downright "I could eat another one of these right now" as La Perla is, but shit I don't even know if La Perla is like that anymore. But this is worth trying again.

Renato's Pizzeria, Karel du Jardinstraat 32. I'd been hearing about Renato's for years but never knew exactly where it was, but then it ended up being one block away from my bill-paying custodial/concierge job, and since it won some random "Best Pizza in Amsterdam" contest last year, I figured we should try it. Diagnosis: not bad in any way, unless you factor in the detail that, with my newly failing eyesight, I couldn't read the unbolded-black-text-on-dark-brown-paper menu properly and accidentally ordered a pizza strewn liberally with parma ham to share with my darling vegetarian dining companion. But ok, I'll take responsibility for that. The pizza itself: not bad, but not terribly exciting in any way either: I'd call it the fifth- or sixth-best pizza in Amsterdam, still nothing to be ashamed of, unless of course you're going around telling everyone you have the first-best pizza in Amsterdam, then, well, yes, that invites a little extra scrutiny doesn't it.

Boca's, Sarphatipark 4. Pretty disappointing in every way, though maybe this had everything to do with so many people gushing over it, or maybe that we were ordering vegetarian again, but I didn't get anything about the experience: the food was edible, but radiated a certain unlovability and, maybe worse, a certain "never having been loved by anybody", except for this one goat cheese arancini (arancino?): that little dude was totally lovable, but the whole rest of everything from the decor to the music to the staff just screamed passionless disinterest and/or loveless calculation. We hated it.

Tripel, Lijnbaansgracht 161. Easily the loudest non-concert background music I've ever experienced in a bar that was trying to sell beer and food to people who might want to converse while they ate and drank. At least, in contrast to Boca's, it was above-average music: if Boca's shitty soulless funk-jazz had been any louder I would've had to exit without finishing my meal. Tripel redeemed itself by looking like a great old bruin cafe inside and having a nice long bar you can eat at, allowing you to be physically proximate enough to shout directly into each others' ears. Plus pretty above average bar food, at least the two things we tasted: a totally fine goat cheese salad with a non-standard array of fruit, nuts, and roasted vegetables tucked away here and there, and an accidental double order of frites with supposedly homemade mayo that were just perfect.

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gastrobar ron.

My extra-luxurious birthday present from Megasubtiel Corp. (and Groupon) this year was lunch at the recently Michelin-starred Ron Gastrobar. It was, well, many things, but mostly it was a slightly surreal and great afternoon well-spent with the folks from Megasubtiel (including their supremely well-behaved and generally amazingly placid new hire) in a restaurant environment about which I literally have nothing bad to say.

Will we ever be able to do it again in total pimpish style like we did today (considerably less than half our lunch is pictured here)? Mmm...not any time soon, even with Groupon's help. Will we come back relatively soon and sit at the bar for, say, one €15 plate of really really good deboned BBQ spareribs and a shockingly affordable (for Amsterdam and Michelin) superlekker gin and tonic? This sounds extremely likely.

Pictured below: view from the table; view from my seat; Gin & Tonic menu; oysters; smoked eel from Rokerij Eveleens "in het groen" with leek salad and red quinoa; uitsmijter with fried mushrooms, an egg over-easy, and duck liver confit; pan-fried salmon with lentils, eggplant, and capers; deboned BBQ spareribs with smoked beet, homemade sambal, and horseradish (this one's a cellphone pic); my dessert of really good chocolate cream puffs with Bailey's ice cream and banana; J-Kim's dessert of guava, cream cheese, and some other small things I couldn't really figure out; and the grand finale of cosseted baby foot served in an organic wool footie.

restaurant bak.

UPDATE: OK, here's what everything really looked like.

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Last night some kind person bought me dinner. OK it was in exchange for some services rendered, but still in no way was it obligatory and after a couple postponements the fact that it actually happened and that it was very enjoyable was a pleasant affirmation of some goodness in the universe (though certainly fleeting, Mr. Schopenhauer, I haven't forgotten about you).

We ate at Bak, housed in Het Veem just northeast of Westerpark. As you know, we don't do restaurant reviews around here, but since I found my meal peppered with things I wouldn't ordinarily do in the kitchen, I'll briefly run it down for you so you could also go enjoy something like my meal if you wanted.

