At nine o’clock on Wednesday evening, after I’d ploughed my way through garlic soup, garlic prawns and garlic ice cream, I remembered something: I had a dentist appointment first thing on Thursday morning. Genius!
The dentist probably wasn’t a huge fan of my dinner at Garlic Queen; but was I? First impressions weren’t great. The waiter was somewhat surly, with an obvious distaste for non-Dutch speakers (not ideal anywhere in Amsterdam, but especially right next to the Rembrantplein). The décor involved 80s-style wall photos of the Dutch royal family, lit by plastic-y chandeliers on the ceiling and fake candles in frosted glass on the tables. The menu took the form of a tacky multi-coloured palm tree-clad photo album (if you can imagine that!) with one dish featured on each of its 4×6 inch pages. I couldn’t work out if the tackiness was supposed to be an ironic nod to kitsch, or just bad taste and – worse still – un-user-friendliness.
Still, crashing on. We ordered a mixed starter to share, comprising garlic soup, duck liver pate (with garlic, obviously) and carpaccio of smoked halibut (I don’t think I need to point out the addition of garlic by now). The food actually wasn’t as bad as the décor had led me to fear it might be, but then again we still had a long way to go.
