1 post tagged “beth massa”
Sophia...Sophialaan 55. Be forewarned.
I have read about this place for some time--famed for its bar and artful cocktails. It has a marble bar. Huge and beautiful. Tonight, a Thursday night. Empty. Bad sign. I arrive ahead of my friend Giles. I sit at the empty bar alone save for this one man who is doing nothing at the bar except for stare at me. I am ignored for a good 15 minutes by the staff. Finally the maitre d' or or whatever he was says to me at a distance "Kan ik u hulpen?"
"Can I help you?"
"Can I help you" has a decidedly different implication than "May I offer you a drink?":
"May I offer you a drink?" implies "Welcome to our beautiful restaurant. We hope we can help you relax and enjoy yourself while you are waiting for your companion(s)."
"Can I help you" implies only one thing "Get out of our bar now you filthy hooker."
Giles and I are seated and we decide to go for the 8 course meal. I have had meals like this before. Tiny plates of decadence served up one methodically after another. My best experience dining this way was at Rover's in Seattle. by the 4th course it was a miserable marathon to the end but I loved every minute of being surprisingly overstuffed.
With trepidation we ordered the 8 course experience but were told it would be served in only 6 presentations. Hm. Ok. Let's see how this pans out. I was starving and prepared to pace myself.
The pace was taken care of by the restaurant. Between each niveau morsel served up was copious amounts of time to digest. Way too much time. The only generous portion we were served was the slimy and gamey goose liver...not fois gras mind you...goose liver the size of half of my palm. It was inedible and Giles and I asked that our servings be removed from our sight. It was done so with an unadulterated sarcastic and snide comment from our waitress.
I found myself becoming hungrier as the meal continued. The menu indicated there would be two dessert courses. When our first arrived...a raspberry puree dolloped in the middle with an "egg white foam" (hello Holland. every one got super bored with foams a minimum of 10 years ago and it is all the finer restaurants in all of holland seem obsessed now with whipping them out, pardon the pun), accompanied by a block of spongy and stale green tea sorbet clearly augmented with gelatin...we were waiting for our second dessert course.
Our fatal mistake was not reading the menu closely enough. When the head waiter was informed by Giles that we were waiting for our second dessert course, he promptly repopulatd our table with dessert cutlery, disappeared into the kitchen, and then with an efficiency that would never be replicated during actual dining service, removed our silverware and chided us: "you have already had dessert!!"
When Giles pointed out the second course the waiter informed us that it was a combination of two dessert dishes of which we had already consumed.
At first I thought his appalling behavior was funny and now I find myself enraged.
This is the first time ever I have welcomed, if not craved, the after-dinner espresso not for its expediting effect on the digestive system for for its power as an appetite suppressant. We left the restaurant in haste. Our presence was no longer welcome and we were dying to get out of there. What a horrible restaurant.
So, should you and your beloved ever desire a 6 course meal indulging in horror, disappointment, anger, embarrassment, scorn, and hostility, you will find no finer place than Sophia. Enjoy.