We all four of us decided to go for the 4-course menu for €33.50, and basically they have a laundry list of ingredients that they're going to use each week but you have no idea in what configuration they're going to end up on your plate. They ask you at the beginning if there's anything you don't like, one of us was anti-mushroom for example, so she got something a little different for that course.

The first thing set in front of us was an amuse of baby beet in some kind of buttermilk reduction with an uncommon herb whose name escapes me at the moment. I liked it and will be trying this in my kitchen.

Next was my favorite thing of the night, an array of carrots. There's a lemon creme fraiche underneath. There are little al dente bits of either spelt grains or wheat berries scattered everywhere, there's some tarragon in there, and as it was served our waitron grated a roasted coffee bean over the plate. Sounds pretentious as hell, I know, but it really worked.

That surprise was followed by the least-successful dish of the night, and you can almost tell by looking at it in comparison to everything else that it just seems a bit...unfinished. Maybe they ran out of something. What you're looking at is too-lightly pickled cauliflower; pleasant enough halved potatoes, a green I should know but don't; a gigantic poached duck egg, and the tastiest thing on the plate is that white smear under the egg, it's some kind of thickened cauliflower puree.

We all agreed that something was missing, my personal fix would have been a healthy shave of parmigiano and a crack of black pepper, and maybe a tiny sprinkle of smoked salt. Or my old standby pangrattato. Anyway, we couldn't fix it, no salt and pepper on the table. Swing and a miss, this one (though I cleaned my plate).

Vegetarians avert your eyes. Our "main" was pheasant with sauerkraut, potato (?) puree (possibly another root vegetetable), and a super-nice saute of fancy mushrooms. Maybe this was my favorite thing of the night. I felt bad for the non-mushroom eater at our table b/c the mushrooms and sauerkraut together were dreamy. Yes that is a foot at the end of that leg. My war on birds continues unabated.

And then dessert, sweet sweet dessert. I really have no idea if this was any good or not objectively speaking because as of last night I hadn't had any sugar in about a week. And my first bite of this was like setting the controls for the heart of Serotoninland. My eyes may have spun in their sockets. I think it's some kind of very-carefully spiced fennel seed ice cream with a flourless chocolate cake and a swirl of unrememberable berry. And a few wonderful nuggets of caramel popcorn tucked here and there. I could easily have had another plate or two of this.

And that was it. Thoughtful, well-executed food in a gezellig room (lit more dimly than my pics suggest) that was only marred by the two giant tables of reuniting ex-fraternity boys (literally, like singing their fraternity song at one point) who were seated behind us halfway through the meal. But then moments later, in the most aggressively proactive customer service moment I've ever experienced in Amsterdam, our waiter asked us if we would like to move to a table farther away. I almost said to him "Get the fuck out of here" in disbelief. We didn't up and move, but yeah, mind: blown. Maybe things are changing, service was great all around, unobtrusive and likeable.

So, yes, go to Bak.

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spanish, haarlem.

Last night I dreamt that our house was infested with bears. One big one and five smaller ones. They were pretty cute. The Bear People had to come and get them in a bunch of UPS-looking trucks.

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DJ Deathclam and I didn't really go anywhere together this summer due to budgetary (and other) concerns, so we decided to compensate with an all-too-rare Moops Night Out in Haarlem, only a 15-minute train ride but definitely a different world than Amsterdam, slower, emptier, cheaper.

Above, walking into town. Below: Coconuts for Sex, self-explanatory; a vintage or faux-vintage Jim Beam whiskey jar/jug at In Den Uiver.

Then a bit of chomping was in order, an unexpectedly super and super-affordable Basque meal at Patxaran. I'd say it's pretty much worth the €5 euro train trip to Haarlem to eat here. Pinxtos are €2, €3, €4, or €5 each, and then there's a small but non-standard tapas menu.

We had four pinxtos, three pictured below: goat cheese with tomato, walnut, and a cube of quince gelée; pantumaca con jamón ibérico (tomato bread with ham, sounds simple but they were so mfkn good we considered filling Mara's bag with them); and the only less-than-stellar bite of the night, Little Gem lettuce with what was advertised as an anchovy cream but tasted like blueberry cream, edible but confounding and more importantly on the boring side. Next, an unpictured one, jamon and crispy asparagus with something like a goat cheese bechamel, also served on their terrific bread.

