Author's product rating: 
| Advantages: |
Food is edible |
| Disadvantages: |
Where to start ! |
| Recommend to potential buyers: |
no |
INTRODUCTIONHere is another instalment in my small town Netherlands restaurant guide. Today we take you to a very Dutch restaurant - in the sense that being a foreigner doesn't do you any favours. We are still in the exciting metropolis of Breda, South Netherlands one time home of William of Orange, King Charles II and arrogant Dutch footballer (as if there's any other kind) Pierre van Hooijdonk. This was a place that had escaped my attentions for some time, quietly tucked away on a side street just past the main square (Grote Markt). It's the sort of place you could just pass by without really noticing and this is exactly what has happened to me. I was told it was OK, and in my quest to try every restaurant in town, well, I had to go anyway.
THE RESTAURANTDe 3 Vrienden (The 3 Friends) is a chain of restaurants, having branches in other salubrious locations in The Netherlands, half of which I've never even heard of - Amersfoort, Amsterdam, Bussum, Maarssen, Utrecht and Zeist.
There is some space outside to dine in the summer, which is when you find a few tables out on the front, so you can more or less see the main square from here. The outside appearance is quite undemonstrative; there are a couple of small logos with the restaurant name and a menu posted by the door, but otherwise it's quite understandable why I hadn't been here before. From the outside, the restaurant looks quite small, and it's something of a surprise to walk in and see that it is quite large, with the building being pretty deep.
The décor was very pleasing; old style tables and chairs, coupled with artefacts all around that pertained to be types of antiquity; musty looking bookshelves in the corners, crammed with books (surely glued in; one case was right above some tables and would have finished off the people on the table below had the books toppled). The ambience seemed parochial (in a staff chummy to the regulars, Deliverance banjo player kind of way) but convivial enough. This makes sense when looking at the other banjo twanging locations this chain is ensconced in. The restaurant was pretty full when we arrived and we managed to get one of the remaining small tables; there seemed to be room for about 40 diners. There were 2 main sections of the restaurant, and we were stationed more or less between then, on a small table near to the bar area, where we could spy the dessert ports they were showing off to the table next to us who were already on their cheeseboard dessert (although I wouldn't rule this out as being the main meal here, such is the local penchant for bread and cheese).
FUN WITH BABEL FISHAs the website in entirely in Dutch, I've had to use, via a verbatim translation from Babel Fish. Immature I know, but it always amuses me:
"Since June 2005 in breda restaurant the 3 friends has established. The monumental pand to Saint Janstraat 4 are extremely suitable for sfeervolle, culinary and sociable evening from._ Directly at entry you feel huiselijke environment. Much wood, sociable hoekjes and the different levels ensure a pleasant spot to enjoy nicely. The diversity to environment reduction makes total completely._
The 3 friends use an unique pricing (all Courts costs 8.50 euro). The large mixture of the Courts ensures that culinarily much square you from is possible!_ Hou you of fish, of flesh, of salads or vegetarian, there are for everyone a wide choice to delicious Courts. All Courts have the format of voorgerechtje, thus you can taste several Courts for an attractive price."_
"diversity to environment reduction" seems particularly accurate to me.
SERVICE
You may have gathered by now that I don't consider service to be a strong point in the Netherlands and this didn't particularly help to change my mind.
When we arrived, we were shown to a table with the minimum of fuss, and the waitress asked if we'd been before and if we were familiar with their concept of ordering several small dishes. So far so helpful and friendly. The waitress returned shortly later to inform us there were no menus in English, and that as the restaurant was busy, she would have no time to explain the menu. Well, my friend and myself can just about work out Dutch menus so we didn't need the help but to me the waitress was telling us that she couldn't actually be bothered, as I noted the busy restaurant didn't appear to stop her chatting to some of the other banjo plucking albino customers (they weren't really - but they could have been).
