filetto di manzo

Day 2 – Al Dente

Nieuwe Ginnekenstraat 20, 4811 NR Breda
 

  

First Impressions – Excitement. I felt like I should have been on a date though as it seemed like quite a romantic venue.

Interior – I have been to many Italian eateries, ranging from diners with plastic furniture and the classic red and white check tablecloth, to boutique hotel styled restaurants. This one was closer to the boutique style. It felt a bit odd at first because my co-eater this evening was male, I always think people think that 2 men sitting across a table from each other looks quite homosexual. This feeling was exacerbated by the obvious lesbian couple behind us (one of them looked like a full on man and had the voice to go with it, I’m certain she had taken some hormones. Just because you are a lesbian, why does it make you look like that?). Nothing wrong with that though, it just made it look like we were sitting in the gay section. There was a picture of the pope on the shelf behind my co-eater’s head – I’ve never eaten in front of him before.
 

Service – We had two waitresses on this occasion. The menu was in Italian/Dutch but was fairly simple to read. Without asking, the first waitress placed a little rectangle plate in the centre of the table which had on it some salami / a selection of olives / bruschetta with tomatoes / risotto balls in breadcrumbs / prawns with that prawn salad dressing / and some sort of legume which I’ve never had. All very nice, and this was not present on the bill. She also recommended the house wine and smiled constantly throughout our encounters, especially when I told her this place was going to get a good write-up

Food – €18,50 – I ordered tagliatelle con filetto di manzo, rucola e parmigiano (tagliatelle with sliced fillet of beef / parmesan cheese / rocket). Wow! I was instantly trying to compare it to the steak at Los Toros from day 1 but came to the conclusion that the meals were too different and that any comparison wouldn’t really be fair. The meat was cooked perfectly. Absolutely perfect. I think there is about a 10 second window when cooking beef for the optimum time to take it off the heat and I think the chef took it off at precisely the correct moment. It was superb. The pasta had also been cooked with the same degree of precision and the parmesan knitted everything together. It was a very well balanced plate of food without a single ingredient taking over. It was so good I had to share some of the meat with my co-eater who was going mental for it too. The waitress also provided bread and olive oil, and the house montepulciano d'abruzzo was a delight.

 

 

 

Final Thought – This place has thrown a spanner in the works. I have 9 more meals to go and I am in serious danger of returning here too. For the good of the blog I don’t want to, because I’m trying to get a good variety of places, however we both thought that if we come back and have a carne dish with that beef as the star it would be biblical! I’ll go back probably – maybe I can leave work earlier one day, come straight here to eat, and then eat again at 10ish? I don’t really want to start going down that road – but the diary is the most important thing now.

The most important thing for everyone...