Our Man in the Province Can’t Choose
He ate out several times a week, always searching for the tastiest herring, most fun wine, juiciest hamburger or best meat thermometer. But six months ago, journalist Marcel Langedijk swapped Amsterdam for the Province. Is it bearable there for a lover of good food and drink? This time: the joy of having little choice.
Last week I promised to return here to Isaan, a regional cuisine from northeastern Thailand. But, well, I have more things to do in my life than eat out, so Isaan will have to wait a little longer (or ‘the’ Isaan—I’ll come back to that too, because before you know it, such a cuisine will be completely gender-neutral, and if there’s one thing I don’t want, it’s to offend people or cuisines).
In design coffee shops among bearded hipsters
Anyway. I have more to do than eat out, and that too has to do with my move to the Province. Whereas in Amsterdam I was more or less forced to drink coffee, have lunch or dine out because of party students, older single flight attendants with midlife crises, and my wife and daughter, who also wanted to live in our 70 square metres while I worked, here I can work in peace. There, in the capital, I had to do my work in design coffee shops or lunch spots, among bearded hipsters with caps and Apples—I know I have a beard, a cap and an Apple, but I’ve had those since most hipsters were still pooping in their nappies or simply didn’t exist yet.
Drip coffee at four euros a cup
It’s not bad, working among hipsters or people who find everything ‘fucking chill’. It’s also not bad to work in design coffee shops with responsibly sourced wooden furniture that isn’t comfortable. It’s not even bad to drink four-euro drip coffee by the cup while doing so. In fact, it’s fun, because if you don’t like one coffee shop, you simply walk through the door of another one next door. And when you’re done with coffee, you go and demolish some falafel at the neighbour’s, or you struggle through another door and force down a bowl of veganism. Prefer a hamburger, roti, Indonesian, Lebanese, a detox juice or a menu consisting solely of egg dishes? Anything goes. In Amsterdam, but also in every other self-respecting urbanised region. And that’s beautiful and good and hooray.
But also unsettling. The choice is so enormous, and a hospitality business with a new concept opens practically every day, that it could easily give you a little nervous breakdown. Or FOMO, if you prefer, because that sounds cosier.
No fear of FOMO
Here, in the province, I don’t suffer from FOMO, because the choice is extremely limited. Looking for a juice bar? Good luck, friend. Fancy roti? One hundred and fifty kilometres in the opposite direction. Want to order a vegan meal? I don’t think Uber Eats or Deliveroo’s electric-bike friends are allowed on the A28. And that’s fine. I’m typing this piece in my own room, one with a large desk and a chair you can actually sit on. In the distance I can see a meadow, and when I open the window I smell the cows standing in that meadow, chewing grass. Not a hipster in sight. And if I want coffee, I walk downstairs and make it myself, with oat milk if necessary, because you can buy that here after all. When I get hungry, I scramble some eggs and then throw them into a pan with some mushrooms, onion and herbs—I’m going through a breadless phase at the moment.
Boring? Whatever. But I’ll be eating dishes from Isaan—the or the Isaan—soon enough.
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