Cous Cousine: smokin’ hot food with more than a pinch of salt
Please note that since writing this blog post, Cous Cousine has closed down
On Friday evening, I ran 8 km and got locked out of my flat. I’d never done either of these things before, although one was deliberate and the other wasn’t. The running was in training for the Dam tot Damloop (a 16 km course from Amsterdam to Zaandam in September – you’ll hear more from me about this shortly) while the locking-myself-out-of-the-flat thing was frankly a mystery: I took my spare key, which suddenly wasn’t my spare key, and there I was stranded on the pavement in my running gear.
After all this drama, I needed a drink. So I rocked up (only 15 minutes late, which I thought was fairly impressive given the events of the previous hour or two) at Cous Cousine and asked for the wine list. The wine-ordering process proceeded rather strangely, when the waiter persistently encouraged me to have the Argentinian malbec instead of the Spanish tempranillo that I was trying to order. I wasn’t sure why, since the Rioja – when I was finally allowed to drink it – was very palatable indeed.
Cous Cousine calls itself a ‘modern North African and Mediterranean restaurant’, although the food seemed rather more fusion even than that. My friend and I went halves on starters: we had ‘pastrami’ (which tasted more like roast beef) with a smoked tomato cream (which tasted like a spicy version of thousand island dressing) and fresh fig (which wasn’t in season). I sound very critical, but what we ate was very nice; it just didn’t quite add up with what we expected. We also ordered a curried tuna dish, which came both seared in a block and diced in a ramekin-shaped pile. It was served with what appeared to be Japanese seaweed, while the curry marinade tasted distinctly Asian, too. Again, all well and good, but definitely erring on Asian fusion.
We played it rather safer on the main courses, going for a lamb shank tagine and a vegetable tagine respectively. Both tasted distinctly of smoke – not burnt but wood smoky. When I asked the waiter why this was, he told us the flavour came from the terracotta pots they were cooked in (i.e. the tagines themselves). I found this hard to believe given that the pots were glazed; and besides, I’ve eaten tagines out of untreated pots in Morocco and never experienced such a smoky tang. I actually rather liked it, but it overpowered the prunes and almonds that went with the lamb. I also thought the sauce was over-salted, which again detracted from the other, more promising flavours. The cous cous that was served with the tagines was excellent: laced with fried onions, sultanas, sweet spices and herbs, it was the perfect antidote to the rich sauce.
Dinner came to €45 each, including wine and a tip. The waiter, for all his strange sales technique on the malbec, was friendly and evidently cared about his job, which is a rarity in many Amsterdam restaurants. But the food still confused me…
Cous Cousine’s dishes have the potential to be very, very good. The chef clearly understands flavour combinations. But the whole lot needs to be toned down. Smokiness is good. Salt is good. Just not by the sack load.
