A decadent lunch in Rotterdam

I had some time to kill last week - not able to go back to work after Brazil as I needed to complete a mandatory ten days away from the office I was at rather a loose end. Unable to face local birding and not wanting to just mooch around the house doing long-postponed jobs, quite last minute I booked a day trip to Holland to go birding. I identified a few decent looking spots around Rotterdam that I could get to on foot from the airport, packed what's left of my bins (major rubber armour flaking issues), and set off early on Tuesday morning. 

The weather had other ideas, and on arrival in Rotterdam it was overcast and extremely breezy, with intensely heavy and thundery storms in the vicinity. Being out in the wilds in these conditions seemed like a bad idea so I elected to instead stay in town and within a short dash of cover. After a little bit of birding at Het Park down at the Nieuwe Maas,(Kingfisher and Short-toed Treecreeper the highlights, a million Egyptian Geese the lowlights), and a nice walk around sections of the massive harbour, I then ambled along to the Witte de Withstraat. Very peculiar coffee shops.... Then I went and had lunch nearby as the clouds gathered. A lengthy lunch. Quite decadent in fact, and made even better by the fact that the promised rain did indeed materialise, was as heavy as forecast, and I was right next to the window looking out at it rather than being stuck in it.

Now I've never done a post like this before so I'm viewing this as a bit of a test. I suspect it's rather a niche subject matter, but you know how it is on this blog. If the thought of gratuitous travel and expensive restaurants doesn't appeal for any reason then just skip it. Anyway, as regular readers will be aware wine is a major interest of mine. It always has been to some extent, but it found new prominence during the various pandemic lockdowns as other interests were forced to wane. Since then I've kept it up quite intensely, and these days I probably spend as much if not more time thinking about wine than I do about birds, photography, plants, travel. Possibly combined. When I eventually retire I will not be short of things to do. Nor things to drink.

I found a restaurant with rather a specialist wine list called Vineum, and it being Tuesday lunchtime there was tons of space. Excellent. I was one of only three covers, which combined with an extremely attentive and knowledgeable member of staff made for a superb experience.

Already looking promising

I had the four course menu for 55 euros which was fantastic value and really good. Although the wine list was monumental and glorious I opted to go for wines by the glass as they had a relatively good selection. I started with some Champagne, after all why not, I was on holiday.

Champagne

Amuse Bouches. Can't remember what they were I'm afraid! But I enjoyed them with the Champagne.

Young mackeral ceviche, leche de tiger with passion fruit, jalapeno, avocado creme. This was as good as it looks, with the tart yet sweet passion fruit coulis in the middle proving an excellent foil to the slippery and highly fresh fish. I don't recall the pepper making much of a mark. One of those pairing combinations that you would never in a million years think of yourself, nor attempt to make at home. This is why restaurants exist.

NV Egly-Ouriet Champagne Premier Cru Les Vignes de Vrigny - France, Champagne, Champagne Premier Cru
Medium gold in colour. Instant champagne hit, nutty, bready and rich. Fantastic balance marks this out, supremely easy to sip and contemplate. Fine mousse, stone fruit, cake and pastry, stewed apple and a lovely lemony acidity that keeps it all in check. Although you can sense some age it does not stand out. Base 2019, disgorged July 2023.

Whites

Continuation with the ceviche and then onto:
Tagliatelle with fresh truffle, cream, rocket cress and parmesan. Fabulous. This is apparently their signature dish and I can tell why. Normally I dislike truffle, it's a bit like when something is smoked - it seems not to matter what that something is, it just tastes like all other smoked things. This however was excellent, just the right amount of truffle taste, not over-powering. It must be the fresh ingredient, rather than a chemically produced one which is all too prevalent. Pasta nicely al dente, and a good ratio of sauce. My one minor gripe was that it was rather difficult to eat, with some sections of the pasta a bit fused together and coming apart in lumps. Then again I was sat by myself, in a corner, and so a small amount of inelegance went unseen.

2020 Sylvain Dussort Meursault Vieilles Vignes - France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Meursault
Light yellow. Small amount of reduction and smoke on the nose, dissipates to leave quite a mineral and chalky Meursault that is in a linear rather than fatty style. Nice clean burgundy, totally hits the spot, but at the same time doesn't scream Meursault. Depends what you want I suppose, and good wine nonetheless. Coravin pour.

