Please note that since writing this blog post, Londen has closed down
I often wonder whether I should split my rating system into three indicators rather than the two (price and quality) indicators that I have now. There is a frequent disjunct between food and service (generally in favour of the food), which I find difficult to reconcile in my single star system. Saturday night threw up the same problem, but the other way round: the service was so much better than the food that I don’t know how to rate the restaurant.
Londen has the kind of décor you’d expect in an international hotel lobby. It’s not exactly cosy and fuzzy. And it’s not exactly packed full of people either. But the menu is full of British classics – like chicken biryani (yes, this is a British classic these days), fish and chips, and beef wellington (or should I say, Wellington, after my horseradish post) – and the wine list inviting, so we forgave the ambience…
To start, we shared fried goat’s cheese with beetroot (fine) and a sweet potato soufflé (not fine). The latter was not a soufflé, and it was heavily spiked with lemon. Now, I generally add a squeeze of lemon juice to everything I cook, but one thing I learnt after an experiment with a roasted squash pasta dish is that sweet root vegetables and lemon don’t mix. We didn’t finish that bit.
I chose the fish and chips for the main course, despite never having heard of the fish of the day. The waitress said it was called ‘harde’ in Dutch (I think) but I’d never come across either the word or the fish. Turns out there’s a good reason for that: it’s not particularly nice. Slightly grey beneath the skin, it has a faint earthy flavour that was not (in this case) masked by any crispy batter. It was undoubtedly fresh, and perfectly cooked, and it may be the most sustainable alternative to cod on the market. But none of this makes up for the fact that it was not, fundamentally, a fish designed to be eaten. On the plus side, the chips were crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside; the lemon mayo tangy and light; and the side salad well dressed.
My dinner buddy ordered the chickpea curry, which looked – well – like a pile of chickpeas. There was not much in the way of sauce or flavour going on.
Despite all of this, we still had a jolly old British time – not least because the waiter and waitress looking after us were fabulous. Attentive but not over-present, friendly but not obsequious – they could teach the rest of Amsterdam a lot about how to serve customers. It’s a shame they can’t teach the chefs how to cook better. I’d give our servers five stars, but the food only two. And this, of course, leaves me with a dilemma…
And so, Amsterdam Foodie Technical Director (who I know likes new little techy projects to play with on the website), if you’re reading this: how about coming up with a new way to show price, food quality AND service in our rating system?
