Markthal food review: Kibbeling set from Royal Fish
I had always wanted to eat at one of the many food places at the Markthal in Rotterdam, but I regretfully never happened to be around that area during lunch or dinner time. Some time ago, I visited the Markthal around dinner time and I decided to order something from one of the seafood stalls, Royal Fish.
After looking at the clear pictures of the seafood sets above the counter that also state the prices, I was thinking of either getting the "lekkerbekje" (= fried fish fillet) or the "Kibbeling" (= fried pieces of fish). In the end, I decided on the Kibbeling set for €7.95. You get a large portion of Kibbeling, fries, and a side salad with a slice of lemon. It was a very filling meal.
"Kibbeling" is the Dutch word for fried chunks of fish and they call them that way, because in the past, they used to fry the left-over cod cheeks (aka "kibbeling") as a way to make it tastier. Nowadays, they use chunks of white fish for this dish.
There is lettuce, cucumber, and tomato in the simple salad that comes with the set and it was a bit too dry. I think it could use a bit of olive oil or some other simple dressing. You also get 2 stick packs of mayonnaise & ketchup for the fries without an extra charge. The fries have a good thickness and you can taste some potato flavor. They were already seasoned with some salt and they taste really nice with the mayonnaise. (As a Dutch person, I just cannot get used to eating fries with ketchup. ^_^)
After looking at the clear pictures of the seafood sets above the counter that also state the prices, I was thinking of either getting the "lekkerbekje" (= fried fish fillet) or the "Kibbeling" (= fried pieces of fish). In the end, I decided on the Kibbeling set for €7.95. You get a large portion of Kibbeling, fries, and a side salad with a slice of lemon. It was a very filling meal.
With the "Kibbeling" set, you also get a fair amount of ravigotte sauce, which was hidden at the right side of the take-out box and buried underneath the pieces of fried fish.
For the "Kibbeling", they used chunks of white fish and even after frying them, they were still soft and a bit moist. I like that the pieces of fried fish had a thin crust, as I could taste the white fish, which has a nice flavor, better. For someone who has never eaten Dutch fried fish before, you might think that the fish is fried a bit too long, but in the Netherlands, we tend to fry the fish a bit longer so that it has a slightly browner crust. It gives it a bit of a delicate burnt flavor.
I don't know if walking around for 5-10 minutes with the "kibbeling" set
packed in a take-out bag influenced the crunchiness of the pieces of
fried fish a lot, but the only parts that were really crunchy were the pointy
parts that stuck out. If it is meant this way, it is a nice change to hard chunks of heavily battered fried fish.
There is lettuce, cucumber, and tomato in the simple salad that comes with the set and it was a bit too dry. I think it could use a bit of olive oil or some other simple dressing. You also get 2 stick packs of mayonnaise & ketchup for the fries without an extra charge. The fries have a good thickness and you can taste some potato flavor. They were already seasoned with some salt and they taste really nice with the mayonnaise. (As a Dutch person, I just cannot get used to eating fries with ketchup. ^_^)
By the end of the meal, the overall oiliness/heaviness got to me a little bit, but it was nothing that a glass of ice cold lemonade couldn't fix.