Then we ordered two tapas off the specials chalkboard: navajas, basically the best razor clams ever, just grilled with lemon and garlic and maybe a dash of white wine, totally great. And real, non-industrial calamares, perfectly fried. The whole meal, including three glasses of more than decent wine: €42. Then a beer at the Jopenkerk. Then the excellent Shannon & The Clams for free @ the Patronaat Cafe. Then homie. Put one in ze win column for Moop.

zeedijking ii (nsfw).

"Drinks at 5, Mata Hari" was the directive. The three of us started out inside on the windowfront couch, but somehow the shady, blustery terrace proved irresistible. Eventually joining us at our windswept table were a few friendly Fines de Claire oysters with mignonette (€2.50 each, but kinda worth it) and an attractive plank of lekkernijen (tidbits or treats) arranged with cyclone-defying care: parma ham with arugula; various salami; grilled asparagus, aubergine, pumkpin, courgette, peppers; a Spanish tortilla with potatoes; a very nice piece of homemade cured salmon; buffala with pesto and pomegranate seeds; some above-average calamari rings; some crackers with slightly Indian-spiced pea/mint puree and a sun-dried tomato hummous.

Shockingly, it all tasted just as good as it looked or better. And the plank was totally reasonable at €17.50. This having been our third visit, we can confirm that someone at Mata Hari knows how to cook. We haven't had anything really "fancy", but the quality of everything we've tasted has been way above-average.

Then, despite having already enjoyed a totally reasonable amount of beer and socializing at Mata Hari, the three of us braved the tourists and luxury dildos of the Red Light to "get some sun" at In de Wildeman, because they still get sun at 8pm, Mara knew this. And, she was right, they did, and we did. Unfortunately we also sat down in the sun with the bar staff and continued ordering beer, ensuring that today's goals will involve tiny reasonable things like wobbling downstairs to the grocery store; strenuously opening a can of Coke; slowly selecting DVDs to fall asleep to; carefully putting frozen pizzas in the oven.

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babys who brunch.

I've eaten two restaurant brunches within one week, wtf is happening to me. The first was last Saturday at Jason Hartley's Lovefood HQ, yes non-Amsterdammers that's really the name of it. As you know, we generally don't do pretend to do restaurant reviews here, but if something resembling one sneaks into a post it definitely doesn't try to be unbiased or objective in any way. That's a disclaimer I guess.

I might not have even mentioned my meal at Lovefood (for short) here today if I hadn't also accidentally eaten at Little Collins today, the connection being that for months now the two of them have been linked inextricably in my mind as the only really-promising places in town for a proper brunch. I'm sure this perceived promise is in no small part due to the fact that both restaurants come from cultures who know their excessive drinking (Lovefood is English, Little Collins is Australian). And for me, brunch is largely about fixing shit you drank yourself into the night before, fixing it via more booze, runny eggs, and plenty of salt and smoke.

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I've just heard that Lovefood HQ is up for sale and that it'll really only exist in its current form for the next month or two, which kind of sucks b/c I found it to be somewhere I'd probably visit again. I can't say that my tongue was blown off or anything, but yes the drink options were comprehensive and intriguing, and everything we were served was pretty relentlessly tasty and definitely pretty as a picture, though in a couple of cases the menu verbiage pumped up expectations in a way the flavors couldn't match and there were a couple of tiny distracting service blips, forgetting a main ingredient of a dish for example, but yes ok otherwise a fine fine afternoon and there that's my review! I may try to go back before they're gone but let's see.

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Little Collins was similar but different. Even more informal. Not trying as hard. Less overtly professional than Lovefood but not necessarily in a bad way. Less chefly 'tude as well about what they will and won't do, which while I understand this impulse completely (having owned a retail/service business in an industry known for attitude problems, and knowing what "the paying customer" can be like, we often found ourselves torn between attempting to preemptively pacify or give the finger to customer expectations), I almost never really see it done in a way that seems to get it right tonally. The Vortex in Atlanta used to strike a nice balance of light comedy and legitimate threat, but it seems like the last decade's tidal wave of customer entitlement (and L5P's complete vanillafication) has pushed them over the edge into caricature.

