Dutch Class

Jamie’s Italian restaurant on George street is a relative newcomer on the Oxford scene having opened only a few weeks ago in the location where the Cock & Camel pub used to be. We’ve been keen to have a look for a while but today was the first time that there wasn’t actually a discouragingly long queue outside when we walked by. Clearly there are more people who would like to try it.

We are quite partial to Italian restaurants and Italian food in general and I in particular am a fan of Jamie Oliver’s because in some ways he always seems to capture the spirit of Italian cuisine even better than some Italian practitioners themselves. Fresh food, simple tastes, etc. You’ve seen it all on TV and it works. So we were quite excited at finally getting to try Jamie’s Italian on George street.

Despite the fact there wasn’t a queue we still had to wait for 20 minutes at a very crowded bar and when we eventually got a table we also found ourselves at rather intimate range from the people at the tables beside us. They have crammed too many tables into too little space. The waiting staff would probably agree because it those who served us had to perform acts of medium to advanced contortionism to do it. As a consequence of the high density of customers and staff per square foot the restaurant is also very loud to the point where it starts to intrude on conversation. 

The menu looks very ‘Jamie’ like. It contains many Oliverisms, usually delivered in the first person. Most of the dishes are Italianate. Where he has stuck to traditional Italian dishes the name has  been jazzed up here and there, e.g. The Penne al Arrabiata are called ‘Turbo Penne’. Many other dishes are not strictly traditional Italian restaurant fare but on paper they look true to the Jamie ethos as covered in his books and TV programmes.

In actual fact the food was vaguely disappointing. We I started with a Genovese pesto dish that looked very promising on paper and that looked just as promising when delivered to the table, containing some extra vegetables and potatoes to make it more interesting than the usual plate of tagliatelle covered with pesto and some parmesan. Shame then that the pesto itself was not very convincing. With the best will in the world I could hardly taste the basil in it and finding any trace of pecorino cheese was just as difficult. Ultimately this pesto has little or no energy. Somehow not what I would have expected as a Jamie Oliver fan or of a restaurant that advertises ‘lush’ pesto.

Similarly the main course of Salmon on a bed of roasted vegetables couldn’t quite impressed. The Salmon was nicely cooked but the roast vegetables were just nowhere near as good as roast vegetables can be. Desert of a banana chocolate brownie again nice enough but not very memorable and not a match for similar deserts at Chez Gerard’s or Carluccio’s.

Just below the deserts the menu also lists Jamie Oliver T-shirts and signed books.

The bill (including a 10% tip but not counting money spent at the bar while waiting for a table) came to about £35 a head which is a bit high for Oxford casual dining standards and a better dinner and general experience can certainly be had elsewhere and not infinitely far away in Oxford. There is something of the emperor’s new Parka about Jamie’s.

I looked up the Independent’s Restaurant review of Jamies Italian in Oxford and it appears somewhat more positive than mine. Have a look. The Independent’s reviewer took along Oxford locals who apparently ‘were down on their knees in gratitude’ for Jamie bringing this miracle of good food to Oxford. Given the quality of the food traditionally served on George Street I can kind of see the point however I really must suggest that they give Chez Gerard’s on the opposite side of the street a go. It is a more pleasant and comfortable place to sit and they serve better food for less money. Or take a short walk down to the Castle complex and try Carluccio’s. Both of those are Pukkah.

One of the things I try to impress on my English friends is that the Dutch don’t necessarily always conform 100% to the cartoon stereotype. They don’t eat cheese ALL the time, most of them don’t wear clogs and the vast majority of them have never been near a coffee shop that sells dope and they don’t visit the red light district in Amsterdam all the time.

They do however from time to time indulge in  orange mania - particularly on or around major football tournaments. The aftermath of Euro 2008 is no different with a plethora of orange products in the sales. Orange radios, shovels, USB hubs, chocolate bars, etc, etc. The one that most caught my eye was orange Crocs sandals though. The model below was for sale in a shop window in Leiden this week.

These sandals have always intrigued me. They are expensive (at least at Millets Farm garden centre), they look like…rubber sandals and as far as I can judge from a quick try they are not particularly comfortable.

At least these orange ones look a little zippier than the mint green and pink models common in Oxfordshire. Perhaps if I got some my friends would think me more trendy. Hmmm…

It looks like the Holland America’s Line’s new ship the Eurodam which I wrote about yesterday is to be named tomorrow and it has its own news website and a pretty brochure site too. The picture from yesterday’s article is below. For once Dutch Class has the jump on Wikipedia as they don’t have a photo yet.

It was also featured on the main Dutch evening news today.

Just for balance we’ll include a picture of an appropriately named slightly smaller ship moored not far away. In its own way it looks just as nice.

Er zijn hoofdtelwoorden en rangtelwoorden en andere soortnummers. Hoofdtelwoorden duiden hoeveelheid aan,  rangtelwoorden duiden volgorde aan.

Wanneer wij over sport spreken is het nuttig de woorden voor rangtelwoorden te weten.

Mensen die zich interesseren in paarden draverijen willen weten welk paard het eerste is, welke paard tweede en welk paard derde is. Mensen die het tennis aan Wimbledon kijken willen weten welke tennisspeler gewonnen heeft en welke spelers  tweede, derde en vierde waren. Er zijn zelfs meer plaatsen in een voetbalbond.

