Chow, brought to you by the creators of Jimmy Woo - Bo5 - Rose's Cantina, is now open in the middle of Rozengracht. As soon as I read about all the hype, I immediately booked a reservation dragging along some of my good friends to see if Chow was in fact WOW! And it was WOW! alright... but not in a good way.
In eager anticipation, I quickly biked down Rozengracht to find myself in front of a quaint concave area of the street with a sign saying CHOW. I walked in the door next to the sign and it was the back of the kitchen!!! OOPS! That was confusing... What's more confusing is the Chinese underneath the CHOW logo. It says "I haven't seen your cat"... WTF?? Anyway I walked further into the outdoor seating area and found a small sign saying "ingang" (entrance). It wasn't until after the meal that I realized NOT finding the entrance would have saved me from spending money and time here!!!
First, I must say that the atmosphere is GREAT! But that's about where things end. After being seated, I looked at the menu and realized that much of it was different than what was online. Hmmm... strange. Unfortunately, everything I wanted from the online menu, and came to eat, wasn't on this menu! sadly enough, there was no Red Pepper crème brulee, which is what I reaaaaally wanted. Oh and the prices online are less than the real menu so be aware of that too.
Anyway, I LOVE food and will eat most things. So different menu? No problem!
Based on recommendations from our waitress, here's what we ordered:
Beef Watermelon Sashimi - I'm not a picky eater, but one thing I don't like is wasabi. There was a little drop of wasabi on this and I couldn't taste anything BUT wasabi. It's basically a chunk of raw beef on a watermelon slice. I decided to give this another shot by removing the wasabi, however the combination of watermelon versus the thick slab of lazily cut raw beef just didn't work.
Funky Tuna - This was recommended as the chef's special. Basically it's a papadum sandwich with tuna in the middle. And on top there is mayo/wasabi/capers/ and fish eggs. We even got the full description of this, but it wasn't mentioned that wasabi was in here so again it wasn't my favorite thing. The others at the table who like wasabi, thought this appetizer was ok.... But nothing to order again.
Disappointed with the appetizers, we were really hoping for some great main dishes! I mean, how can you go wrong with shrimp burgers wrapped in filo!!
Spicy Eastern Filo Gamba Burger - Sounds and looks fancy! Basically it's ground shrimp wrapped in thin filo noodles and deep fried. On top is spinach drizzled with sweet (not spicy) sauce. This was ok, but at this point I'm just eating because I'm hungry. There were also random croutons at the bottom of this dish? Filler perhaps?
Blackened Tuna Koikuchi Soya - This was also a recommendation described to us as seared tuna in a soya foam. In actuality, it's two slices of Tuna swimming in light brown liquid?? In Japanese, Koikuchi Soya means a thick and strong flavor of soy sauce. I didn't taste soy in this dish at all and if anything, the foam tasted like cappuccino???? The tuna was blackened with ??? and had a hint of wasabi. As for the "searing", I would say it was more like Yoga Flame from Street Fight II over-torched because of how dry it was. Seared tuna is super soft and raw in the middle and should just break at the onset of your fork. Not at Chow!! OW!
At this point, we are all defeated and simply eating in order to get nutrients into our bodies. When the waitress came to take our plates away she asked if the food was good. I shyly looked away as the others at my table said... it was ok... She then looked at the plates and said "well... you ate it!!" and then walked away.
Ummm... Ok
By now we felt as if our taste buds were done an injustice with the food thus far and immediate action needed to happen in order to reverse this!! We decided to get 3 desserts:
Lemon Cheesecake - ok
Spicy Chocolate Mousse - ok but not spicy
Coco cream coffee foam - bitter day old coffee blehhh
After having gone through this, I was ready to thrown in the towel and call it quits. I ordered a sambuca to drown my pain and reluctantly asked for the bill. I felt really bad for the friends I invited and now my credibility for selecting restaurants has suffered with them. Even after the dessert, they also felt in need to have a tasty meal and debated stopping nearby to get shoarma or something comforting. As for me, I went home and binged on gummy bears and whiskey in order to forget what will be now known as the "Chow Incident" or the Chowcident.
This place is new, so please take this with a grain of salt. It might be pure coincident that 3 people didn't enjoy 7 dishes ordered... So try it at your own risk, but I can tell you for me and my friends, we are saying Ciao to Chow for good!! As for my cat that you haven't seen... if you find him, for the love of Buddha please don't feed him your food!! read more