Gennep, Netherlands, May 26—
EVEN AFTER THE DISAPPOINTMENT of the Wolfsberg dinner, I was immediately drawn to the traditioneel asperges in the Hotel Kroon. The bar and dining room were so authentic: the tables lacked only the hairy carpet-like tablecovers, the people at the next table lacked only their cigarettes, to have convinced me we'd slipped a few decades.
The bartender-maitre d' was fortyish, a little bent already, lean; and he boasted a magnificent curly mustache: he looked like a benign clerk in a Tintin book. The waitress, a sixteen-year-old girl, fresh and friendly and a little timid, could have stepped out of an old painting.
I had a genever to start, then the aspergesarrangement: four or five fat white asparagus stalks, boiled ham, a perfect egg perfectly hard-boiled, with beautiful little boiled potatoes on the side. A little cup of Hollandaise sauce, a pitcher of drawn butter, and a dish of powdered nutmeg completed the dish. Absolutely delicious.
Dry white wine (house wine, sound and crisp).
No comments:
Post a Comment