2022 Schloss Lieser Riesling Trocken SL - Germany, Mosel Saar Ruwer
Light yellow. Fruity nose, whiffs of petrol after a swish, hints of pineapple. Wonderful freshness, the merest hints of sucrosity. For a base-level Mosel Riesling this is really good, and when you see the price you will be astonished. 

Reds

Sautees magret de canard with candied leeks, rosti with epoisses creme and sauce of figs and balsamic vinegar. Ooof, now this is food. The duck was OK, well executed but but not spectacular, but the rosti with epoisses taken with a small amount of fresh fig, wow. Just exceptional. You could almost see the calories mounting up as you ate each morsel. Good match for the in some cases rather strident wines.

A selection of 5 cheeses. I'm afraid I cannot now precisely recall what these were, possibly the lunch was a little too decadent... I remeber I had to eat them left to right, essentially in order of strength and with the blue at the end. Pretty sure #2 was a local young cheese, and that #3 was a Tomme, but that's it. All were delicious, though the blue was actually quite mild by my palate. I was not a huge fan of the matching condiments, I tend to like cheese by itself but I gamely gave each one a go just to see what they added.

2021 Jérôme Chezeaux Bourgogne - France, Burgundy, Bourgogne
Medium red. Good earthen quality to the nose, not deep and musty but definitely present and correct. Red and black fruit on the palate, there is a nice amount of acidic zip here and whilst this isn't an outstanding entry level BR it is very nicely done. I didn't know the producer but was pleasantly surprised as was not expecting much from the vintage. This is a decent bottle of Bourgogne with the right amount of sense of place for the price.

2018 Domaine de Ferrand Côtes du Rhône Mistral - France, Rhône, Southern Rhône, Côtes du Rhône
Medium red. Quite olivey and gamey on the nose, dark fruited in nature but with lighter flashes. Astringent tannic core with more acidity than I was expecting and tough without food - definitely not in the sipping style for my tastes. However transformed as an accompaniment to magret de canard where this cuts through the fat.

2022 Le Chiuse Rosso di Montalcino - Italy, Tuscany, Montalcino, Rosso di Montalcino
Medium red. A lighter style of Sangiovese and very approachable despite its youth - designed no doubt for early drinking. Ripe soft fruit with sweet overtones, herbs and some grit. Very nice with or without food.

 

To close

2022 Schloss Lieser Piesporter Goldtröpfchen Riesling Kabinett - Germany, Mosel Saar Ruwer
Intensely clean and fruity, just a brief impression as a small taste and I was on my way out. You could drink it more or less forever was my quick view. Super-fresh as you would expect. A nice parting gift.

Well what a fantastic discovery this place was. None of the wines I had by the glass were standout other than the Champagne, but I wasn't particularly expecting them to be. What mattered was they were universally decent, went well with the varied food and were reasonbly priced. I could have just about stretched to a bottle off the stupendous list, but decided that I'd prefer pairings for the variety. The list was enormous, pages and pages, filled with gems and with a real focus on Burgundy - a page from the Cote-de-Nuits shown below. There were so many bottles I would have loved to have tried but they were almost all beyond my means - restaurant markups are totally understandable but at the same time they make me very sad. This is why I am hugely grateful for the concept of corkage and am more than happy to pay what might seem like a lot of money to be able to bring something from my own cellar. I have a list of restaurants in London that allow this and that I visit regularly as a result.

Vineum uses Spiegelau Definition glassware which is what I use at home. They're excellent, basically 90% of a Zalto glass for about a third of the price. Lovely to drink from, but not a total disaster if you break one. You can see their Burgundy glass in one of the photos above. I had a fresh glass for every wine, and sometimes had several on the table at once - this is one of the markers of this being a place for wine lovers, and if I lived in the city it would definitely be a regular haunt. As it was not busy there was plenty of time to talk about the wines in depth with the guy running the floor, and I was treated very well with even a couple of extra tastes of things. I would go back in a heartbeat next time I am there. In fact I might travel specifically to go there...

After lunch I went shopping for cheese and then did a bit more birding near the airport, ending up with a day list of 36. Not bad for a three hour lunch....

Glad to be indoors looking out!