Yes. So Mara ordered coriander and corn fritters with ham, guac, homemade salsa, sour cream, and arugula. Hilly had eggs in a lemony Hollandaise with garlic spinach and sourdough. All done very well, though I think the general consensus was that the three of us could've pretty easily made this at home, which I might not have been able to say about the Lovefood meal (at Lovefood, in addition to my smoked haddock omelet with Mornay sauce, I had a side order of their homemade sausage, flawless and not something I'd ever do myself).

A slight difference is that, personal taste preference-wise, I more likely would've made the Little Collins meal at home, whereas there were a couple of things at Lovefood I wouldn't have bothered with (the "biscuit", and the vegetarian sausage, and probably the fried soda bread as well, again all matters of personal taate).

I'll say that each brunch venue did exactly what it was supposed to do: I reserved a week ahead for Saturday brunch at Lovefood, we had a relaxed 2.5-hour meal and long conversation inside in the shade. Beers were from the more alternative and delicious side of the spectrum (Butcher's Tears, Prael, etc). There were enough interesting things on our plates for us to spend a good portion of that time picking away at them. Though if you're American do be warned that the "Biscuits & Gravy" are in fact much more like English scones than American biscuits, we had a little sadness about this.

At Little Collins we just kind of showed up and grabbed a table in the sun and had a quick bite, we were done in 45 minutes. I had a kind of disappointing coffee (they use Two For Joy beans, which I generally enjoy, but I ordered a long black instead of my normal double espresso, bad idea) and zero beers, though I did taste everyone's Bloody Marys.

Dus: both fine and worthy of another visit...though like I said I'd probably go back to Lovefood first b/c they seem slightly more geared towards superlatives. And their Bloody Marys were better.

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rollende keukens 2013.

I have officially lost 2kg since I started this whole medication biznuss. Take that, internet!!! Now, am I doing this in the absolute most healthy way possible? Not always: by dinnertime on Thursday I'd only consumed 350 net calories because I knew I'd be having beers with KK/DD that night. Then, as planned, I consumed a couple of beers with KK/DD, and then, less planned, I consumed a couple more beers with KK/DD, and then wobbled home and somehow didn't eat everything in the house, I think I had two eggs maybe, and then went to sleep, or as an unfriendlier person might say, "passed out". And woke up lighter!

On the up side: most days/nights are not like that.

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Thursday night was my first night at something called Rollende Keukens (Rolling Kitchens), just around the corner in the Westerpark. Until I finish the big version of this post, here's the little version: go there. It's so much better than it was the last time I went (maybe three years ago?) the food is better, more exciting/creative, and (crucially) less expensive as well. Here's a much nicer post than this one about last year's.

But go before 6pm, the crowds on Thursday night were completely unmanageable if you hadn't reserved a sit-down meal somewhere. The pictures are all from Friday at 1:30pm, there was no one there. Also: hit an ATM before you get anywhere near Westerpark, there was seriously a 20-person line at my normal fun dispenser and the AH across the street was not allowing you to pin for extra cash either.

Tasting notes: my first bite of the day was an American-style pulled pork sandwich from Smokey Goodness. Pork-wise, totally solid: tender and smoky, properly seasoned, could've used a tad more sauce for my tastes but that's me. However, can you see any problems with the sandwich concept:

That's right: BBQ don't belong on no ciabatta: too dry, too crusty, too distracting, especially for such subtly-done pork. Apparently the folks at Smokey Goodness have been working on the bun question for a while, but sadly I'm not sure this is the answer. Still, pretty good stuff in terms of sandwich contents.

These next guys didn't have a name or anything I don't think:



But they were turning out a very well-executed Asian-style pulled pork bun:

They did something very smart with the steamed buns: tossed them into a very hot wok for a minute or two before serving to give them a lightly charred exterior, we're stealing that idea.

Then I thought I was leaving...on my way out I saw The Most Morbid Auto Ever:

And then lo, behold, etc. I saw an all-duck menu, so well I kind of had to go in for a closer look didn't I.