Woordenlijst

Parking space in the centre of Rotterdam is a bit limited, as with most major cities. When I visited there today I shot the below picture of some rare off road parking space.

The ship in the background is the Eurodam, a ship of the Holland America line. It is actually hard to do justice to the sheer size of it in either words or pictures but have a look at the one below. The two skyscrapers to either side are not exactly small…

Het is nuttig om de Nederlandse woorden voor kleuren te kennen. Er zijn veel kleuren en veel woorden voor kleuren en tinten van kleuren. Veelvoorkomende voorbeelden worden in de woordenlijst omvat.

De kleuren van de regenboog zijn rood, oranje, geel, groen, blauw, indigo en violet. Andere kleuren zijn beige, bruin, grijs, goud, lila, purper, roos, turkooize, wit, zilver en zwart. Vorige week zag ik vele kleuren van bloemen in het midden van de tuin.

Hier zijn een aantal voorbeelden van zinnen over de kleuren in het plaatje:

1. Kleur nummer een is groen.
   De eerste kleur is groen.
   Het gras in mijn tuin is groen.
2. Kleur nummer twee is geel.
   De tweede kleur is geel.
   De eenden in het park zijn geel.
3. Kleur nummer drie is blauw.
   De derde kleur is blauw.
   De hemel is blauw vandaag.
4. Kleur nummer vier is oranje.
   De vierde kleur is oranje.
   De kleur oranje is populair in Nederland.
5. Kleur nummer vijf is grijs.
   De vijfde kleur is grijs.
   Engelse mannen dragen grijze pakken op kantoor.
6. Kleur nummer zes is paars.
   De zesde kleur is paars.
   Gisteren zag ik een paarse vlinder.
7. Kleurnummer zeven is rood.
   De zevende kleur is rood.
   Het Liverpool Voetbalteam draagt rode hemden en korte broeken.
8. Kleur nummer acht is bruin.
   De achtste kleur is bruin.
   De modder op het fietspad is bruin.
9. Kleur nummer negen is zwart.
   De negende kleur is zwart.
   Sommige zwarte katten hebben groene ogen.
10. Kleur nummer tien is roze.
    De tiende kleur is roze.
    Ik heb roze rozen in mijn tuin.

Mijn favoriete kleur is lila. Van welke kleur houdt u ?

Woordenlijst

The NRC newspaper today reports that bloggers are increasingly being imprisoned by authoritarian regimes that do not appreciate their comments.

The article in NRC is worth reading as it mentions a number of interesting facts and arguments. One of the minor ones being that Technorati counted 70 million blogs in April of 2007. Dutch Class suddenly feels very small! We do however consider ourselves lucky in that we are probably not going to be imprisoned.

All you Dutch practicers may want to have a peek at the website for a Dutch secondary school. The school we picked is the one that one of our friends went to: the “Aloysius College” in Den Haag (The Hague). Have a look at the fairly comprehensive website.

For some hard core Dutch practice have a go at reading the school rules. Our friend says that there is a fair chance that the pupils do actually follow these especially as these rules apparently don’t exclude nipping out to the chip shop opposite the school for lunch!

Note golden rule #5 in the list of rules:

“Op school spreken we alleen Nederlands. We vinden het belangrijk dat iedereen elkaar begrijpt, maar dan moeten we elkaar wel kunnen verstaan! Als je het leuk vindt, mag je wel de talen spreken die in de lessen worden geleerd.”

The second sentence is a relatively rare example of a Dutch pun based on the fact that in Dutch the verb for to understand (as in to comprehend facts, ideas and concepts) is begrijpen while the verb verstaan means means to understand in the sense of being able to hear and interpret what the speaker was saying.

After the Dutch Practice article on buying fruit and vegetables a few people asked “is een tomaat een bes?” Is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable?

The answer is that technically  a tomato is a berry and therefore a fruit. We looked it up just to make sure.

So yes, “een tomaat is een bes”.

We learn all kinds of things in Dutch Class.

As Dutch students in Oxford we often eat Italian. We do this because we don’t know of any Dutch restaurants in Oxford and also because we just love Italian food. There are a number of Italian retaurants in close to the centre of Oxford. The one we’d like to talk about in this article is Carluccio’s restaurant at Oxford Castle.

There are many cynically bad restaurants in Oxford, presumably trading to the tourist trade - people who are supposed to only dine once and never return.  Carluccio’s Caffe Restaurant is not one of these.

Carluccio’s aims to be traditionally Italian. The blue in the facade suggests it and a peek at the menu soon confirms it.  Many of the traditional Italian favourites are on the menu and most of the ones we have had were more than good enough to be Dutch Class approved.

Fortunately Carluccio’s does not take tradition so far that they’ve gone for the traditional Anglo Italian Restaurant cramped interior with sponge washed walls, checked table cloths and old wine bottles with candles in them. Instead the interior of Carluccio’s is modern, airy, light and pleasant.

Prices are pretty much in line with the Dutch Class Oxford rule of casual dining: a three course meal with a glass of wine or beer and an espresso to close costs just under £20 a head. The quality of the dining experience is better than most in Oxford though so we are happy to call this good value for money and we will eat there again soon.

To be honest we sometimes spend a little more because Carluccio’s also sells various Italian delicatessen to take home, temptingly arrayed to be seen on the way out. We like these too.