Mirosso

Kitchen: Indonesian

Mirosso special

The best way to celebrate International Women’s Day is with good food! So, accompanied by my girl friend, her aunt, niece and nephew, we visit Mirosso, an old time favorite in Paramaribo. The restaurant is situated in the northern area, known as Blauwgrond.
Mirosso started out as a small warung in a family home. Now, it is a professional restaurant with a terrace, air conditioned rooms etc. We are seated in the middle area: this provides an in- and outside feel at the same time. On the menu: classics such as rending, ayam opor and semur ikan. We go for saoto soup for starters, and then the Mirosso ‘special’, nasi rames and sateh sapi (beef).

We are served chicken sateh by mistake. When we try to send the dish back, the waitresses publicly questions whether we indeed ordered the sapi. Not a sign of good service. When delivered, the beef sateh is overly seasoned and tough to chew. Revenge of the cook..?
It doesn’t matter: the rest of the meal is fine. The Mirosso ‘special’: fried noodles with liver and kidney, vermicelli chicken, rice with crunchy vegetables and sambal. You don’t need extra hot sauce to spice up this dish, it is spicy enough as it is. The yellow rice (kuning) is also delicious, as is the accompanying spicy chicken.

In the weekends, Mirosso serves a specialty: green dawet. Dawet is a drink with coconut milk, pandan and little soft balls made of riceflower and starch. Very, very, very tasty! The service is friendly, but as I mentioned before, not 100% accurate. Also quite slow. But I don’t want to stress the negative: I will surely return, especially for the noodles with liver and the green dawet!

Food 8 | Atmosphere 7 | Service 6-

P&G

Kitchen: Indian - Roti

P&G roti to go

On the way back from visiting Fort New Amsterdam on Commewijne, we stop at P&G for take away roti. Nine years ago when I was last in Surinam, a number of people whose taste buds I respect, were very fund of P&G. Back then there was only one shop on the other side of the river (this one!), which probably added to the exotic taste. Obviously, I am looking forward to the experience!

The man behind the counter has a good sense of humor. That scores points. We order 4 roti’s: 3 with extra chicken and 1 vega. We wait for 10 minutes, which is fine. Once home, we quickly unwrap our packages. They contain a sufficient amount of masala chicken, potato, ‘kouseband’ green beans, and a roti pancake. And spicy pepper. Firstly, the roti pancake: it is nicely filled with yellow ‘pesi’, but something is missing. It rips up a bit dry, maybe. The taste is good, the masala is excellent! Spicy, but not too much. The kouseband is still crunchy. Finally, the potato was left quite crude; personally I like it a bit more mashed. But there is nothing wrong with the taste. I enjoyed eating this roti: its taste met the expectation.

Food 8+ | Atmosphere 6 | Service 8+

'The Delicious Restaurant' (Hot Pot)

Kitchen: Chinese - Hot Pot

Little hot pot

I have been invited to ‘hot pot’. It’s a Chinese way of serving food, thus the first step to take is to tune down the air conditioning in our private room. The service is accurate and kind. Some explanation and good advice is never far away. My host is a regular. Maybe that helps.

Hot pot is a kind of fondue: DIY food. The table is filled with raw fish, shrimp, octopus, vegetables, roots and meat. Usually it’s a group thing: a big hot pot in the center of the table with boiling hot broth in two flavours – regular and spicy. For this occasion we choose a different option: everybody gets their own little hot pot. I hotpotted once before in Chengdu (China) and the spicy variant killed all delicate flavours, so I choose the regular bouillon. In China you could also choose to dip brains, stomach and chicken heads in the pot, but today I find frog legs exotic enough.

It’s a social happening. It’s very enjoyable to share opinions about how long it takes to dip your meat, what goes well with what etc. It’s also easy to boil something in your neighbor’s hot pot, and so I learn that I’d better chosen the spicy variation. The regular broth is very.. regular. All condiments are fresh. Frog legs taste funny. A bit like spongy chicken, but not quite. Hot pot isn’t high cuisine, but it is a lot of fun!

Food 7- (because of the regular bouillon: maybe the spicy one scores higher. I will let you know) | Atmosphere 6 | Service 7+

Lee's Korean Restaurant

Kitchen: Korean

Restaurant specialty: Korean bbq

Had diner with 6 persons. The entry is traditional (Chinese?), you cross a little bridge and see little (Japanese?) Koi swimming beneath. When entering the dining room, you pass a glass cupboard with plastic sushi on display. Our table is OK. The service is a bit slow, but eventually we get everything we ask for. This evening, we order the fried red snapper with garlic instead of the sweet and sour sauce that I remember being especially nice from the last time I was here (almost 10 years ago..). Next time I will choose the sweet and sour sauce again. The fish is delicious, though! The Korean BBQ (‘Galbi Gui’) tastes as good as always. Tempura vegetables, chicken bamboo and a sweet and sour pig dish are all reasonable in taste. Price-quality rate is also reasonable. The way I remember it, I was more impressed 9 years ago. Maybe my taste now is more developed?

Food 7 | Atmosphere 6 | Service 6