Please note that since writing this blog post, Brix has closed down
I realise it’s been a while since I’ve written a proper restaurant review, which is strange since I clearly haven’t been staying in all the time either. So t’other night I was pleased to go somewhere new that I have something to say about. I was meeting a rather flamboyant friend of mine for dinner in the Negen Straatjes, and Brix seemed an appropriate choice. Our reactions to it were telling of what we each value in a venue:
His: ‘Brix is friendly and getting a bit popular, but it still retains its air of cool.’
Mine: ‘This place is a bit trendy, but it still has a certain “gezelligheid”.’
The menu is fusion, which, as we know, is something of which I’m innately sceptical. It also requires you to guess how much you should order, given the ambiguous prices: everything costs what you’d expect of a starter, and there’s no differentiation between courses. Luckily, my dining companion is an old hand at Brix and he recommended we order six oysters followed by three dishes to share. And who am I to argue?
If Brix were writing their USPs, their first might be ‘presentation’. The oysters came in an interesting rectangular ‘plate’ that had been split into six sections; had we ordered an odd number of oysters (or indeed, any number other than six, for the oysters appeared on the menu in the singular) I wonder how this would’ve worked. Do they have plates divided into every number combination depending on how many oysters their customers order? In semi-answer to this question, our Peking duck arrived on a rather longer rectangular plate, this time divided into three. And our lamb (despite its actually being grilled not slow-cooked) appeared inside a terra cotta tagine. Clearly, image is everything.
Well, not quite everything. I couldn’t fault the freshness of the oysters, nor the seasoning of the lamb, nor the crispiness of the duck. In short, appeal to the eye was not at the expense of appeal to the taste buds. The octopus, rocket and walnut salad was the poor relation, the absence of presentation and refinement of taste being notable in comparison to the other dishes. Having deliberated about whether or not to order another bottle of rosé (obviously we voted in favour in the end), we ordered a cheese plate to finish. Although all four cheeses were suitably mature and artisanal, had I been choosing the combination myself I would have aimed for more difference in texture.
The walls were flavoured with jazz, the beautiful people talked loudly, the service was ever-so-slightly better than Dutch, the bill was a very do-able €70 for two, and we came away with a mild food-high… All in all, a good find to get me back in the restaurant-saddle.
