Location: Reguliersdwarsstraat 8, 1017 BM Amsterdam
Date Tasted: January 25th, 2020 (Saturday) (lunch)
Price: 12,50 Euro
Beverage: Juliper Lager
Introduction: On my first day in Amsterdam I wandered through the windy, crowded, overcast streets looking for a place to duck into for an affordable sit-down lunch while waiting for my hotel room to be available for check-in. Without any guidance from friends or the concierge, picking a restaurant in this city, like many, is roulette.
The small restaurant was a mixture of cuisines from Latin Nachos and Barbacoa to Burgers to Carpaccio!? Ok, let’s give it a whirl.
Presentation: 7/10. As you can see from the picture, the presentation was not terrible, but not something I would write home about.
Taste: A squeeze of lemon helped to add some brightness to this dim dish.
Needed salt, and pepper. None on the table and unfortunately the waitress never came back to check on the dish (or provide the opportunity to order another round).
If there was balsamic as part of the dressing it was not detectable, I think the dressing was simply olive oil with ground basil or similar herb infusion.
On the plus side, there were no overpowering red onions. Don’t get me wrong, onions are one of my favorite things on earth, but the majority of the time they do not belong on carpaccio in any meaningful quantity…
Straight arugula – good, keep it simple. But, as you can see, under-dressed and dry in a way that made you feel like you’re eating healthy-ish.
I’m seeing a trend of this half-crumpled Parmesan treatment here in Amsterdam instead of nice large, flat shavings. Cheese treatment was sub-par.
The meat was of the right temperature, which generally means it was not too cold, but it was terrible quality. It had a coarse texture that was difficult to chew or cut, and needless to say that was quite a distraction when there was nothing else about the treatment to enjoy.
Size: Small. I’ve seen smaller but this is not really a dish to share, had people really wanted to share if it was better quality. I’ve seen some restaurants even hollow out the meat from the middle of the plate under where the arugula goes. Thankfully they were not that cheap even though they clearly cheaped-out on the meat quality. Orrrr, maybe they were having a bad day at the butcher shop. Let’s call the size of this dish “mercifully small”.
Value: In a pure cost sense this dish was inexpensive, but considering the quality, the value was zero.
Overall Score: 2/10– do not try.
Reasoning: When it comes down to it, there is no more important factor for good carpaccio than starting with excellent meat. You can put lipstick on a pig but underneath it still stinks. At it’s core, carpaccio can be a lot like prosciutto, it can be eaten with little more than a light salt and pepper, although a treatment like that would clearly draw an appropriately scathing review.
Fix the meat, EVOO on the greens, balsamic drizzle, and put some damn cheese on the thing – that would go a long way.