Actually I guess it’s not. I’m technically writing this on my laptop, just like I normally do. But there are two significant differences in the process I took to get here…
Exactly the week ago, I entered the Apple age. It had taken me long enough, but for a variety of fairly nonsensical reasons I finally decided to take the iPlunge. So on Saturday night, I was sitting in Sent (a modern European restaurant in de Pijp with a good reputation) with no camera and no notebook. Not even a pen and a scrap of paper. I felt a little naked.
Instead, I took both notes and photos using my iPhone, and contemplated exactly how anti-social I must look tapping away on my “smart” phone while my dining buddies sat talking to each other wondering when they’d lost their analogue friend to technology. My first note was about the amuse: it was pumpkin soup in a glass with a beetroot and mustard foam. I couldn’t really taste the beetroot, but the soup was perfectly nice.
The starter – when it came, at least an hour and 15 minutes after our arrival – was better still: a surf ‘n turf medley of chorizo, squid, tiger prawn, and a shrimp bitterbal, served with a well seasoned white bean purée and a little nest of lightly pickled spitskool (that funny-looking white cabbage in the shape of a cone). Delicious, but then again we were so hungry a Maccie D’s would have looked appealing by that point.
We all went for meaty mains, which was just as well since the waiter (who was considerably more personable than the waitress, with something of the Mad Professor about him) felt compelled to bring us a free bottle of red wine. By this point it was gone 10 pm, and we were all slightly drunk from Merlot and lack of nourishment, but from what I can recall the food was worth the wait. I ate perfectly rare venison with salsify root and crisp, parsnip mousseline, Brussels sprouts, and a poached pear stuffed with chestnut purée. Sweet and savoury and wintry.
My dining buddies, when they weren’t listening to me raving on about my new iPhone, ate fillet of beef (also perfectly cooked) with some kind of ravioli that involved ricotta and truffle. I didn’t try the rest but I heard appreciative noises over the bleeps of Whatsapp messages plopping into my digital life.
All three of us made a bee-line for the ‘Grand Dessert’ of five not-so-mini-puddings (our eyes were a little bigger than our bellies, but we didn’t know if we’d have to wait till breakfast time). The selection comprised a warm pineapple and coconut number, passion fruit cheesecake, lemongrass crème brûlée (there was clearly a bit of a tropical theme going on), chocolate torte and blueberry sorbet. I didn’t finish my cheesecake or sorbet (the portions were disproportionately large compared to earlier courses) but my table mate wolfed them both down after his own.
Dinner came to under €50 each, although the bill would have been higher if we’d had to pay for both bottles of wine ourselves. Mind you, I should probably factor in the €15 it cost us to get home because the trams had stopped running by the time we left the restaurant. The food was definitely worth more than the three stars I’m awarding Sent, but the speed and quality of the service was worth considerably less. Once again, I’m reminded that I really need to revise my rating system…
Meanwhile, I’ve discovered the limitations of restaurant reviewing via iPhone. Every time I finish a sentence and want to check my notes for the next course, the damned thing has locked itself and I have to keep swiping and password-ing to wake it up. Now, you never get that with a piece of paper, do you?
