Please note that since writing this blog post, Roots has closed down
Anyone who’s started reading this blog over the past month would be forgiven for thinking they’d come across some kind of American travel blog. But no, this really does do what it says on the tin: it’s (usually) about Amsterdam, and (mostly) about the food I eat here. I’d not been out much in my first week home because of the jetlag and build up of work. But on Saturday night I was feeling back to my usual self (albeit having spent all day listening to country music), and donned my Dutch heels for a night out with the girls.
We went to Roots, which looks like a cross between a mountain big-game hunting lodge and a Swedish sauna, but then with wooden packing crates incongruously stapled to the back wall. As if the décor wasn’t confusing enough on its own, the menu talked about using local Dutch products. The concept was trying to get back to some roots, but we were blowed if we knew which roots they were.
The dishes all looked pretty protein heavy, so we decided to share a couple of starters to leave room for the meaty mains. We ordered mackerel rillettes and duck terrine, and our sharing ‘plates’ were in fact bathroom tiles. Not particularly clean bathroom tiles at that. The terrine and rillettes (the latter of which came with a sweet tomato chutney) were actually pretty tasty, but came with no bread. I assumed that was an oversight so I asked for some, which we then had to pay for. Odd.
Fillet steak is not my favourite cut of beef, but it was my only option, so I ordered it rare. I’ve had worse steaks. I’ve also had considerably better ones. The vegetables were well cooked and buttery, but the dish lacked some kind of peppery sauce to cut through the meat. The steaks came with good chips at least.
Dessert was another sharing affair: this time a couple of chocolate numbers (mousse and brownie), a mini-crème brûlée and some kind of overly frozen raspberry bavarois that involved garlic. I doubt Heston himself could pull that one off, but the chefs at Roots certainly couldn’t…
Dinner came to €45 each, including a decent bottle of Argentinean pinot noir. Service lurched from too-cool-for-school to chummy-gastropub and missed the mark on both counts. We won’t be going back.
Having said all this, I had a fantastic evening with wonderful friends I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed. Roots may have no idea how to find theirs, but my roots are firmly back in Amsterdam.