I was pulled in by the crispy duck, but when I tried to get me some it "wasn't ready yet", so I settled for the masala doksa (kind of a Surinamese duck curry), which wasn't exactly bad, more like very average, but as it was competing with the porky offerings above it ended up in last place for the day.

Think I'm going back tomorrow to try banh mi, takoyaki poffertjes and the three or four BBQ stands that weren't open for lunch Friday.

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fa. speijkervet.

Above: one of the few upsides of insomnia, winter sunrise.

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Continuing in the vein of "Hey you're leaving town for a month let's have dinner", I finally got to go to "nose-to-tail" eatery Fa. Speijkervet last night, and yes of course I forgot my camera. And I forgot to bring carnivores.

Some would say that this means we didn't order to their strengths, which would ostensibly be meat, specifically pig, but a) I'm a firm believer that if you put something on your menu it should be good, and b) we were a mostly vegetarian party and ordering a something like a pig testicle milkshake (not actually on the menu) or whatever didn't feel right, plus if everyone orders vegetarian then everyone gets to share everything etc, unless one of your vegetarians goes rogue and orders meat but whatever I win either way ha.

We started with mussels, beet ravioli, and an artichoke, mushroom + blue cheese tart to share. All homey and comforting in the best way, well-executed, tasty, the mussels being the least wow-ish just because well they weren't anything really out of the ordinary. But they were still mussels, so, good.

Our next course involved some slightly confusing things with vegetables we'd never heard of, and that our server couldn't even explain to the Dutch member of our party, and the names of which at this moment I myself can't remember: I surprised myself by ordering an entree whose main ingredient was parsnip puree (not one of the unfamiliar vegetables); the rest of it included some kind of well-cooked red or possibly black cabbage, teeny tiny Brussels sprouts, and fontina beignets, which were lovely little tempura-esque blobs of fried cheese. It was pretty great, and it pretty much all disappeared.

Noops went rogue and ordered ongelet, hanger steak to you and me, which was perfectly cooked from a tenderness perspective, which ongelet has to be, ongelet ongelet ongelet, I can't stop saying it, but in the end I think I enjoyed my bites of it more than Noops did, probably because he's a sucka vegetarian and I'm an actual carnivore. The (yis) ongelet also came with a mystery vegetable described to us beforehand as "something like asparagus", but in reality it was scorzonera, black salsify, a very local vegetable which I'd never tasted before and we all decided was "something more like parsnip than asparagus". Pretty good I thought.

And then hmmm...HBF had griet, which is brill in English, like a turbot, subtle and pleasing, but it came with another one of these mystery vegetables, possibly rutabaga, soesterknollen, again a very local vegetable, and this was the only wrong note of the meal: as prepared, their aggressive wineyness (sp?) rendered them not so appropriate for accompanying such a delicate-tasting fish. It seemed easy to imagine more complementary options, like maybe roasting them with winter herbs would've made more sense but hey what do I know. The griet also came with a cup of Hollandaise sauce that no one could determine the purpose of, and when we mentioned this at the end of the meal, our waitress just kind of giggled and said "Yeah..." and took our plates away (this would be her only real slip into Amsterdam-style customer service, otherwise she was totally on the ball).

That said, I'd happily go back in two seconds. Here's an unorganized list of things I liked about it. The inside is surprisingly spacious and pretty, I guess "fancy-seeming", but in reality chilled out enough to where it doesn't feel as uptight or stuffy as it seems it might. Good sentence. The beer selection could've been a wee bit more interesting but there were one or two unboring choices (I drank La Chouffe Bok). Everyone there was very "friendly" and helpful, and again it feels like a nice place to linger, despite its kind of upscale look...the tables are, or at least our kind of isolated table was, far enough away from everyone else that you could easily hear each other's horribly off-color comments but other tables couldn't hear you. Important.

Maybe most importantly: the price/deliciousness/sophistication ratios of the food were pretty significantly above Amsterdam averages and this is hopefully indicative of the recent upward trend in our local restaurant cooking: it's getting easier and easier to find laid-back restaurants with affordable food that's almost as good as what you can cook at home.

Add to that the fact that there's a pleasant, welcoming bar down the street (also, like Speijkervet, very mustard-colored inside, but in a surprisingly OK way) with a beer selection that's highly out of character for this hood (beers from Brewdog, 7 deugden; Brouwerij 't IJ) and you have yourself a nice little evening in the exotic land of Jan Evertsenstraat.

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review: fraîche, amsterdam.

You know we don't really do restaurant reviews here in the traditional sense, but if we think there's somewhere worth going, we try to mention it in a findable way. Based on last night's experience, Fraîche is somewhere worth going.

We had a really really nice evening, so I don't want to linger too much on the less-compelling aspects of the operation, but yeah ok: bad news first. Gripe #1 and I guess really my only serious complaint is that their beer selection was severely, depressingly anemic (Brand, Amstel, and Heineken, WTF? none of those are even beer).

And because there was no beer worth drinking, I was forced to interact with the wine list, something you know I would normally never complain about (I would just shut up and drink good beer instead), but: the red wine options were weirdly unidimensionally Italianate/Sangiovese, and our time in Italy cured me of ever purposely, excitedly ordering Sangiovese, so I didn't find much joy there either.

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OK, now the good news: booze gripes aside, everything else was thoroughly cozy, efficient, and fun. For an Amsterdam restaurant, if you give me a completely charming and friendly waitstaff (check), plus good-to-great music on the stereo (check), you're halfway there. You almost don't even need to be able to cook: the food just needs to show up in a reasonable timeframe and be edible. If your music playlist includes 20 minutes' worth of Bitches Brew, you get double quadruple one zillion extra points.

The food itself: really carefully done and tasty. Not exactly mind-expanding or anything, but definitely complex, professionally cooked, well-seasoned, and most of all: careful. As in made with care, which is something we don't see a lot of around here.

Our starters were: thin slices of wild boar with cranberry jam and finely diced red cabbage; and I had confit scallop with Israeli couscous and citrus vinaigrette. The scallop was barely cooked (or had the texture of being barely cooked, not sure how a shellfish confit comes into being), the couscous was perfectly done, the citrus-y peppers and shoots on top added a nice mix of textures, and the whole thing was delicate in a way my cooking never is...I liked it very much.

Next up I had "ricotta gnocchi with pickled pumpkin, winter mushrooms, foie gras, smoked pine nuts, cheddar sauce"; ze Mara had "herb-crusted cod with Jerusalem artichoke, parsley root, baby radish, pink grapefruit, tarragon, brown butter." Both were, again, totally enjoyable if not breathtaking...I wish that the non-gnocchi components of my dish had been more assertive (pickled pumpkin + smoked pine nuts, I'm looking at you), and Mara's dish really required every component in every bite in order to really come alive...and almost everything we were served (except my scallop) seemed to benefit from a tiny tiny pinch of the coarse salt that was provided in a little dish before the meal even began, I guess maybe they're undersalting on purpose. In any event: we pretty much licked our plates clean.

Three courses were €35 per person (dessert was a nice white chocolate/mandarin mousse and a petite cheese plate), which is a very very typical price point for three courses in Amsterdam, and this is the important part: I know we've never ever had a meal anywhere else in town with such sophisticated and pretty faultless (and, again, careful) cooking at these prices. I know we'll be back very soon. A brief chat with one of the friendly American chefs revealed a couple of things: 1) that they have all kinds of very exciting plans for new venues over the next few years, and 2) you shouldn't doubt the Duck when it comes to geek knowledge like who's playing soprano on Bitches Brew (it is Wayne).

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Oh yeah: Xmas dinner. We're hibernating, as you know. Dinner and a movie for two is the plan. The dinner is: steak with some kind of port/Stilton sauce I haven't decided on; some kind of roasted beet and maybe cranberry relish I haven't decided on yet; garlic mashed taters; roasted parsnips with butter and horseradish maybe; some kind of salad with walnut oil I haven't decided on yet; etc. And something for dessert. That I haven't decided on yet.

Movie: The Godfather.

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cost-benefit analysis.

Other stuff happened yesterday, but I should get this out of the way first...

Yes, what to say about The Harwood Arms. I guess, inevitably, whatever I would say ends up saying more about our current tastes and preferences than it does about their food.

We have a difficult relationship with restaurants these days: since scaling down our lifestyle several years ago, we've gone from eating out once or twice a week to maybe once a month if that, more like four times a year. If that.

