September 24, 2005

Cafe Mozaiek

A couple of months ago a cultural center opened in a former church in our neighbourhood. Renovations transformed the church into a theater space and cafe, along with offices for a couple of doctors. I was really happy with the plans, since we don't have many places like this out in our part of Amsterdam and it's only a few blocks from our house. So tonight we tried out the cafe restaurant, which has been buzzing since the new building opened, especially on nice evenings since they have a lot of tables out on the spacious sidewalk. It's just so happening and busy, so different to how this neighbourhood usually feels, and it's great for us to be able to just walk to a restaurant.

Our experience there was mixed, but overall positive enough that I think we'd go back. But we'd return with the knowledge of a few lessons learned.

Lesson one: go early. We got there just after 7, and it was fine, we had a good pick of tables, but an hour later it was packed.

Lesson two: go when you have plenty of time to spare. We were there about 2 hours, and not much of that was spent eating. This was mostly due to the waitresses; more on them in a sec.

Lesson three: skip the dessert. The main course was quite good; not so for the desserts we had. I had chocolate mousse with fresh fruit. The fresh fruit was some slices of banana with a bruised bit on the side and a couple of past-season strawberries. The chocolate mousse was the lightest shade of brown I've ever seen mousse be and it had a weird texture. O had what was described as waffle with strawberry ice cream, srawberries and chocolate sauce. We both imagined a Belgian-style waffle with ice cream and chocolate sauce over it. Instead the waffle was the wafer-thin stuff like in kid ice cream cones, with ice cream layered in it. The chocolate sauce consisted of some chocolate the strawberries had been dipped in. Not at all impressed.

But what was particularly bad, almost to the point of being funny after awhile, was the incompetence of the 2 waitresses. I know not to expect too much out of Dutch wait staff, but this was just absurd. They fortunately were pleasant enough, so that was one thing in their favour. First we noticed how they couldn't keep track of where the dishes were supposed to go. They constantly were taking a plate to a table, saying "did you order whateveritwas?", getting a shake of the head, and then going back to the kitchen area to figure out what table it was supposed to go to. Their timing with things was horrible. Apparently the couple sitting behind me, who O could see, were getting very antsy with their starters not arriving yet, though we were well though our mains (and we arrived around the same time). Yet, in the end, they managed to get their bill, pay, and get out before we did, though they ordered about the same amount of stuff. The end of our meal was unbearably slow. Flag down and wait to get the menus to order dessert. Wait and wait to finally get around to ordering dessert. Then we were done with dessert for ages, one of the waitresses finally asks if it was ok, we say yes and ask for the bill while she's there. She goes off, without taking our plates, and never returns with the bill, while others are getting theirs all around us. We finally ask the other waitress for the bill and she returns soon enough. But a hamburger that we didn't order has snuck onto our bill. Fucking hell. Fortunately, minus the food we didn't have, the total is a nice round number and we don't need change. We didn't walk out immediately, we did wait a bit in order to explain that there was a mistake on the bill, but not even some money sitting waiting there for them attracted either waitress. So O scratched out the hamburger on the bill with his fingernail and we took off, no one seeing us leave. Oy. It was just painful. You can tell that they just have no real experience with waiting, and it was all just a mess the way they'd wait on all of the tables together instead of splitting them up. But yeah, like I said, I would go back, because they have a good international menu, and it's nice to take advantage of a place in our area. We just might turn and run the next time if we see the same two girls waiting the tables...