Name: Hare of the Dog
Address: Zijlstraat 35, Haarlem, 2011 TK, NL
Telephone: 023 785 3809
Rating: 3.4

Netherlands

Haarlem

Hare of the Dog

Eggs Florentine is the brunch dish of poached eggs set on a bed of wilted spinach on a toasted English muffin and covered in hollandaise, the vegetarian member of the eggs Benedict family in which spinach takes the place of ham or bacon. The name follows the French kitchen convention in which "à la florentine" means served with spinach, a usage that goes back to the court cooks of Catherine de' Medici and has nothing to do with any dish eaten in Florence. Older French versions sit the eggs on creamed spinach and finish them with a cheese-enriched Mornay sauce under the grill; the hollandaise-and-muffin form is American, a twentieth-century hotel and diner adaptation, and it is now the standard reading of the name on brunch menus from New York to Sydney, usually offered alongside Benedict and the smoked-salmon Royale.

Each of the four parts is a separate job done to the minute. The spinach is washed, wilted in a hot pan with butter and a little garlic or shallot for under a minute, seasoned with salt, pepper and a scrape of nutmeg, then squeezed hard in a sieve so no water reaches the muffin; some kitchens stir in a spoon of cream, which brings it closer to the French original. The eggs are poached in barely simmering water with a splash of vinegar for about three minutes, whites fully set and yolks liquid, and drained on a cloth. The hollandaise is egg yolks whisked over gentle heat with a reduction of vinegar or lemon until thick, then clarified butter added slowly until the sauce is glossy and holds a ribbon; it is seasoned with lemon and salt and kept warm, not hot, because it splits above about 70°C. The muffin is split, toasted and buttered, the spinach piled on, the egg set on top and the sauce spooned over to coat.

Cut through the egg first: the yolk should run into the spinach and the muffin, and the white should be fully opaque. The spinach should be hot, seasoned and dry enough that the muffin stays crisp underneath, with a clear nutmeg note; the hollandaise should be thick, smooth, pale yellow and sharp with lemon, in a quantity that coats the egg without pooling across the plate. Mark down a muffin gone soggy under wet spinach, which is the most common fault, hard yolks, a hollandaise that is grainy, split, or so thick it sits like custard, a sauce that tastes only of butter with no acid, and a dish built on frozen spinach, which is grey and stringy and gives itself away. A hollandaise from a packet or a squeeze bottle is a failure on its own; a Mornay version is legitimate but should be named.

Eggs Florentine

American pancakes are small, thick, leavened griddle cakes, ten to fifteen centimetres across and a centimetre or more high, made from a batter of flour, milk or buttermilk, egg, melted butter, a little sugar and baking powder or soda, cooked on a flat-top and served in a stack with butter and maple syrup. The thickness is the whole difference from a French crêpe or a Dutch pannenkoek: chemical leavening makes the batter rise on the griddle into a soft, open crumb, and the stack of three is the standard diner order, with bacon, sausage or eggs alongside at breakfast. They descend from the griddle cakes of colonial New England, where cornmeal johnnycakes came first and wheat flour pancakes followed, and the name "flapjack" and "hotcake" survive regionally for the same thing. Buttermilk pancakes, where the acid reacts with baking soda, are the diner and home standard; blueberry, chocolate chip and banana are the common additions, folded in or dropped onto the raw top.

The batter is mixed as little as possible: the dry ingredients in one bowl, the wet in another, combined with a few strokes and left lumpy, because overmixing develops gluten and gives a tough, flat cake. It rests for ten minutes so the flour hydrates and the leavening begins to work. The griddle is medium-hot, about 190°C, lightly buttered or oiled; a ladle of batter goes down and is left alone until bubbles form across the surface and the edges look dry, around two minutes, then flipped once and cooked for another minute. A pancake flipped twice or pressed with the spatula loses its rise. A fluffier result comes from separating the eggs and folding in whipped whites, which is how the thick Japanese-style soufflé pancake is made; a thinner, crisper edge comes from more butter on the griddle.

A good pancake is evenly golden on both faces with no pale centre or dark ring, tall, and springs back slightly when pressed; the inside is soft, moist and uniformly open, with no gummy layer near the base and no raw-batter taste. It should taste of butter and a little salt with the sweetness coming from the syrup, not the batter. Mark down a flat, dense pancake from overmixed or old batter, a rubbery one from too much egg, a pale greasy one from a cool griddle, scorched spots from a hot one, a stack that has gone soggy under the lid while waiting, and pancake syrup made from corn syrup and flavouring passed off as maple. Whipped cream and fruit are a dessert; at breakfast they should be optional and listed as such.

American pancakes

United States

The roast beef sandwich is sliced roast beef in bread, and the version worth a score of its own is the North Shore roast beef of Massachusetts: a mound of rare, thinly sliced top round piled warm onto a toasted onion roll and dressed "three-way" with James River barbecue sauce, mayonnaise and a slice of American cheese. The style grew out of Kelly's Roast Beef on Revere Beach, which opened in 1951, and spread through the towns north of Boston, where dozens of stands sell little else. It is one of several regional roast beef sandwiches in the United States, alongside the Chicago Italian beef, the French dip of Los Angeles and the beef on weck of Buffalo, and it is distinguished from all of them by the rareness of the meat and the sweet, thin sauce. The cold deli roast beef sandwich with lettuce, tomato and horseradish is a different and lesser thing, and a British roast beef sandwich with mustard is a third.

The beef is a whole top round, seasoned and roasted slowly to a core of about 50°C so it is pink from edge to edge, then chilled and sliced on a machine to a thickness where it is almost translucent and drapes rather than stands. At service the slices are warmed, not cooked, in a steamer or a pan of beef juice for seconds, so they stay rare and pick up moisture. The roll is an onion roll from a local bakery, split and toasted or griddled until the faces are brown, and the build is sauce on the bottom, a heap of beef that overhangs the roll, cheese laid on so the warm meat softens it, mayonnaise on the top half. The James River sauce is a thin, sweet, vinegary barbecue sauce that is almost a condiment rather than a glaze, and the ratio should favour the beef: a large sandwich carries two hundred grams or more of meat.

Judge it on the beef first: it should be clearly pink, soft, sliced thin enough to fold, warm through and tasting of roasted beef with a little salt, never grey, dry or in thick slabs. The roll should be toasted and hold the weight without disintegrating, and the three-way dressing should be present in proportion, the sauce and mayonnaise mixing into the meat juices rather than running out. Mark down beef that has been overcooked or held too long in the warmer and turned grey, slices cut thick enough to chew through separately, a cold centre, a roll that is cold or soft, cheese still in a firm square, a sandwich drowned in sauce to hide meagre beef, and pre-sliced deli beef in place of a kitchen-roasted round. A super beef that needs two hands and drips is the correct state; one that can be eaten neatly was underfilled.

Roast Beef Sandwich

The banana pancake was average, not fluffy at all. The fruits on the side could have bern better and more red fruits.

English muffins on the base of the dish was fluffy and fresh. Poached eggs are cooked as it should be. I liked the spinach and mushrooms touch. You can add extra avocado for 3 euros.

Breakfast in haarlem. After going to municipality i decided give it a change to this 4.9/5 place. 

Not my taste at all. Too much mustard that burns your nose. Really simple bread no toasting whatsoever.

The beef was cold and it was not easy bite.

My advise to the chef is to marinate beef better, cook it better and serve it hot. Reduce the mustard.

Hare of the Dog

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