This means that when we do pay someone else to cook for us, it has to meet a couple of criteria. Perhaps most importantly, it has to be reasonably priced, an extremely subjective and qualitative criterion, I know, but it's one of the biggest reasons we don't eat out much.

I don't necessarily mean that the food has to be "cheap": I mostly mean that it needs to be honestly priced, with some relation to the actual cost of producing it. But there's no ignoring that our monthly income is small, and our budget reflects that. To spend 100 euros on one dinner is twice our weekly grocery budget, and a quarter of our rent + utilities for the month.

Also, it has to be comfortable. I'm thoroughly uninterested in a dining atmosphere that goes out of its way to construct or convey some sort of aura of "privilege", as if I'm lucky to be there. In truth, in the big picture, I am lucky to be there, I'm lucky to be anywhere, I'm lucky to not be sleeping outside, I'm lucky to have running water, I'm lucky to be able to afford a dinner at a restaurant, etc. But you know what I mean. If the attitude or ambience is trying to tell me to be thankful for my seat, then the food really has a lot of work to do.

Lastly, it really helps if we're served food that we couldn't ourselves cook in our own kitchen. This is a very important factor, but it's also the most jettisonable: if it's a welcoming vibe, and the prices are reasonable, I'm having fun, and the food tastes good, I'm likely to forget about the degree of difficulty involved. But it's always a plus when I'm surprised (in a good way) by what's on my plate. On vacation, there's an extra element here that has to do with local ingredients: things I simply can't find where I live, and that counts for something as well.

Fussy presentations fit in here somewhere, but mostly as a sort of wild-card. I guess, like most creative risks, when they pay off, the results can be elevated disproportionately. When they fall flat, you just end up looking kind of silly. In the end, I'd much rather be served something that looks like a "burst colostomy bag" (to quote someone on eG) and tastes incredible than something that looks like a graphic design project and tastes like one too.

So I say all of the above because, rather obviously, I don't think we're necessarily the right audience for a lot of restaurant cooking these days, and so anything I say on this site about a "professional" dining experience we've had should be appreciated or ignored in the context of the above manifesto.

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Thus: The Harwood Arms.

I will say that greeting me with the phrase "we need you to give up your table by 9pm" is not setting off in the right direction (see discussion of privilege and comfort above). Also, not having a list of beers is a bit strange: this means I have to get up and go to the bar if I want to see what the choices are.

Which would be fine, but everyone looked at me like "What's wrong?". Nothing's wrong, I'd like a beer. You're a pub, right? And then I order from the barman and he says he'll have it sent over to the table. It's just a bit odd. I'm already standing up, you're pouring the beer, why don't I just take it back with me to the table?

But whatever. We did eventually warm to our server a bit, and after a beer or two I didn't mind the weirdness of having to get up and order them myself.

About the food. Nothing was bad. The bread and butter was delicious. For our starters, the venison Scotch egg (see previous post) was just about the best thing I ate all night. The smoked eel tart was nice, something to try at home; the rabbit/prune sausage roll also pleasant and satisfying, if not especially rabbitty; etc.

Entrees were a bit more problematic, as they almost always are everywhere. Although I thought the beef cheeks and snails (yes, that's what I said) themselves were 100% enjoyable, I didn't have the revelatory bone marrow experience that many people seem to enjoy, my toast seemed like it had been toasted some time ago, and the parsley salad was kind of misguided or at the very least underdressed.

The mackerel started out disappointingly bland, but when combined with everything else on the plate it seemed to come into its own, and by the end of it I was enjoying it quite a bit. This dish reminded me very strongly of the cooking at St. John Bread and Wine, in fact.

The rhubarb jelly donuts? A tiny bit dry, but otherwise good.

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So.

Yes, the presentation was beyond what we're capable of under normal circumstances. Could I go into my kitchen tonight and make that Scotch egg? Not even close, no way. Could I possibly spend twice as long in the kitchen tonight and get my smoked eel tart to look like theirs? Maybe. Did I fully appreciate the difficulty in serving a perfectly-boned mackerel? Not really.

But while nothing was bad about the food, we immediately compared this experience to the pani puri and bhel from East Ham the other day. Is this just our bias towards Asian food rearing its head? Maybe. But while the braised beef was really really good, it was still just almost as good as someone else's braised beef that lives right down the street and doesn't charge me €20 for a plate of it.

