Small Food?

We dined out in the Grand Dame on Friday evening with new friends at In de Keuken.  The restaurant was recommended in the 2010 Lekker mag as one of the new up a comers on the Amsterdam food scene.  The long and narrow room was quite cozy which was a welcome respite from the heavy rains.  The kitchen is in the center of the restaurant, hence the name, and your dinner is prepared literally in front of you.

They serve one menu with a choice of 4 to 6 courses each evening based on the freshest seasonal ingredients available.   We chose 5 and 6 course as we were told the portions would be appropriate.  We were also offered wine pairings with each course and thankfully we were able to request half glasses to taste - I can't imagine we would be walking straight (or at all) if we drank 6 glasses of wine each!

The food began arriving shortly after we decided on the number of courses.   The menu started with seared scallops, then moved on to pheasant, osso buco, spanish pork, a cheese plate and finally dessert. Each miniature course was presented artistically on large interesting white plates.  The wines they paired were really quite nice, mostly Italian whites with a red paired with the pork main and dessert wine with the chocolate dessert. 
The scallop course was full of fresh flavour that made me wish the portion was larger.  I moved straight to the osso bucco and saffron risotto which was a bit of a disappointment as the portion of meat was very tiny.  The main spanish pork was flavourful with hint of smokiness that matched well with the wine.  The cheese plate was nice but too simple, the presentation lacked something sweet to offset the blue.  The dessert was chocolate mousse with a sort of torn looking cake (I didn't try it due to my gluten intolerance) but I'd have to the say the color was a bit odd.   

Overall the meal tasted quite nice but I'm not sure on feeling of the need for this number of courses.  I suppose I'm a bit of a gluton and if I like something I want to have more than two or three bites.  It would have been a disastor to have full glasses of wine because the food course is finished long before the wine so one really doesn't get a chance to enjoy the two together. 

Figbelly rating - 3.5 out of 5