It all started with a Dutch beer advert featuring a walk-in fridge, which then got a ‘Dunglish’ sequel featuring a miscommunication between an Eastern European building contractor and a Dutch guy who ends up getting a walking fridge. The story continues with a parody on the first advert from another Dutch beer company and now we have four final year students in Breda from Avans Hogeschool who invented the RoboFridge. Watch it dispense soft drinks this time around, but I’m sure beer cans fit in there, too.
Giving things away for free these days usually arouses suspicion, but one Dutch restaurant owner decided to give it a whirl anyways: free entree and main course, you pay the wine and the dessert. The article also makes sure to mention that the bread and butter is included, because in the Netherlands, you usually have to pay for that.
Restaurant owner Jeroen Verpaalen of L’Entrecote in Breda serves a salad with mustard dressing and walnuts, French bread with herb butter, entrecote and fries for free. Nope, the wine is not overpriced, nor is the dessert. Verpaalen considers it marketing, as “we all need the help of our clients”. In return, his clients are so happy with the food and service that they order more expensive wine and leave more tip, the latter already included in the price.
Letting clients decide what your product or service is worth and paying for it accordingly is a trend in business circles here, but doing the same with food in an industry that is constantly raising the prices is pretty daring. (Skip the steak, I’m a fan of the seafood platter!)
Having obtained her Ph.D on 19 March from Wageningen University, Kirsten Steinbusch found a new method of turning organic waste into energy, which can be used to produce biodiesel. Her method uses ‘volatile fatty acids, formed when microbes break down the waste. Apparently, it stinks like you wouldn’t believe. However, Steinbuch was able to apply micro-organisms and some hard chemistry to transform them into biodiesel.’
The process Steinbusch has developed provides more energy than burning green waste or extracting methane gas through fementation. “Extracting energy from green waste is sustainable, but it has to be energy efficient; you should not have to put more energy into it than comes out of it”, Steinbusch explains. Her approach doesn’t need any land or crops and has no negative impact on food production.
Inntel Hotel in Zaandam was officially opened on 18 March and also has a ‘remarkable interior’ with old images of the Zaanstreek (Zaandam area). Each hotel room has a theme, such as Verkade (chocolate) or Albert Heyn (supermarket founder), both major brands that come from Zaandam. Other Zaanstreek traits include the use of famous local mustard and dessert with Duyvekater bread, which are local specialities. The stack of houses has four shades of green and one of blue, which can be found traditionally in the area. You really can’t miss it.
Four of us from ironically four different countries representing three continents drove by this hotel on the way to Paris at Christmas and collectively freaked out. Just looking at this hotel driving by was enough to have an accident. It could be architectural humour, but we didn’t get the joke. We’re too poor to stay there anyways, after all we were carpooling.
Filed under: Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 10:39 am
I saw this on Dutch commercial television, which more often than not features American series and subtitled or dubbed American advertising ‘like you never left the US’.
Translation:
Guy: Hey, you owe me money.
Girl: …
Guy: For the burger.
Voice-over: So very Dutch! Our new (product name), etc.
Guy: Yep, right amount.
Voice-over: It can’t get any more Dutch.
The adjective ‘Hollands’ meaning Dutch has this reference to the olden days when the Netherlands was just North Holland and South Holland. It can be used in a neutral manner, derogatory or positive manner, depending on the context. In this case it denotes comfort food (brown bread and cheese being a classic here), which is positive.
The negative part remains the stereotype that the Dutch are cheap, which is a gross generalisation, but sometimes where there’s smoke, there’s fire. The Dutch are traditionally thrifty and save a lot of money and don’t run rampant with credit cards, not so much cheap. Oh, and all the Dutch television shows with people about to lose their homes due to overspending kill this stereotype, with the Dutch calling their situation ‘an American one’.
‘Going Dutch’ means paying your own way in English, which in American dating land is surely not a given. And of course, anyone who only wants to pay half the bill at a fast food chain while on a date could easily be labelled poor, not cheap.
Filed under: Food & Drink by Branko Collin @ 3:32 pm
The beer arms race is still on. Brewers Het Koelschip from Almere have come up with Obilix, a 45% alcohol beer that will surely attract the attention of both beer aficionados and comics trademark holders.
After walking past a Dutch liquour store in Rotterdam with odd bottles of absinth and vodka with a dead scorpion in it, it was time to have a look inside the store for more oddities. The Dutch make vodka, with some success, which is usually very expensive and often nowhere near as good as any Russian or Polish stuff, and I have sampled enough to say so.
And then I saw Trump vodka, towering over another bottle of the disturbing dead scorpion stuff. The staff saw me reaching for it and immediately all three staff members (two sons and a dad kind of outfit) said it was Dutch vodka made in Rotterdam exclusively for Donald Trump by the Wanders Distillery.
The staff proceeded to tell me that it was picked out of a taste test over many others vying for the job. I am impressed and maybe I’ll try it some day. And maybe grab some scorpion drink, too.
The Metrobowl is a serving dish by 2001 Eindhoven Design Academy graduate Frederik Roijé shaped in the form of a city map.
Frederik has made two models, one based on Amsterdam (the semi-circular onion skin lines are the famous canals), and one based on the grid of Manhattan. The bowls are made of cast aluminium, cost 200 and 240 euro respectively, and are sold by Frederik himself through his on-line shop.
Last year, an employee of that big American junk food chain fired an employee in Lemmer, Friesland for placing an extra slice of cheese on a colleague’s hamburger. The colleague was on a break and had not paid for extra cheese, so the hamburger turned cheeseburger and that was a reason for dismissal, according to the chain’s policy.
Recently, the local judge in Heerenveen believed the employer overreacted. You don’t say!
Since the story stops there, the employee either gets their job back (it’s been a while, I bet you they are working somewhere else) or some compensation. If I remember correctly and if things haven’t changed much, 25% of all cases are labour law issues in the Netherlands.
And you can’t just fire someone here, on the spot or otherwise. An employer has to go to the local court and explain why they want to fire someone. The most common reason as of late is of course downsizing, not extra cheese.
This is just capitalism gone awry. Oh, and if you really thought that extra slice was fit to be called cheese, read this older posting.
