Central Park by Ron Blaauw (A Tasteem review)

in #tasteem6 years ago (edited)

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This is my review (and my first Tasteem review!) of a 1 star Michelin restaurant in Voorburg which is a suburb of The Hague (Den Haag) in The Netherlands. Now, to avoid the idea that we always dine at these sorts of incredibly high end places, let me just say that we don't! Once or twice a year at most, for a anniversary or a special event, we treat ourselves to a nice restaurant dinner or lunch (after booking the kids into a daycare/school/babysitter or in extreme circumstances, leaving them on the curb outside!).

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Introduction

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We visited this restaurant last month for a special anniversary, it is set back in a quiet part of the town of Voorburg. It is really quite easy to miss it completely if you were driving past. In fact, it doesn't even look like a place that you would think would have a restaurant!

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Even though we knew exactly what we were looking for, we did drive past the entrance a couple of times before noticing this sign....

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Whenever we eat at these places, we just order the set menu. It is more affordable and gives you a nice selection of all the tastes and ideas on offer! This time was no different, we settled on the 5 course meal as cheese platters and I have a long standing disagreement, usually resulting in the cheese winning in a big way!

This particular time, my wife had some really lovely wine (which I forgot to write down and photograph...), but I had to settle with non-alcoholic beverages as I was the driver. Next time, we ride bikes...

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Pre Lunch snacks

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Presentation is a huge part of a Michelin experience, and even the bread was well presented in a tastfully and artfully crumpled bag. However, it was perfectly cripsy on the outside and spongy in the middle, the right sort of bread, not sweet and not fluffy...

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A spiced poppadom and a lime dip rounded out the pre lunch menu, along with a butter that was slightly hinted with pistachio?

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First Course

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First course was raw Yellowfin tuna, served with seared pork belly, veggies and a carmelised disc to top it off! This was a stunning beginning to the meal!

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Second Course

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Second course followed the seafood theme, with a dish of mussels with fennel and various herbs in a wine sauce. Again, the presentation of the food was top notch, indeed, the waitress took great care in even aligning the dish to the right angle!

This was a great compliment to the first course, the taste was not overshadowed or overshadowing....

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Third Course

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Grilled Plaice with Peach and Hazelnuts! I had no idea that fish and nuts would go together at all, after all, one is found in a tree and the other deep in the sea! Well, it is a combination that works amazingly (along with the peach). Definitely something that I would try out again the next time that I cook fish!

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Fourth Course

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BBQ Sirloin and Amandine Potatoes in Mustard Gravy, so moving up to the stronger tastes. Oddly enough, this was the dissapointing part of the menu! The meat was tough and cooked too much on the well-done side of things. This is an odd thing as most steak houses can really do this right, I'm not sure what was at fault, the cooking or the cut of the meat!

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Fifth Course

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Strawberries, Orange, Basil, Almondcake and Yuzu was the dish for dessert. It was a great recovery from the low point of the BBQ steak. All the parts really worked well together and the ice cream (which I guess was the Yuzu) was an unusual citrous taste which really set off all the other parts of the dessert!

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Wrap Up

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A Michelin star restaurant is a great treat for those special occasions. Generally if you order from the set menu and don't go overboard with the wine, you could be looking at around 150 euro for two people. Take out a lot of time for the eating (and the afterglow!), this 5 course meal took a bit over two hours of lesiurely eating!

A single star restaurant is the perfect blend of that lusxurious eating experience combined with a touch of affordability!

However, I stress that this is really only for a treat! It's not a place where you stop off for a quick lunch or dinner, but really a place where you take to dress up and take your time to enjoy the entire food experience with enjoyable company (preferably a special loved one)!

The food is rich and surprisingly filling, and your stomach (and you wallet) will not thank you if you are doing it on a weekly basis!


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Restaurant Information


Central Park by Ron Blaauw
score
Oosteinde 14, 2271 EH Voorburg, Netherlands


Central Park by Ron Blaauw (A Tasteem review)
This post participated in the Tasteem contest Your weekly choice


What is Tasteem?

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#tasteem-curation
hello i'm tasteem supporter @jinuking. i'm struck with high quality @bengy posting so tasteem give special present to you. tasteem look forward to your wonderful posting in the future.

Thank you for the support and curation! Looking forward to further entries, it is an interesting program that tasteem has begun!

Again a nice recap and I have had a few dishes with fish and nuts it does work.

I never would have thought of it, definitely something to try out!

I never would have
Thought of it, definitely
Something to try out!

                 - bengy


I'm a bot. I detect haiku.

Oh! I thought that you had forgotten about me!

Better to give a homeless person a can of tuna to watch your kids...Lol!

Nice post.

Namaste, JaiChai

LOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!

Ha ha! Yes, I should have done that!

Good luck with the contest and the food looks so delicious, thanks for sharing and have a nice day

Thanks! The food was great, and the company was also lovely! Thanks for dropping by!

I thought the prices were still reasonable for a Michelin star restaurant. What did surprise me, was that everybody was wearing a suit.

I've eaten at 2 and 3 Michelin star restaurants in France and Belgium and people were dressed more casually. This is not really criticism, just find it a bit peculiar :)

I think it was mainly because we went for lunch, and people were using it as a business lunch meeting or something like that. Most of the other diners were dressed a bit more casually!

@bengy which of this is likely to come to my table

Ha ha, I'm afraid none of the food survived... I could post you empty plates?

Wow the menus are so yummy.
I like the plate of the food. So instagram able I think

The food was pretty delicious! I probably could have taken better photos if I wasn't so embarrassed about taking photos of food in public!

Now I want to eat more than I wanted a moment ago. Tasty!

He he, mission accomplished!

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh.... i love special restaurants! i truly do! :) and your review was wonderful!

now... something in a tree and something in the sea. come on now! of course they would pair well. they already rhyme!!!! hehehehehe but really - have you never had pistachio encrusted tilapia? mmmm yum! though i don't eat too much tilapia anymore

cheese plates. cheeeeeeeeeeeeeese plates. I can't eat gluten anymore and that bread that you spoke of in the artfully crumpled bag... oh fun! i wish! but if they took away my cheese. what would be the point in living???? i ask you??? LOL

papadum - yum! i can eat that as much as i like because its made with chickpea flour hehehe (basa)

i really thoroughly enjoyed your review! is #tasteem for food reviews??? i've never heard of it before - i'll have to remember that!

Special restaurants for a treat are really a great experience! (this feels weird, are we really having a grown-up conversation???) I don't know, pistachio and tilapia don't rhyme, so I'm not sure if they should go together!

https://tasteem.io/ is a new thing for reviews of restaurants on the STEEM chain, they were one of the big delegations that came in the last couple of months from the high ups... This was my first review on the platform (you need to be whitelisted!), and I'm not sure that they sorted out the problems with how the reviews are ranked at the moment... you can't start with the assumption that Steemit is a completely meritocratic system at the moment!

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