Long Story Long
Just dinner, skip it if you don't care.
Dinner at Vermeer
Finished up work for the week in the Netherlands and decided to treat myself to a night out in Amsterdam (I was working about 40 km away or so).
I have eaten at Christophe before
(link to trip report), but I wanted to try someplace else this time. Vermeer is in the Hotel Barbizon, right next to Central Station, so that's where I went
(link to Web site with annoying Flash intro and navigation).
The inside of the restaurant has a classic dining room feel. Thick white table cloth, upholstered wood chairs, silver candelabras, small interconnecting rooms, marble floors, a fireplace, and Delft blue porcelain tiles around the mantel and at the base of the walls.
In addition to the a la carte menu, they offered a 4-, 5-, and 7- course tasting menu. I took the middle road of the 5-course menu for €75 and wine pairings for €50.
Amuse Bouche
They brought me two amuse bouche plates to warm things up.
The first was a quinelle of cod, slow cooked in milk, then dressed with olive oil and garnished with a sheese-crisp button. The fish was delightfully creamy and light, great way to start.
The second amuse was an oyster with grapefruit sorbet and a small strip of preserved grapefruit zest. This had a much stronger taste of the sea, but the grapefruit mellowed it out a bit, as did the first wine, a petite arvien from Italy's Piedmont region (I though it was very similar to a pinot grigio, and tasty, but nothing special).
First Course
First course is smoked salmon topped with bits of slivered almond, slices of radish, and baby radish greens. Served with baby carrots in cumin, and a poached egg yolk topped by a paper thin slice of lemon, candied.
I had already eaten some of the fish and carrots before snapping that shot.
The radish slices were two sets of one each from three different shaped radishes with different colored skin. They were gorgeous and the peppery taste livened up the smoked salmon.
Quick aside, it's funny that this week radish is the secret ingredient for OOT Iron Chef, and when ricotta was the ingredient, I got to try it in dishes at Tableau in LV.
The carrots were good, too, but the really neat thing I thought was the poached egg yolk (yolk alone, really cool to see on the plate) and the
candied slice of lemon. It was paper thin, and delicious, and went well with the salmon and the egg. I also dipped smoked salmon in the egg yolk and liked that, too.
Second Course
The sommelier brought the next glass of wine, Chateau Montus pacherenc du Vic-Bihl sec. It was dry, had a deep yellow color that is really orange, and a taste so sharp with alcohol it almost tasted like a brandy (specificaly like a grappa or rakija). Didn't care for it, really.
Second course was also fish - zander fish (fresh water fish) with bacon, black truffle shavings, garlic foam, and red cabbage. There was a slab of bacon on the dish, but there was also a couple of thin strips threaded through the fish (nice touch, and I am sure it imparted flavor) It is tough to tell where everything is in this picture, so here is a diagram version.
It was so good, that when I finished I picked up the remaining sauce with my spoon and ate it like soup. I should have just licked the bowl.
For a fresh water fish, it held up really well to the rich flavors of the garlic, truffle, bacon, and red cabbage (which was soft but not mushy).
The incredible thing though, was what it did to the wine. I really did not care for the wine on its own. With those strong flavors, however, the immediate taste of alcohol stripped away, and what was left was a hazelnut taste that was very pleasing.
Up to that point, I though the sommelier was a bit of a showboat, talking too much and not really impressive. After that, he won me over.
Entree
The wine was another surprise - a rich red, very flavorful. The sommelier made me guess what it was (uh, you tell me) and it ends up being an Austrian red, 1995 Weninger. It went well with the entree.
Squab (pigeon) with lentils, greens, and a pastry of goose liver. Served with a black pepper sauce.
This was good, but not as good as the zander fish.
Cheese Course
I love cheese courses. In fact I got the 5-course menu over the 4 course because the extra course was the cheese.
The sommelier asked me to think about what would work and said he would be back. I text-messaged that to Jingleheimer and he wrote back "Dude, is he giving you homework?" Between that and the red wine guessing game I felt like I am taking some kind of quiz.
In the meantime, the waiter prepares the plate. I took a shot of the waiter doing this for a party of five:
Here is the plate I received:
The cheeses were: a soft Dutch goat's cheese, a soft cow's milk from France, a hard aged cow's cheese from France, and a blue from France.
The sommelier decided to really hook me up. He poured me three different sherries.
The first was light and clean to go with the first two cheeses. Next was amontillado for the hard cheese. Last was some freaky ass blend spanning multiple vintages and it looked like a port. Tasted like one, too. I did not like the first one as much as the next two, which were great. The cheeses were also good, especially the blue - very creamy, strong taste, but not too pungent.
Dessert
Dessert wine was a white wine from Germany, a Huxelrebe by Wittman. I am not a big fan of sauternes and other dessert wines generally, but this was delicious. I would get it again.
Vermeer not only gives two little gift courses before the meal starts, they also added in a little dessert. They brought me a plate of cake flavored ice cream, sitting on top of sweet basil and coffee grounds, surrounded by meringue. No flavoring in the meringue, just pure hard white sugar goodness. The cake ice cream tasted like cake batter, and the basil and coffee added a real strong bite to what wa otherwise just sweetness.
I wish I had taken a picture of that, because it also looked pretty cool, with the yellow scoop sitting in a square meringue frame, littel bits of basil and coffee sneaking out of the bottom.
Dessert was some kind of pastry topped with two different custards, one citrus, and the other more caramel. It was good, but it didn't matter by that point. I was too damn stuffed.
I paid the bill (straight cash, homey) and wandered off into the streets.