I'm enjoying the Harwood meal more in retrospect than I did at the table, probably because my expectations are gone now. Walking through Fulham after the meal, the comparison that kept coming up was Marius in Amsterdam. Even though we've only eaten there once, I've seen nothing to contradict the impression we had of it: at Marius, there's no hurry, there's no concern on your part, and no sense that the kitchen is trying to impress you with anything, even though that's usually what it's doing despite itself. It's an extremely comfortable dining experience, and it all feels kind of predeterminedly natural and good.

OK. You get my point probably. Pictured below: warm smoked eel tart with rhubarb and horseradish cream; stout-braised beef cheeks with Herefordshire snails, smoked bone marrow on toast, parsley salad, and potato mash; stuffed mackerel with a sourdough crust, Isle of Wight tomatoes, greens, and horseradish; warm rhubarb jelly donuts with stem ginger and sour cream.

tomatillo, overtoom.

Intuitively enough, the remedy for a repetitive stress injury is to stop repeating the stressful motion. So I'm taking the weekend off from playing, all I ask is that my new and hard-won right-hand callouses still be there on Monday please.

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On Friday night, instead of me hunching improperly over a torture device of a guitar, we hung out and cooked together, always a pleasure, and on Saturday night we spent some quality time in the old hood, revolving around a trip to the Filmmuseum to see Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg.

Those are indeed dead horses buried in snow. After the movie, we pretty much had to pop into Vondelpark's new burrito joint, Tomatillo, to see what was what.

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As you may know, we don't really do restaurant reviews here, and what follows here shouldn't be considered one. One of the main reasons we don't do reviews is that we are a biased-ass motherfucker (one who obviously hasn't quite grasped the subtleties of the editorial "we"), and we are getting too old and tired to worry about trying to put this bias aside, even for a couple of paragraphs.

And so thusly we stumble forward, biased. The relevant bias in this particular case is minor but still I suspect that it held some sway over my assessment of Tomatillo: that I really wanted a shrimp burrito.

Like, for hours before the movie, there was a gently pulsing thought balloon over my head filled with a plump shrimp burrito (salsa verde, monterey jack, no rice). I knew Tomatillo had no shrimp burritos. And yet, my mind kept generating the thought balloons. People behind us in the theatre could barely see the screen through all the shrimp burritos.

Once we were at Tomatillo, a Plan B needed to be examined. We ended up getting two things to take away: a steak and black bean burrito with tomatillo salsa, and a chorizo taco with pico de gallo. Sounds good, right. When we got them home, this is what they looked like:

Sorry for the crap pictures, but still, do you see any problems? That's the chorizo taco. Yes, I'm talking about the lettuce. OK, yes we are 7000 miles from Mexico. I hear you. OK, slack has been cut. I liked this in spite of the abundant wilted lettuce (maybe shredded cabbage is a better idea for to-go orders?) and the lack of shrimp. They make their own chorizo, and it tastes almost exactly like the chorizo I used to make, so...yes. That's good. Also, their pico was exemplary.

And the shrimpless burrito? Also pleasant, though I can't say it was 100% my style, I don't really love rice in my burritos. But the steak was nicely seasoned, featuring a prominent cinnamon note (and maybe apple in the background?), which I like...but the tomatillo salsa was pretty undetectable (Mara said she had some in her half), and this left the whole thing lacking a tiny bit of tartness.

But I'm nitpicking, yo, probably because neither item was a shrimp burrito: both the taco and steak burrito hit the spot and I'll probably be back to try the pork before long. Service was totally friendly, and the place seemed like an alright place to hang out and eat, with nice non-cheezy uptempo jazz standards on the stereo, etc.

Ah yes. My only other gripe would be the €9,50 price tag for the steak burrito...dass expensive, and it's not like it's because of the steak: the chorizo burrito is 7,50. The ingrained values of the American eater in me know that a burrito should not be more than twice the price of a falafel (the last carne asada burrito I had in Phoenix cost $4.45, which is just about 3 Euros). But...the rest of me understands, really it does, and I'll be back to support them (as my local Tex-Mex establishment) before too long.

Tomatillo

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Amsterdam