SO, we went there. To the one-man-show of the culinary scene of HRLM, as the fancy ones say. It wasn’t a success, and I am going to explain, in a certain length (as you were expecting me to) waarom en daarom.

The concept is pretty simple: one man cooks, serves, entertains the guests, makes the coffees and hands out the jackets. How does he do it, you may ask? Well, taking a lot of time, my answer. And cutting a couple of “optional” corners. For example: “entertaining the guest”, scrap that. If you’re going to Karmozijn for “Dinner and Show”, fuhgeddaboudit. The guy won’t talk, won’t smile, he is “focused”, let’s put it that way. And he needs a new shirt. At least a couple of sizes bigger. Especially around is belly. And for Saint Agnes and all the Martyrs let go of the apron! It only make it worse.

Anyhoe! The food/time ratio in Karmozijn is one serving per hour. We were there almost three and a half hour (19:00 until 22:15) and got to grab one amuse, one entree, one main course each. Half a bottle of Sancerre, one bottle of water, one glass of Sauvignon Blanc completed the banquet. We were two (of course I was with the Vrouw) and we were together with 14 other guests, so a grand total of 16. Not to bad, thinking that the final bill, for the two of us, was 109 € and that he has to pay only for a young-and-capped dishwasher. But the concept would not be unsuccessful (it is not, in fact! The guy has been running his show for 16 years! That speaks volumes on the local masochistic tendencies, married with a deep ignorance of what “truly good food” really is!) were the food to be good.

And about the food: the amuse was a croquette, of some fish of sort which didn’t taste much, of fish or anything else. A croquette, basically. Completely forgettable. Or “very delicate”, as someone will say. The entree (Marbrè) was better, but only because there was some foie gras in it. Still, it wasn’t  “cooked” truly, more “assembled”. No spices, no herbs, no “liqueur” worth mentioning, nothing, nada, no depth, no “extra layer”, NIX. Just a bunch of meat. And a looooooot of sauce (are we Dutchies, after all?!!) smeared all over the plate. Of all kind, shouldn’t you like this one you’ll go banana on the next one. Pesto? Bring it on! Mustard? Aw-right! Mayo? Why-not! Way too much for my taste.

The turbot was just turbot, the veggies on the side completely uninspired. And the same as the ones on the plate of my wife. Who did choose the lamb, mind you. The wine was ok-ish, but again: nothing noteworthy, I also shop in Okhuysen occasionally ( I saw more than a few bottles from their assortment in Karmozijn) and I know they DO have better bottles.

We decided to skip on the dessert, it was already late enough. All in all: disappointing. If you wanna run a one-man-show, go ahead. But it’d better be good, else you won’t have anybody else to share the blame with.