Please note that since writing this blog post, My Table has closed down
A few weeks ago, my chef friend Fong (the brains and the master stock behind Bao Project) invited me to a dinner. Since every event she’s ever invited me to has been so amazingly delicious I’ve almost made myself physically sick from gorging so hard, I clicked ‘join’ without reading anything more. Like, not-a-thing.
Then Tuesday rolled around and Facebook told me I had an event to go to. Oh yes! I remembered, with excitement, and clicked on the invitation to note down the address. Off I cycled, by myself, to the venue, assuming that it would be some kind of underground-dining, apartment-restaurant, Hidden Kitchen-type thingy with about eight or ten people who wouldn’t know each other.
I locked up my bike outside a large, orange-lit space that would later turn out to be Tommy Hilfiger’s canteen (posh canteens these fashion types have, I tell you!) and ventured hesitantly inside… ‘I’m looking for number 5? I’m going to a dinner at My Table?’ The smiling, black-clothed hostess welcomed me: ‘Oh yes, you’re in the right place! What’s your name and how many people are in your booking?’
Fuck, went my brain as I looked past the reservations book towards a menacing herd of dining tables. I’m at a restaurant that could seat – what, 70 people? – all by myself after working 14 hours the day before to meet a deadline, feeling about 98% short of the charm and social skills that this situation was clearly going to require. I scanned the people at the bar. Fuckety-fuck, my brain confirmed. I didn’t recognise a soul.
‘I’m Vicky, and – umm – I kind of misunderstood the concept I think, so I’m here on my own… is anyone else on their own?’ I asked hopefully. ‘A couple of people!’ she said brightly. ‘I tell you what? Why don’t I introduce you to some of the people on your table?’
‘Yes!’ I gasped gratefully and desperately, as she led me in the direction of my first drink. Christ, I was going to need it… As I waited for my sake-lemongrass-wasabi concoction, I got chatting to a British interior designer. And then, while we were talking, one of her friends turned up – another Brit, as it happens – plus an editor I know through freelancing, followed by the Dutch boyfriend of the second woman. Not long after, two of the chefs (Fong, plus My Table creator, Claire) popped out of the kitchen to say hello to us. And all at once the evening started to make a lot more sense.
The eating bit made a good deal of sense too. It was a five-course tasting menu, which was served to everyone simultaneously. No taking of orders, no timing different dishes for different tables, no difficult choices to make. Just simple – and very good – Japanese fodder.
The meal (and apologies it’s taken me so long to get to the food bit) started with two types of sushi: one traditional maki with salmon; the other a more experimental ‘inside-out’ roll involving grilled eel, avocado and a slightly sweet, creamy dressing with the consistency of mayonnaise. The table plan had gone a little awry by the time we sat down, so my table ended up with an extra portion. We weren’t complaining.
Next up was a noodle broth with tofu and thinly sliced beef, which was simple and palate cleansing, followed by four pieces of exquisitely seared sliced tuna with a dressing that was both tangy and creamy. The menu tells me it had something to do with shiso and ponzo. Not having the faintest idea what either shiso or ponzo is, I’ll take the chef’s word for it.
Seeing as I’m addicted to pork, I was most excited about the next dish: sticky pork ribs with miso sauce. They did not disappoint on the stickiness and flavour front, although the meat on mine was a little dry.
I like tasting menus a lot. I like them even more when they don’t involve dessert. The chef later told me that since she always finds Asian desserts a bit of an anti-climax (mainly because they’re not traditionally a part of the meal) she decided to go savoury from start to finish. The last dish involved more noodles, quail, soy beans and shitake mushrooms. I don’t like mushrooms so I didn’t expect this to be my favourite dish, but I felt like (mushrooms aside) it lacked something to pull it all together. It ate like several constituent parts – albeit good constituent parts – that didn’t quite add up to the whole. Interestingly, when the chef came over to our table at the end of the meal, she volunteered the fact that the dish hadn’t worked out as well as she’d wanted. It didn’t change the dish, but it did reinforce my good opinion of the kitchen.
The menu cost €40 per person, with all cocktails coming in at €7.50, plus various reasonably priced wines available by the glass or bottle. You can (and frequently do) pay a lot more for a lot less in Amsterdam.
As I hopped back on my bike at gone 11 pm having said goodbye to half a dozen people I’d never met just a few hours previously, I reflected on the experience: OK, so not a lot of people had come by themselves, but I didn’t feel like the social leper I thought I would. Quite the opposite in fact: not only had I genuinely enjoyed myself; I felt that surge of adrenaline I used to get when I first moved to Amsterdam and every night out was a little exercise in personal networking.
I’m not saying that going out for dinner by myself is likely to become a regular occurrence, but the staff and the guests at My Table make it the kind of place where meeting like-minded people is easy. And even after six years in a city, you can never have too many friends, right?
