Please note that since writing this blog post, Looks has closed down
When it comes to benchmark dishes, my lobster benchmark happened on a holiday to California when I was 16. In San Francisco, home of hills and eerie evening mists, there used to be a kind of fast-food outlet near the harbour where you could buy fresh crab rolls or half a lobster for under five bucks. It was the McDonald’s of Crustacea but, unlike McDonald’s, even a family of foodies were more than willing to eat there. The key? Freshness and simplicity.
I expect I’ve had lobster since, but whenever I imagine how it should taste, I recall that experience. Kreeftweek, then, was probably doomed to disappoint. Looks, a trendy split-level restaurant just off the Nieuwmarkt, had a promotion on whole lobsters for €20 each which, by Northern European standards, is indeed a bargain. Six of us willingly signed up, lured by the thought of cracking claws and teasing morsels of white flesh from lobster legs…
But before we got to our reason for being there, we ordered starters and wine, the first of which didn’t arrive for an hour and a half after our arrival. When it did make its entrance, the lamb terrine was flavoursome and meaty and tasted faintly of cumin; it was served with ripe, sweet, roasted plum tomatoes and a citrus rind salad. It was a promising, if tardy, start.
The lobster itself came served in two halves, luke warm, ready cracked and prepared, less than fresh and marginally overcooked. While not as unpleasant as I may have just implied, it fell far short of the bar in my sense-memory. The vegetarian amongst us, though undoubtedly pleased that he didn’t have to endure the crunching of crustacean claws around him, was even less impressed than me. His dish, described as a cassoulet, comprised some butter beans and a pile of vegetables; hardly the imaginative French slow-cooked bean stew its name promised.
Dessert consisted of a combination of crème brulee, chocolate tart with black currant mousse, watermelon soup, and a stodgy dough filled with custard. It was like a party in which no one knew each other; everyone had their good points, but no one really got along with each other. The brulee was suitably crispy and caremelised but the crème was noticeably lacking in vanilla seeds. The watermelon soup was a mistake, pure and simple. The custard tart was unidentifiable. The chocolate tart was rich, but its black currant partner was a strange addition to the foursome.
Despite the ‘bargain’ lobster, the bill came to €60 each. Was it €60 well spent? In some ways, we got a fair bang for our buck; in others, the slow service, dishes that consistently missed the mark and the failure of the menu to meet its promises led to a certain resentment in parting with our cash.
