Culinary Bliss
November 6, 2009
Last evening, I invited Suzanne and Maggie over for eggplant rollatini. Turned out pretty well. I got the "aubergines" for about EU1 a piece, sliced them as thinly as I could, breaded them and baked them for about 30 minutes. After they cooled a bit, I rolled into the eggplant a ricotta and mozzarella mixture, and baked with sauce and cheese for another 30 minutes. Simple, crispy, yummy.
Amberes
As you may know from much earlier Netherlands entries, I had the pleasure of being introduced to a friend of a friend prior to arriving in Utrecht - Arjan. Rusty actually is on loan from him. After a few months of meeting for "coffie" and the occasional beer, we have found an enormous amount of overlapping interests, one being gastronomy. On Wednesday, he introduced me to an amazing culinary trove - Amberes. We agreed to meet for a beer at Orloff (quickly becoming my most-frequented bar) then head to dinner. We rode from Orloff to Amberes in the cold Dutch rain.
There were two servers on staff - one was also the maitre 'd and the sommelier. About ten tables, dressed in crisp, heavy white table cloths, offered seating for thirty guests at most. The butcher block shown on the website was the most ornamental object in the dining room, and was actually used by the staff to prepare the jamon appetizer we ordered.
The maitre 'd seated us, and greeted us in Dutch for a few words. In English: "Welcome to Amberes. Have you dined with us before?" I answered, "No" with a big smile, excited to hear what this man was going to tell me about the next three delicious hours of my life.
The owner and chef is a Dutchman who left the Netherlands at age 30 to study cooking in Antwerp. He studied there for many years, under many different chefs in numerous restaurants, and returned to open a restaurant here in Utrecht, an homage to influences by a Spanish kitchen in which he worked. Amberes is the Spanish name for the city of Antwerp. The chef is the only person working in the kitchen; each dish is prepared entirely by him.
There is no menu, and the format is prix fixe. We had the option of a three-, four-, or five-course dinner. Before placing our order, the server would update us on what was still available from the kitchen. Today: scallops, oysters, sole, perch, various beef cuts, veal, sweetbreads, lobster, and Dutch wild pheasant. He would return in a while to find out what we would not like to eat (allergy and preference), and the chef would take care of the rest.
We started with fresh, crusty rolls and the jamon appetizer - four or five varieties of Spanish cured ham. It looks similar to prosciutto, but has been cured for much longer, up to 18 months. Although we didn't enjoy it this night, Arjan told me about speciality jamon, made from the meat of the black Iberian pig and pigs fed only acorns. He and his friends have travelled to the small mountain village where these are exclusively produced and savored small amounts of this pricy delicacy, allegedly never to be equally satisfied by food since.
The server returned. "Have you decided?" Looking at me, but addressing the server, Arjan queried more than decided, "Thre... four?" with a cheeky smile. The server winked at me and went away for the wine list (actually two leather-bound volumes, one listing red wines and one whites).
Looking over his shoulder to get the server's attention, Arjan noticed the giant chalkboard hanging over the bar for the first time. "Oh, they have oysters!" And so we had the oysters, too. They were from the North Sea, I think. They were crisp, cold, and substantial. Some of the "cleanest"-tasting oysters I have ever had.
The first course: lobster bisque. Next, veal tartare. Then, seared scallops over herbed risotto. Finally, an unknown cut of ultra tender beef, seared, but almost entirely rare, thinly sliced, over seasonal vegetables. Every bite was a dream. The server explained all the dishes in Dutch, then briefly in English. The chef presented the final course to us, and we had a chance to thank him (especially for the tartare). Many glasses of wine later, we floated from Amberes, gastronomic champions.
A Note on Exams:
Today at 5pm, Maggie and I will submit the last final exam - a take home exam for Introduction to Dutch Law. I would have been finished with exams for this Period on Tuesday. However, the Dutch Law exam - which was supposed to be posted last Friday - was absent all weekend, to all the students' dismay. Some people were angry because they had reserved certain time for each exam, including preparation and completion (Maggie had two closed-book in-class exams Wednesday and Thursday she needed to prepare for). Instead, we waited and waited, and texted and emailed each other to make sure we didn't miss the exam obscurely located on the web page.
Alas, on Monday, when it was to be due, we received an apologetic email from the Professor:
"Dear students, I promised the examination to be posted last friday morning, and gave instructions to that end. As I was at the other side of the world, I had no immediate control - exam was not posted. I am horrified. My well meant excuses!"
Anyway, that's done today at 5pm. Hooray.
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