Delivery review: Nayolie’s takeaway meal, the best Asian restaurant of 2020
In this crazy corona era, restaurants are closed, so we’re happily dining out at home. Fortunately, many new and special takeaway and delivery restaurants are opening. And we’re going to test them for you. That way, we can keep eating well and support the hospitality industry. Today: Nayolie in Voorschoten.
Raised with a wok spoon
Restaurant guide GaultMillau named this restaurant the best Asian restaurant of 2020, so that says something. Last year, Nayolie, the lunchroom in Voorschoten named after his girlfriend, suddenly became ‘Nayolie by Kelvin Lin’, a food & wine bar serving high-level Asian-fusion dishes. We already knew this funny chef from his former restaurant Red Chilli, a crazy Chinese takeaway next to the motorway, where the cooking was bizarrely good. Kelvin grew up in the restaurant world with a wok spoon in hand, but only really learned to cook in Asia.
Now this culinary whizz is teaching the whole of the Netherlands to cook, because with his new takeaway menu he is catering not only to Voorschoten; people from Haarlem and Amsterdam can also get to know his top dishes.
22 containers
In the morning, Kelvin sends a message with written cooking instructions and a series of videos in which he explains in a wonderfully relaxed way, dish by dish, how the little dishes should be assembled. And how long he has already spent in the kitchen, so that all you have to do is put everything together. The downside of the videos is that you feel like eating for the rest of the day. In the afternoon, you can pick up the bag of ingredients. My doorbell rings. It’s a friend of the chef. ‘Normally Amsterdammers can pick this up from my home, but I’ll drop it off with you for a moment.’ I’ve already had the chance to taste the menu, and it’s exceptionally good.
I put all the plastic containers on the table. No fewer than 22. Each container has a colour code attached with a piece of tape. Anyone can cook with Ravensburger.
Maguro tuna
Once the containers have been sorted by colour, and my courage has abandoned me, I pour myself a glass of wine and pull myself together. First up is the Maguro tuna. In the video, the chef demonstrates how he stacks his dishes. You always eat his dishes from top to bottom. The marinated tuna, a teaspoon of madras and the ‘peanut lekkah lekkah’ are lovingly covered with a shiso leaf. Once everyone is seated at the table, the chef explains, the green vinaigrette, which must be shaken in a random bottle until it is nicely frothy, can be poured next to the tuna. The dish is soft and rich in flavour. It gives me the confidence to continue with the next course.
Hokkaido scallops
For the second dish, everything really has to be brought out. Well, at least my frying pan and a saucepan. For the second time in this corona takeaway situation, my cooking skills are put to the test with a scallop (do you remember Pesca’s takeaway meal?), but like a seasoned chef I sear it until cooked in no time, while apparently nonchalantly stirring a sauce in the meantime. I roll the lightly browned scallops in the container with red oil, then dip them in sesame seeds and scatter the apple and chives over them, while heating the asparagus and sauce. I bang out a funny little tune on the pans with a ladle, because that’s part of being a top chef. The tiny flowers placed over the dish make it a feast for the eyes. It’s a shame to eat it, but fortunately it tastes so good that the guilt disappears like snow in our new climate.
Langoustine-prawn ravioli
The next dish. In a pan, I create a whirlpool of boiling water into which I lower the prawn ravioli. Once they float, they’re cooked and can go onto a plate, topped with the herbs and katsuobushi—in other words, the fermented bonito flakes that move gracefully in the heat. Always good for an ‘ooh-and-aah’ moment in a restaurant, and certainly at home. The delicate pasta made with tapioca flour, the wonderfully crunchy prawns and the reduced sauce (‘from 50 to 5 litres; I did all that for you, saving you two days’ work’), the chef tells me, bring me back down to earth: I’m not making all this myself after all. Cooking is genuinely fun, I discover. Suddenly I understand why people have kitchens.
Hanwoo beef
On to the real work: frying the beautifully marbled meat at a high temperature. ‘The pan needs to be screaming hot to achieve the so-called Maillard reaction, so turn the extractor fan up high and open the doors,’ advises the chef. This is the reaction between sugars and amino acids that makes our meat brown and flavoursome. The meat is stacked on the parsnip cream, with the massaman poured over it. So happiness is that simple, then. The tender meat, the full flavour. A person needs nothing more.
Can Nayolie cook for us more often?
Does Dolly Parton sleep on her back?! These containers have rekindled my pleasure in cooking, but especially in fine dining, and I can’t wait to travel to Voorschoten one day. The flavours and presentations were truly exceptional, and in hindsight it wasn’t difficult, thanks to the clear instructions on paper and video. Nayolie by Kelvin’s dishes can be collected from his restaurant in Voorschoten, from his colleagues at restaurant Ratatouille in Haarlem, and now also in Amsterdam. The four-course menu costs € 49.50—and you really do get beautiful products for that. Without needing any particular talent, you can turn your own kitchen into that of a Chinese Michelin-starred restaurant. If you want to impress your corona date—or yourself—this is highly recommended.
Read also:
