When I first arrived in Amsterdam over six years ago, my brother challenged me to find a good Indonesian restaurant in the city known for its large Indonesian population. In my first year here, I chanced upon Sampurna in the flower market; though I haven’t visited since I was a student, I was impressed. I can’t vouch for its quality or authenticity now but, on the grounds of that experience alone, I couldn’t understand my brother’s cynicism towards Indonesian cuisine in Amsterdam.
I was not prepared, then, for the gastro-disaster that awaited me when I ate in one of Amsterdam’s Indonesian institutions: Kantjil en de Tijger. I had the vague feeling that reviews were good, though I couldn’t remember who I’d got this impression from and whether they were a reliable source; clearly they were not. Confronted with a long and complicated menu (the dishes were on one laminated piece of card while the prices were on another; the reasoning was beyond me), we chose the Kantjil rijstafel, on the grounds that the restaurant’s eponymous dish should be its best. A plethora of dishes arrived, which had clearly been sitting around in the kitchen long enough to have become completely cold. The salad was stale and swimming in peanut gloop, the beef rendang tough and stringy, the satay far less satisfying than many I’ve tasted in ordinary Dutch eetcafes. On the plus side, dinner was relatively inexpensive, and the wait was short. Too short, perhaps.
Kantjil would be better described as a fast food restaurant: low cost, re-heated food in a functional, canteen environment.