Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Koopavond in Dordrecht / Shopping and tapas dinner in Miró, Dordrecht

I wonder how you pronounce the ó in Miró, Spanish-style?

Last week, I felt the urge to do some shopping, so I asked CaroBrasilia if she wanted to shop on Friday evening, when Rotterdam has its koopavond (evening shopping). She already had a massage booked for that evening (lucky girl!) so she suggested Thursday in Dordrecht instead. She used to live there and knows the place pretty well. As I've never been, I said sure!

Dordrecht is only 20 minutes away by train, so it was easy. Except I boarded a train earlier (the signboard said it also went to Dordrecht) and then got paranoid and spent the whole ride trying to connect to the NS website and then gave up and went back to the NS app to double check the route of this train.

I did end up in Dordrecht safely *phew*, where CaroBrasilia picked me up by car and brought me into the city centre.

After lots of shopping and doing girly things in girly shops I never walked into before because I was always with Schrobbenmaster, it was time to have some nomnom.

Now this is one of the points in the day I hate the most - deciding what to eat! Especially in a strange city. It's not like KL, where there are cafes/restaurants/coffee shops/hawker stalls/mamaks everywhere and where everything is at least decently tasting and affordable. Over here, you have to check the menu if there's something you might like, then check the price range, then walk away and find another place which is more affordable. And if you feel like a certain cuisine, it might take you ages to find it, if you even do find it.

So I was quite relieved when after wandering and stumbling around for 10 minutes, we found a tapas restaurant called Miró, which looked quite artsy and authentic inside, and whose prices were of the normal kind.


I have to say one thing I feel pressured about in this country is that once you sit down, the waiters/waitresses expect you to know what you want to order for drinks. So I end up ordering ice tea or mochaccino (depending where I am), when I sometimes want to check the menu for something interesting (damn I shoulda ordered sangria). On the other hand, when I do pick the menu up and go through it, I realise that the only nice and affordable thing in it is the ice tea anyway.

Okay, so restaurants in NL are not bad when it comes to quality of food, but seriously... the number of choices of food and drink can really be improved.


The restaurant looks pretty unhappening from this angle because of where I was sitting. Behind me the tables were occupied, I swear. And by the time we left after dinner, the bar was filling up. I kind of would like this place to be in Rotterdam. A classier, more relaxed version of a restaurant/bar than I've seen here.



I really like the interior and how they've achieved the concept of portraying Miró's ceramicist/sculptor/painter character. I would really like to have been part of this restaurant's development :) Somehow, Spanish restaurants always seem to retain their warm and authentic character even when they've been clearly designed by designers.


All the service people in Dordrecht seem so nice! They were helpful in the shops, and here, the waitress offered to take a photo of us both when she saw us taking photos of each other.


But I hate how they still cheat you into ordering food that you never ordered. After ordering, they'll go, "And do you want bread with that?", and me, thinking that it's the normal bread they serve before meals, goes "Sure!", and you later find it on your bill, costing the same as the other tapas.

Long live Due Tonino, who serve the MOST AWESOME bread ever FOR FREE.


Schrobbenmaster mentioned later how much I smell of garlic. Hehe.

We ordered gambas (of course!), patatas bravas (of course!), some fish filet (on the right of the photo) and some chicken skewers because we didn't know what to choose for the fourth dish. Or should I say fifth, since the bread was actually (unknowingly) our first dish.

After dinner, CaroBrasilia drove around the old city centre and showed me the most awesome houses with high ceilings and incredibly awesome bookshelves. My iPhone decided to hang on me so I have no pictures, but trust me, Dordrecht is worth a visit at night, since you can look into people's amazing homes and look at the light reflecting on the water, making me feel like I was back in Venice.

I'm hungry now so I'm gonna make myself some early lunch.

1 comment:

frachely said...

oh i didnt know that i just told them I'm not ready to order yet when I was there. Don't think you need to mind so much though.

As for the bread, I normally get pretty pissed when they do that! Once I complained because they didnt tell me in advance that the bread arent complimentary (they normally serve the plain ones for free but that day they offered garlic bread instead and I didn't know it's not free -.- ) and they ended up taking it off the bill hehe I dun mind paying but u have to tell me first :P