Our Man in the Provinces Is Struggling—in the Provinces
He ate out several times a week, always on the lookout for the tastiest herring, most fun wine, juiciest hamburger or best meat thermometer. But then journalist Marcel Langedijk swapped Amsterdam for the Provinces. Is it bearable there for a lover of good food and drink? Not on January 2.
It wasn’t that my wife and I wanted to act like snobs, but we fancied a glass of champagne. Preferably in an enriching setting with fun people, a fireplace, oysters and steak tartare. Again, nothing snobbish, but it was January 2, the weather was bleak as hell, we’d been living in the provinces for almost a year and we’d watched The Irishman over New Year’s. Great film, even with oliebollen, but we wanted to start the year a little more thrillingly. Because they may have been able to take us out of the big city, but they couldn’t take the big city out of us. That feeling.
Prefab trays of sausage
Long story short: you’re seriously out of luck if you live in the provinces. We searched away merrily. We typed in: champagne, caviar, oysters, steak tartare, provinces, and Google almost laughed in our faces. We could get a bottle of champagne at an Albert Heijn fifteen kilometers away, and they surely still had some prefab trays of sausage, olives and young cheese left too. But we’d have to imagine the enriching setting ourselves today.
That was a bit much for us. We wanted to go out, brave the grayness and relax in an establishment in something other than sweatpants. If necessary with annoying people and without oysters. Surely SOMETHING would be open on January 2?
There would be champagne
Nope. In our immediate surroundings, every single restaurant and café was genuinely closed, apart from a stray Chinese restaurant, shawarma king or pizza king. We widened the search area and, after some serious searching and calling, found a Thai restaurant that looked pretty good and still had a lunch table for two available. They had no fireplace, no oysters, no caviar, but they did have champagne, and the place would be full, the person answering the phone said. Perhaps enrichment was on the horizon.
In the center of attention
The food was delicious, even a worthy competitor to my favorite Thai restaurant. The owner was there too, as was his Thai wife. They were busy serving, mostly focusing on familiar guests. Those guests sat by the window; we had a spot in the middle of the restaurant, where we mainly seemed to be in the serving staff’s way. Still, we’d made a late reservation and wanted to be the center of attention for once, so no complaints on that front.
Three phone calculators
Was it enriching otherwise? Yes, in terms of food and drink. And the many servers who visited our table or accidentally bumped into us were all extremely friendly too. As for the guests, we were mainly intrigued by the two couples who spent longer dividing the bill—three phone calculators were involved—and the couple who, after lengthy (I’m telling you: very lengthy) deliberations with the owner, settled on a whole sea bream because he recommended it.
Sea bream fillet
After which there was a great deal of whispering—we were sitting close by, but couldn’t hear the discussion—and the owner was called over again to check whether that whole sea bream was a fillet. No, said the owner, it’s a whole sea bream; otherwise he would have said sea bream fillet. He remained polite, very polite, but venom dripped from his chin. In the end, they decided on green curry with chicken after all. Was that still possible? It wasn’t a problem, the owner said, as we heard the enamel on his teeth crack.
Not enriching, but entertaining. And champagne with fish cakes comes highly recommended.
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