Location: Market 21, 5911 HD Venlo, Netherlands
Date Tasted: (Monday) (dinner)
Price: 9,95 Euro
Beverage: Zolla Primitivo
Menu Description: Carpaccio di Manzo
Intro: It’s a little unclear to the non-local why this restaurant has two names. Is it Old Dutch or is it La Trattoria? Apparently it’s La Trattoria inside Old Dutch. Maybe they were inspired by Intel Inside®.
Never in my life have I been to a place that was supposed to take credit cards but didn’t actually take Visa or Amex. I needed to run to an ATM to pay for dinner, but it wasn’t a big deal since there was one just at the end of the block. Such appears to be the normal way of doing business in this small Dutch town as I have been needing to pay for the majority of things with Euro instead of credit cards.
Presentation: 10/10. This was a presentation where you couldn’t help but say “wow” when it landed on the table. Gigantic square plate with four large strips of carpaccio laid horizontally and covered with an absolutely perfect ratio of arugula and (finally!) a fantastic layer of Parmesan. One of the best I’ve ever seen.
Even though the community cheese grater seems to have been lost thus far on this Netherlands trip, someone at La Trattoria found it. Albeit the wrong shape, this cheese was exactly perfect in rich taste and ratio to the meat – well done.
The balsamic was a reduction rather than an uncooked drizzle, making the dish more sweet than vinegary. That is just a matter of personal preference IMO, and the variety is nice. At the very least this treatment gives a more consistent taste because the reduction sticks where it is placed and does not run off.
It appears that the meat was given a light olive oil treatment before the arugula went on, meaning that the meat moisture was perfect but the arugula could have also benefitted from a small touch of EVOO.
A very key ingredient that was missing that would improve the overall quality (and rating) of this dish was capers – that is a staple. I get that they are a little expensive but they are absolutely essential to this dish and were missing.
There were no onions of any variety, nor nuts or lemon, all of which is perfectly fine.
The only substantial detractor from the dish was that the meat was a bit stringy. Not terrible, but you definitely had to work at it to cut the meat. With the perfect carpaccio meat you should be able to put a strip in your mouth horizontally and easily break it in half by pushing your tongue to the roof of your mouth.
This means the meat is sliced thinly enough and it’s a good enough cut of meat that it doesn’t have strings of fat across it that it takes more than a light touch to break apart. You get the same feel of the stringy nature when working it with a knife, but again the perfect carpaccio cut of meat should be able to be cut with a fork, not a knife.
After tasting, I hit the plate with a dash of salt and fresh cracked pepper, which were notably absent. Fortunately they were on the table so I didn’t have to wait for someone to come by. One could argue that the chef should leave the S&P off to let everyone account for their own tastes. I’m not sure I have ever seen a protein recipe that doesn’t include a seasoning of salt and pepper, so a dish based on raw meat should indeed come with some level of salt and pepper as a representation of the chef’s taste.
Temperature: A touch on the warm side, but not enough to be a detractor. Perhaps it sat in the window a tad long.
Size: Huge – easily shareable for 2.
Value: Excellent
Overall Score: 8.9/10 – would get again
Reasoning: Without a doubt I would order this again, but that doesn’t mean I’m excusing the lack of capers and the tougher-than-it-should-be meat. If you weren’t being critical of the features and were just out for a night at a decent Italian restaurant, you would probably love this dish and move on. Who knows, the next time around you might get an excellent cut of meat – what it does have going for it is the great execution on many of the other ratios and aspects of the dish – well done.