Restaurant: De Hems
Location: Soho
By Boeing: 4330 miles
By Boris Bike: 8.8 miles
Legendary striker Dennis Bergkamp revealed after the close of his glittering career that as a teenager he dreamt of becoming a cheese-maker and implying, astonishingly, that he wasn't sure he'd made the right choice. You see the Dutch take their cheese very seriously and celebrate anything orange with patriotic fervour. Like the English the Dutch have traditionally taken a simple, hearty and wholesome approach to food. Not for them the pretension and precision of French cuisine. But that is not to say that the food is bland, for the Dutch once ruled over a global empire of their own and brought back with them exotic flavours and a taste for spice.
The English have more in common with the Dutch than any other culture on mainland Europe. They play darts and cricket, drink in pubs and waste money on amusements on north sea piers. So it was fitting that I sampled Dutch cuisine in a tavern. Situated on a tributary of Chinatown the site has served beer for over three centuries , orginally called the Horse and Dolphin and owned by a famous bare knuckle boxer. At the end of the 19th century it was leased by retired Dutch sea captain 'Papa' De Hems and has been a meeting place for salty Scheveningen sea dogs ever since.
Drawn by its selection of potent Benelux brews De Hems was full to bursting with an eclectic mix of Dutch emigrees, post work drinkers and bemused tourists. With tables at a premium we sat around a low ledge with the collective din of Friday celebration making conversation near impossible. At this point I began to rue my decision not to go to the My Old Dutch Pancake House on the old kings road. But I wanted to try something different and I’d already eaten more pancakes than is seemly in a calendar year.
The décor was fitting and fun, with reproductions of Dutch masters and lacquered wooden signs in Dutch. The menu included a selection of Dutch snacks. None were light and none were healthy but then who wants to eat a radish perched precariously on a rivita with a beer? The first dish to be served was battered cheese, deep fried and oozing with an inappropriate dribble of calories. It was unnervingly filling. Next up was frikadellen, a long, tepid skinless sausage buttressed on both sides by chips smothered in curry sauce. This felt naughty, very naughty. Naughty and unnecessary. But eating through the pain barrier I polished it off.
But the calorific onslaught was not over. Not by a long shot. Next out of the kitchen was a platter of Bitterballen. These deep fried balls of veal ragout are a real national treasure. As you crunch through the crisp golden exterior you sink through a smooth, silver, seasoned gloop. These had a hint of curry, another nod to Indonesia found throughout Dutch cuisine. After wiping my mouth with a napkin I attempted a quick calculation of the number of lengths required to work off the night's eating exertions. The channel might do it, just.
Forget ultra marathons and iron men contests, this was a feat of endurance on a par with being an England cricket supporter in the early 1990s. I was so full that I couldn't even find room for one of my favourite snacks, the delicious caramel waffles that tempt me from high shelves in local corner shops. In Holland they sell them in town squares at hopelessly affordable prices. In their proximity I am as helpless as a dyspraxic moth drawn to a light bulb.
The Dutch serve as a bridge from continental Europe to Scandinavia. With much in common with their southern and eastern neighbours there is also something unmistakably northern, from the fair haired freshness of their countenance to their taste for soused fish. And yet as I sipped from my pint of Amstel it was the Englishness of the setting that intrigued me most. I thought of the tubby legend of the oche Raymond Von Barneveld with his hands aloft in victory at Lakeside, applause reverberating off a sea of orange before him. For him this scruffy corner of the Thames estuary is a home from home. And it feels natural. As natural, in fact, as walking around the picturesque outfield of the cricket ground in Voorburg.
Both nations are seafarers, empire builders and craftsmen. We both love sport, beer, rowing, sailing and effective irrigation. They grow more tulips, I have to concede that, and their per capita windmill ratio is unsurpassable. But there is a certain kinship and that is perhaps why I felt so comfortable. Gorged but calm, sweating but content.
