Never again eetcafe Fatiem

Femke is such a sweet girl – today she took me out for dinner. The choice fell on Fatiem, a North African restaurant in de Pip that came highly recommended from a Dutch newspapers food critic. The place was rather simple, which is fine by us. The service was very slow, which is not so nice, but if you are waiting for good food, you can take a lot.
Starters were OK, but not spectacular. A lot later, the mains came in. Feke had a couscous, which was fine, but not very special. I ordered a tajine, which is a slow-cooked clay pot-stew that I normally find delicious. But already at my first taste, I pushed it away. It was as if something was old in it, a very odd an unpleasant taste. I asked Femke to try it, and she had the same experience. So I went down to the kitchen (we hardly ever saw the waiter) and explained the situation. They couldn’t understand it, since they only used fresh ingrediences, but kindly offered me to take it of the bill, which I accepted. By now, I had lost my appetite, so I only had a little of Femke’s dish.

Later, when we went down to pay (still no sign of the waiter, nor the drink I ordered, despite asking for it twice), Femke got a serious verbal bashing from the girl in the kitchen! She said that we knew nothing about food, that they never had a dissatisfied customer before and that we were cheapskates trying to get away with only one dish. Unbelievable! Unfortunately, this was all in Dutch, so I didn’t understand the gravity of her accusations until Femke told me on the outside. Otherwise, I would have told the chef one or two things.
You wonder how they think when they attack customers like this, in front of all the other customers. On thing is for sure – we will never go there again, and we will discourage everyone we know not to go there. After all, you go to a restaurant to have good food and a nice time, and we had neither.

After this debacle, we had a beer at the old-style bar Hoppe (with a history that goes back to 1670). Now, this is my kind of place – good beer, friendly staff and sand on the floor.