Jamie's Diner in Rotterdam - part 2

After showing you the exterior and the interior of the Jamie's Diner restaurant in Rotterdam, the Netherlands (the first outside the UK!), I will now get to the good part: the food! We wanted to try a bit of everything that sounded delicious on the menu, so we ordered 2 starters to share and 5 mains, of which one is shared among us four. 

 J's crispy calamari, €8.50

The crispy calamari had a thick and crunchy crust - similar to the fried chicken from the KFC - and the crust was seasoned really well. I really like the seasoning combined with the fresh cress, the roasted garlic mayo and the lime. The amount of calamari is a bit little compared to the crust, but the bits of calamari that was underneath the thick coat of crust tasted fresh and full of flavor.  

Happy chicken wings, €8.50 

You can choose from three different flavor combinations and I ordered the happy chicken wings with a soy, honey, and sesame flavor, but I am starting to think that I got the smokey BBQ wings and BBQ sauce instead. The black sauce in the cup tasted like a bad and bitter cough syrup, so I didn't dip the chicken wings in it, after the first bite that warned us. The brined and fried free-range chicken wings were not very crispy on the outside and the meat was a bit on the dry side, but luckily, the marinade wasn't very strongly flavored and it was still eatable.  

 Double trouble burger, €18

It is a burger with two prime beef patties, Old Rotterdam cheese, sticky onions, secret sauce, and shoestring fries. This burger stacks up very high and the shoestring fries just go all over the place. I think it is the most filling burger on the menu. When you order a burger, you get a side of your choice with it. The fries was the one that was chosen and somehow, we also got cups of house slaw with our mains. It could be that our mains each comes with a side dish and a cup of house slaw too and they just placed all the houseslaw on the trays with the burgers. A bit strange that the size of the cups were different though.

Doesn't it look very delicious up close?

 Jamie's insanity burger, €17.50

It is a burger with a mustard brushed prime beef patty, crispy smoked bacon, big J's kicking bourbon burger sauce, Old Rotterdam cheese, Tobasco, and flash pickles. This is the one that I ordered and it was really tasty. The beef patty was quite thick and it had a good, grilled beef flavor. But some bites were very salty, so I think that they didn't mix the salt in the ground beef well enough. I do miss a strong sauce that could bind the different ingredients together. I couldn't taste much of the bourbon burger sauce, as I mainly tasted onions, mustard sauce, cheese, and the beef. More sauce could have made the burger more moist. The two strips of bacon also didn't add much to the flavor experience.   

Instead of normal fries, I choose the sweet potato fries rubbed with Jamie's spicy rub as my side dish. I tried some of the fries from the others and I think that the sweet potato fries taste more interesting. The fries have a normal fries flavor, but the sweet potato fries are a lot thinner and crispier, and the spicy rub makes them tasty, even without any sauce. I also like that there are more fries in the cup than the last time, I ordered fries at Jamie's Italian. 

Besides that, I also got the cups of house slaw and two slices of flash pickles. I already thought the pickles tasted a bit not fermented long enough, but apparently, it was deliberately done that way. Hence, the name flash pickles. They have a good pickle flavor with a bit of freshness, similar to cucumber. The house slaw was also nicely flavored with a mint-lemon, organic yoghurt dressing. The flavor is a lot stronger than the slaw that I previously ordered at Jamie's Italian.       

 
The other two ordered the aged sirloin steak with garlic butter, iceberg wedge salad, horseradish, and fries.

 Aged sirloin steak, €26.50

Above, you can see that the person who ordered it medium rare got a longer piece of beef and underneath, the person who ordered it medium got a thicker and shorter piece of beef. I tried a small piece of the medium grilled steak and it was a bit on the tough side, so medium rare might be a better choice. The steak has a good grilled beef flavor, but the burger patty that I had in my burger was moister and softer. The iceberg lettuce wedge looked interesting and it had a tangy dressing with chives on top.   

As if everything wasn't enough yet, we also ordered the Diner BBQ plate to share among us four and we got the onion rings as the side. 

The diner BBQ plate, €22.50

You get 1/4 of chicken, BBQ pulled pork on a waffle, and 1/2 a rack of ribs.  

Out of the three, I liked the grilled chicken the most. Although it was only a grilled chicken without any special marinade or sauce, it had a nice chicken flavor and it was still quite moist inside. Different than in the picture on their Facebook page, you get a boneless, 1/4  piece of chicken with the skin still on it. No chicken legs or wings.   

The waffle with pulled pork on top was quite interesting: a soft and fluffy waffle combined with a spicy and BBQ flavored pulled pork that was full of flavor and very soft. It is not something I would order again, but it was fun to try it once.



I really wanted to try the ribs, as I love spare ribs, but the meat on the ribs was so soft that it easily fell off the bone, while I prefer the meat to be chewier and moist. The BBQ sauce and marinade isn't my favorite either, so I was a bit disappointed. 

Onion rings

I was really surprised when I saw these onion rings, because I almost thought they were buns. The image that I have of onion rings are thin rings of onion with a crunchy coat, but these are giant sized, half-a-onion, kind of onion rings. Luckily, the inside is just air and not more onion. The crust is thin and airy, but a little bit too oily. The paper underneath was literally soaked in oil. The onion rings were also accompanied by a garlic mayo and it is a disastrous move to order this on a date, when you don't want any breath problems. I also ate a burger with a mountain of onions on top, so you can guess why I didn't speak as much during the rest of the day.

What do I think?

Overall, I had a great meal and I was able to try a lot of different flavors and textures. The prices are a bit steep, but just like at Jamie's Italian, you can still have a filling meal for around €20, if you want. Instead of a large size plate of pasta and a drink, here you can order a burger with fries as a side dish and a drink for around that price.