Please note that since writing this blog post, Deksels! has closed down
I’m struggling for motivation at the moment. Blogging is a weird thing – it’s kind of like writing a diary. If you’re a diarist, you just do it – you need to do it – it’s like a therapy. But if you’re a writer in your day job, it’s also kind of like work. And there are weeks – like last week – when the last thing you feel like doing after a 12-hour day in the office is coming home and sitting down at the computer to blog.
So I keep going out to dinner and taking picture and writing notes, but somehow they just never quite make it down onto WordPress paper. And then it all gets a bit overwhelming: there’s this pile of paperwork, and too many food metaphors, and not enough angles, and a certain amount of guilt that goes along with having committed to write about this stuff. And then just not doing it. Which is odd, because it’s voluntary, right? No one pays me to do this, which means that there are no expectations other than my own.
I realise it’s a bit of a cop-out, but the to-do list is stretching my OCD and I need to cross some restaurants off, so here goes…
Pizza Bakkers
Their tagline is pizza and prosecco, so I thought it only proper that I should order a prosecco while I waited for my dining partner to arrive. It wasn’t bad – definitely drinkable, though I am no expert. My pizza involved a fennel-infused salami, as well as the predictable tomato and mozzarella. It was all crispy and nutty, and the toppings were fine and dandy, but well…. it just wasn’t La Perla. I’m sorry.
Deksels!
My friend who was staying last weekend announced she was pregnant five minutes after we arrived at Deksels. Me being me, my first thought was ‘who on earth is going to share a bottle of wine with me?’ but I got round that little issue by ordering a few options by the glass instead. I chose a Lebanese rosé to go with my fish tagine. I wasn’t massively impressed with either. The chefs seemed to have missed the entire point of a tagine: that it’s supposed to be a one-pot dish in which the fish is steamed in the spices and juices of the the sauce. This one came with pan-fried sea bass on top of the sauce, and a timbale of couscous that hadn’t seen a lick of seasoning. The sauce itself was delicately spiced – a reasonable start but it could’ve handled a hefty kick. The fish was fresh, but might have been served with anything – there was no cohesion between that and the rest of the dish.
For dessert, I was still hungry so ordered the cheese plate with a glass of Portuguese red. The bread could’ve been more inspired, but the cheese itself was excellent, as was the wine. My general feeling was that Deksels should focus on what they’re confident in doing, and not try to reinvent the wheel.
Sapporo
On Friday night, I found myself near the RAI for a Bollywood show, so decided to catch an early dinner at teppanyaki and sushi restaurant Sapporo. The service was brusque and inflexible to begin with: insisting people pay for water when main courses are already upwards of €25 always irritates the hell out of me. Refusing to switch ice cream for edamame beans in the menu (albeit not for the same course) also seems petty and unnecessary, when the dish that you’re asking to swap costs the same the original.
So, menu debates aside, we ate our edamame beans and sashimi while waiting for the teppanyaki to be cooked on the hot plate in front of us. I’d ordered what must have been about 400g of duck breast, while Scary French Lady had a fillet of turbot. We came to conclusion that flaky white fish doesn’t really work on a teppanyaki grill, but fatty gamey poultry is probably designed for it. Both came with stir-fried vegetables and steamed rice. While there was nothing wrong with them, you needn’t be a restaurant-class chef to stir-fry a few veges with some duck, and it needn’t set you back €25 either. Plus extra for the mineral water, of course.
