Please note that since writing this blog post, Little Buddha has closed down
Let me introduce you to two of Amsterdam’s most terrifying diners: Ms D, owner of soon-to-open super-chic Italian wine bar slap bang the centre of Amsterdam; and Ms F, chef, cookery teacher and all-round culinary genius. I think I’ve mentioned both of them to you before, but last night, for the first time, all three of us sat around the same table in the same restaurant. In the eight months we’ve known each other, we realised we’d never actually been out for dinner together.
Last night we’d booked to see Kelis at Paradiso as a birthday surprise for Ms D, so Little Buddha seemed an ideal venue to gear up for the performance with some pre-concert drinks and Asian fare. Little did the Buddha staff know, their worst nightmare was about to come true.
Of the three of us, I know the least about wine, and am certainly not the greatest cook. I’m also British, which means I have a habit of never sending things back and instead moaning about them afterwards. These ladies, on the other hand, know their stuff AND have the balls to get in people’s faces about it. We were – frankly – a formidable trio.
So here’s what happened. On arrival, we spent some minutes trying to figure out where on earth the cloakroom staff had disappeared to and who might know which was our table. Fortunately, Ms F has friends in Buddhist places, so we were all furnished with a ludicrously strong single-malt-and-elderflower cocktail while we waited for some admin to happen.
The menu is Asian, and encourages sharing, so share we did. First up were some crab cakes. Well, I say crab cakes, because that’s what it said on the menu, but we didn’t see much crab in evidence, and the texture felt more like a very dry fish cake. The menu also mentioned spicy mayonnaise, but there wasn’t much of that in evidence either.
Our second starter was an assortment of “sushi” (again, the quotation marks come from the menu. Was it so-called sushi?). The salmon was fine, but the tuna and halibut were not as fresh as they could have been. The wasabi was, in many ways, the best bit.
We chose three mains: a Mongolian beef dish made with tender strips of beef and a generic hoisin-based sauce; a so-called ‘angry roasted Jidory chicken’ which came with whole roasted chillies (hence the three asterisks for ‘very spicey’ [sic]) and a sauce that tasted more Tex-Mex than Asian; and a ‘cherry-smoked salmon’ that smokes less than I do (which is not at all, except passively) with a yuzu sauce. I liked this, but it wasn’t what it said on the tin.
Oh, and then there was the wine fiasco. We’d ordered a bottle of the house French Sauvignon Blanc, only when it arrived it wasn’t French at all. It wasn’t cold either, so we sent it back and got something from New Zealand instead. Apparently the house wine had changed, but no one had thought to tell the customer. As you do.
It wouldn’t be entirely helpful of me to tell you what we actually paid for dinner, because we got the crab cakes knocked off the bill, the cocktails for free and the wine for less than it actually cost. (That’s what happens when you go out with two people who are neither afraid to send things back, nor talk loudly about the review we’d be writing afterwards.) But at full price I expect we’d have racked up over €50 each. As a night out, I still rate Little Buddha for atmosphere and drinks (not to mention the jaw-achingly hot barman who mixed our whisky concoctions). But chef needs to read the menu – and then cook what’s on it. Oh, and learn how to spell.
