Please note that since writing this blog post, Greetje has closed down
When the waiter at Greetje brought us our menus, he asked whether we’d prefer English or Dutch. Since we didn’t mind, he brought both. I opened the English first, and was bemused to read that we could eat ‘kitchen maid’s sorrow soup’ to start, and either a ‘Rolling Bitch’ or something that involved a ‘pigeon’s hangover’ for dessert. It was a bit like being in China, where translations are capable of going so awry it’s easiest to ignore the menus altogether. So I consulted the Dutch version to see if this would help. It didn’t. Apparently the old word for schorseneren (or salsify) is indeed keukenmeidverdriet, while there really is a sweet custardy dish known as ‘duivenkater’. I was intrigued.
Over a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc from Tourraine in the Loire valley, I ordered the stewing beef terrine, wrapped in smoked beef and served with shallot mayonnaise and a herb salad. It tasted wonderful on its own, but I thought it would taste even better with bread, so I asked for some. The rustic brown and white bread arrived immediately with butter and something that I thought at the time was beef dripping but, with hindsight, could’ve been goose fat with tiny flecks of meat left in it. Either way, I could probably have skipped the next two courses and spent the rest of the evening (if not the rest of my life) grazing on bread dipped in beef/duck/goose/something-gorgeously-salty-and-meaty dripping. My god it was good.
Next I ate roasted quail with fresh duck livers, steamed spinach and a creamy port sauce. I sucked the flesh off the quail bones and nearly melted along with the almost-raw livers that slid over my palate. My girl-date (it being Valentine’s weekend, it was tricky to go out for dinner with any boys) reported similarly excellent fare. Smoked duck breast with onion compote to start, followed by a puff-pastry pie filled with stewed beef, mash and red cabbage suffused with the wintry warmth of fragrant cloves. Totally old-fashioned comfort food. Incidentally, the restaurant is named after the owner’s mother. Greetje was clearly a very good cook.
