The first was a delicate little dish of white asparagus, raspberries, tomato, some other kind of foam, and a creamy champagne sauce. The cone of beetroot-filled paper, and the wasabi-flavoured foam, on the other hand, were a little easier on the palate.Īt this point, I was quite glad the amuses had come to an end, as the “real” courses were more my style. It was followed up by something that I’ll call The Valentine’s Dish: white chocolate hearts filled with caviar (which was odd, frankly), scarlet throbbing hearts of beetroot, and – uhmm – a bit of herring. Next came a slow-poached egg yolk in a bird’s nest (shredded wheat?!) with a sauce the texture of Hollandaise and various bits of shrubbery. “Baguettes of meltingness” might not be the most elegant term I could have come up with, but it was pretty much impossible to figure out what they tasted like, since they had a habit of disappearing as soon as you got them anywhere near saliva. The first amuse was more like dessert: something that looked like a sponge finger sandwich turned out to be a far more ephemeral concoction of strawberries and foie gras gripped between two mini baguettes of meltingness, all accompanied by a yuzu foam-mousse affair. Samhoud’s menu started as it meant to go on: molecular and rather sweet. Actually, I doubt he ever mentioned that last bit. Even if doing the job is going to cost you €250. As my dad always said: if a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing properly. We decided to go for the six-course tasting menu (plus four or so amuses) with wine pairings. We started with a cocktail in the lounge downstairs, which took a long time to arrive and was marginally too sweet (for a Hemingway Daiquiri), too oily (for a Martini) and too weak (for a Cosmopolitan).ĭinner itself was upstairs, with a view over the Oosterdok from a warm, comfy, upholstered dining chair. Our first high-rolling dinner was at &samhoud places, which I’m going to call Samhoud from now on because symbols in proper nouns belong firmly to 90s musicians, and besides, I harbour a hatred of ampersands. And so it was that we formed the Foodie Girls Dining Club…
It’s all about priorities, peeps…) Happily for me, I know three discerning ladies – one Singaporean chef, one French marketeer and one Australian designer – who have the same first-world problem as me. (Before you get out your tiny violins to play the soundtrack to my first-world problems, consider that many people are prepared to spend double that amount on a pair of shoes. The problem with deciding to sink upwards of €200 into dinner is that, having made that decision, it’s tough to find someone else who’s willing to sink upwards of €200 into dinner with you. Please note that since writing this blog post, &samhoud places has closed down
0 kommentar(er)
