Phew! What a hectic couple of weeks – and none of them spent in Amsterdam, hence no reviews lately. However, a foodie is a foodie, even when she’s away from home, so here’s a soupcon of my gastronomic experiences abroad…
While Holland was dressing in orange and being unusually sociable, I was in London catching up with old friends, some older than others. Through the wonders of Facebook, I recently got back in contact with a friend from primary school, who now manages a pub-cum-restaurant on Clapham Common: the Windmill. After much exclamation about how different we looked after 16 years (or rather, in my case, how my hair style hadn’t changed since I was 11), my school friends and I sat down to a few bottles of something (my memory is hazy since much of it was free) and some good ol’ English pub grub. Between us, we ate assorted pies (fish, steak and onion, shepherd’s) and some rather less English garlic prawns, spicy chicken wings and vegetable cous cous (not on the same plate, I might add). All very tasty, and an excellent backdrop for reminiscing about kiss-chase.
Last week, I found myself back in Maastricht on business – this time for four days – which seemed like the perfect excuse to go restaurant-hopping in the evenings. With hindsight, it strikes me that Maastricht’s proximity to France and French-speaking Belgium is nowhere more apparent than in its dining culture. Three of the restaurants we ate in – Le Bon Vivant, Petit Bonheur and Le Virage – had unmistakably French names. Moreoever, dauphinoise potatoes, terrine, sabayon, beurre blanc, provencal sauce, rillettes and confit de canard were just a few of the terms than graced their menus. While all three restaurants were quite acceptable, there are a few things best left to the French and, were they in Amsterdam, I would be hard pushed to award more than three stars to any of them. Not to worry, for once I wasn’t paying…