I don’t do much food-blogging normally, but this one was worth it. Bistro Tout Le Monde is our favorite restaurant in Eindhoven. The food is always excellent and (as opposed to many places here) so is the service. They ive up to their name by offering entrees from around the world.
When we went there in the last week before leaving for Taiwan, we found that they’d added a new thing: an 8-course “Trip Around the World” for which you have to make reservations two days in advance. Naturally, on this trip back to the Netherlands, we promptly made those reservations and had our global dinner Friday night. Actually, it’s more of a “Trip Around Europe With a Couple of Diversions”, but it as excellent anyway.
On the advice of the proprietor, we ordered a glass each of a white wine to go with the first courses, then a bottle of red to accompany the rest of the meal. The white wine was a Pinot Gris from Alsace, which surprised us by being quite sweet, though not annoyingly so. We’re generally not crazy about sweet wines, so we avoid Rieslings and Gewurztraminers; a sommelier told us a while back that the way to find drier versions of those wines was to seek out ones from Alsace rather than Germany, and this has proven to be true. So since Pinot Gris is not normally a sweet wine anyhow, we were surprised at the sweetness of this one, which was carried all the way through the taste, not just in the nose. I liked it otherwise, though; the sweetness wasn’t overpowering.
We ordered bread, as we always do, though this time we didn’t exactly need more food. There were three type, brown, crusty white, and another white with bits of olives and tomatoes in it, served with plain butter and an herbed mayonnaise. The first course represented Norway, smoked salmon wrapped around what the server called shrimp but which proved to be kreeft / crevettes, the little crawfish-like shellfish that are common here (they resemble crawfish in both looks and taste). There were lemon and sundried tomatoes on top, to cut the fishiness of the the salmon.
Next we switched to a Beaujolais-Villages – not bad, not too heavy for the food, and I’m always impressed when a restaurant proprietor recommends a reaosnably-priced wine.
The next course was from Italy – 3 slides of Serrano ham, one each grilled, smoked and fried, over lettuce with raspberry dressing and wonton strips. The smoked ham was my favorite, a little drier and more flavorful than the smoked, but not so much as the fried.
The soup course was probably my favorite, a creamy chantarelle mushroom soup (France) with some rosemary sprinkled on it. It was very light, not too salty (or too unsalty) or too creamy or too anything, just perfect. Or maybe the fourth course was my favorite. This was one of the two departures from Europe, coming from Indonesia (Indonesian influence is common in Dutch cooking): a very large shrimp in a crispy wonton wrapper, with a light duck sauce (or whatever it’s called – that sweet sauce they often give you with wontons) with a little bite to it. Yum.
Next up was Holland, a hazenpeper (hare stew). I didn’t like this quite as much, partly because of thoughts of Serena (fans of The Little White Horse will understand) and partly because it was a bit sweet, which seemed a bit out of place. The texture was good though, stewed until very soft. It was served with mashed potatoes, each in adorable glasses that were the shape of beer steins but the size of shotglasses.
By now we started having a bit of a problem, in that the courses were coming out slowly and we were falling asleep. The slowness was partly because the restaurant was getting more crowded, but I think mostly because they were deliberately spacing the courses to give us time to digest. Once or twice they even asked if we wanted them to wait longer. (Dutch restaurant service is generally very slow because when people go out to eat it’s an occasion and they don’t like to be rushed.) I’m not sure why we were so sleepy. It was only about 9 PM, and we hadn’t had all that much wine – maybe it was just the amount of food.
Next was the largest course, from Spain, a filet of brill, a white fish, cooked in balsamic vinaigrette, served with broccoli and tomatoes. The fish was firm enough to stand up to the vinaigratte, moist inside but not too much so (overly moist fish always seems undercooked to me), and had a nice crust on it. The accompanying broccoli was a bit overvinegared, but the tomatos were tasty – they had the flavor of sundried ones but were still fairly juicy.
The final main course was the other non-European one. The server said it was antelope with chocolate sauce, though it’s a normal menu item and is listed there as springbok (close enough for translating purposes). The choclate sauce was not too sweet and went well with the meat. I didn’t eat the red centers because I’m not a rare meat fan, but they were fine for Rudder (who generally orders steak medium well) and the better-cooked edges wree quite tasty, tender and not gamy.
Dessert was Austrian (though with a definite Ducth influence), a small portion of apple strudel. On one side was a small scoop of spekulaas ic cream (spekulaas are cookies traditionally served on Sinterklaas Day) and on the other a scoop of whipped cream. I liked having them separated so I could taste all three with the strudel staying hot and the icecream cold, rather than having the one melt all over the other.
There was another nice surprise at the end. I’d forgotten to ask the price when I made the reservation. It’s not a cheap place, though not outrageous; when living here we went there every month or two (but remember while we lived here we ate most of our meals out). And this is a business trip, so our meal allowance would subsidize part of it on Friday. So I wasn’t worried, but I wasn’t expecting it to be cheap. But it was less than I’d expected, not including the wine under 100 euros for the two of us. Not bad, for that kind of meal.
Recommended, if you’re even in Eindhoven for whatever reason. Actually, I recommend the restaurant’s normal menu too, if you’re here and looking for excellent food.