Then a little later, she came back to tell us they didn't accept foreign credit or debit cards. Well OK we said, we had cash anyway. Again, I found this rather curious, and perhaps they've had bad experiences before with foreigners paying. I did find it odd that she automatically seemed to think we were clueless tourists or something, especially since some big international companies have offices in and around Breda. As a somewhat seasoned traveller I took great exception to this. If she'd had actually asked first if we needed help or wanted to pay by card that might not have put my back up as much. My friend has lived in Breda for a year too, so we are no strangers to the scene, even if our Dutch admittedly leaves something to be desired. She had made a lot of assumptions and rather rudely put them to us, in the customary blunt manner of the Dutch; perhaps it would have been different had she broached the matters in a way you would expect someone working in customer service to do. But I have come to understand some time ago that the normal customer service rules don't apply in The Netherlands.
A short time later the restaurant manager approached us and offered to explain the menu, probably having seen our faces of incredulity from our previous encounters with his staff, and I have to say from that point onwards, both the manager and the rest of the staff that attended to us that night were very helpful and friendly. We even shared a little light hearted banter. He didn't seem too happy when I said I could understand the menu somewhat, as in some words Dutch was similar to Swedish, but this was just an added bonus to the evening. I shall make a note of that one!
FOODThe concept as alluded to via Babel Fish is you pick several dishes off the menu, as they're not full size. Each dish has an unsuitably pretentious name. Examples of what you can pick are caesar salad, a trio of sausages, red chicken curry, spinach salad, Portobello mushroom with ratatouille, carpaccio with honey mustard dressing, salmon fillet, noodles with pork, grilled steak, and classic Portuguese fish soup. Each dish is 8.5 Euros. You can also order sides for 3 Euros - French fries, green salad and bread. Desserts such as coconut tart with chocolate ice cream, pistachio, almond and walnut ice cream and a European cheeseboard are on offer. Finally, there is a selection of aperitifs such as port, digestives such as cognac and liqueur coffees.
I ordered the Portuguese fish soup (which contained lobster, prawn and mussels but it said scallops rather than mussels on the menu if I read it right) and salmon fillet. The dishes arrived as courses, so the soup came first, then some time later the salmon. We were also treated to some fresh bread before they arrived, which was, as usual, delicious. My friend correspondingly got the carpaccio and pork with noodles he'd ordered as separate courses. The soup was OK but nothing special; a bit salty and not much substance to it. There was a couple of mussels in it, but in the main it was a reddish liquid, with virtually no chunks of fishy stuff in it.
The salmon fillet was small, even taking into account the intended size, and a bit dry, having been fried and dried off. When ordering, I am certain that I was asked if I wanted rice with the fish. I was therefore a little nonplussed when some chunky chips arrived with some aioli. I enquired about this apparent mistake and I was told oh no, I ordered FRIES not RICE. Neither I nor my friend were at all convinced by this, but knowing that in this country the customer is always wrong, I didn't argue, and they were actually the best bit of the meal; bit fat, crispy chips, not at all greasy, with a nice creamy aioli. I am informed that by my friend that the carpaccio was reasonable in taste and presentation. He also had the pork strips with noodles, which to me looked pretty good, if not a little bit small, and he assures me that they tasted just as good. It certainly had the appearance of a dish that would be at home in a Thai restaurant.
So a bit of a mixed bag really; the food was acceptable but in the main unmemorable. It strikes me that their "unique pricing" of small dishes is just a way to inflate the prices and reduce the size of the dishes, and giving them fancy names to fool the unsuspecting locals who definitely wouldn't know better. In trying to have an eclectic mix of dishes, I think the food suffers from an identity crisis. They seem to promote the idea of several mixed dishes, but there is no overall signature style. No doubt this was dreamed up by some chump in head office, but fair play, it seems popular with the locals; not that this is a recommendation of any kind.
CONCLUSION
This was another example of reasonable and yet unspectacular Dutch cuisine, a little expensive for what it is. Perhaps I should be charitable, but I'm not in the mood. If you're from Breda and have never, ever seen the outside world, then this is the perfect place for you and your banjo.
CONTACT INFORMATION
De 3 Vrienden Breda
St. Janstraat 4
4811 ZL Breda,
The Netherlands.
Tel: (+31) 76 - 5335880
e-mail: breda@de3vrienden.nl
Website (in Dutch) - http://www.de3vrienden.nl/Breda/breda.htm
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