Location: Markt 26, 5911 HD Venlo, Netherlands
Date Tasted: (Tuesday) (dinner)
Price: 9,50 Euro
Beverage: Gouverneur Tripel
Menu Description: Carpaccio of home roasted (?) Roast Beef, truffle cream, Parmesan, Balsamic vinegar.
Intro: It’s just another one of those cases of oh so close and yet so far. Whyyyy, is this carpaccio ever so slightly cooked around the edges? Almost literally everything else was perfect. Really loved the slight, light, truffle cream smear on the bottom of the plate before they set down the layers of meat.
Presentation: Believe it or not, this is the first presentation I happened across in all of the Netherlands that actually had the cheese properly shaved. Not grated, not crumbled, not missing. The cheese was as it is supposed to be. Good job. For doing your job. 🙂
However, it could not be missed that the meat was a little bit brown around the edges, and not because it was getting old – they purposefully – it seems – cooked it, just a little bit. The problem is, when you cook meat, you get an odor and you get a residue (grease) typically that throws off a very delicate and very deliberate dish like carpaccio. No bueno.
So, when the dish hit the table I was very excited about several of its attributes and sad about a few of the things that could have been easily remedied/left out, etc.
Pine nuts – excellent addition. Always a winner. The EVOO was on top of the arugula, which is a bonus so it was not dry. Balsamic drizzle.
Strange tomatoes. So, what to say about these? Upon visual inspection it really wasn’t clear whether they were red peppers or tomatoes. After tasting; not fire-roasted, not pickled. Just a strange sort of tomato preparation that was not listed on the menu description. I peeled them off because they were distracting and added nothing.
No capers. Minus points, always minus points. Open up your wallet. If you’re going to spring for pine nuts, get the capers and do it right.
It also appeared that they threw some frisée on top of the arugula. It was also distracting so I pulled it aside. The reason arugula is used in this dish explicitly is because of its flavor, frisée has no flavor and is annoying to chew.
Temperature: Too warm. Totally unacceptable.
Size: Just about right for one. Two people could share this if they were little birds or wanted to share another appetizer.
Value: Good.
Overall Score: 7.5/10 – would get again
Reasoning: I really wanted to rate this higher, but the fact is you cannot cook carpaccio and expect a purist to appreciate it. There were so many other great things about this dish but you have to take care of the basic blocking and tackling so to speak.
Drop the frisée and the weird tomatoes. Add capers, and don’t cook it!