Vegetables can have their way at Boompjes, with great results

The restaurant called Boompjes, on the central square of Overloon, does indeed have a large terrace all around with low, guided plane trees. The interior is also completely green, from the walls and the chairs to the ceiling, and ornaments made of birch branches have been hung in strategic places. We therefore find it quite funny to see that diagonally opposite the restaurant there is also an establishment called Partycentrum Bos. When we ask the attentive hostess whether this is a coincidence – ‘Don’t see the Forest between the Trees anymore?’ I laugh, a little too loud – he looks at us uncomprehendingly. “Both restaurants have been around for a long time, but I’ve never thought about them,” she says.

Dutch Cuisine

The restaurant used to be called Onder de Boompjes and René Brienen cooked a star there – he later moved the place to Roermond and is now located on the Maas in Well. The current boss owner of Boompjes, Jaap Volman, worked for him, and also at Bolenius in Amsterdam. Especially that last restaurant, where he was a sous-chef for a long time, seems to have strongly influenced him. We agree with a taste of how precise and attentive Volman is in his vegetable preparations – something that has distinguished Luc Kusters from Bolenius for more than ten years. Boompjes is also a member of the Dutch Cuisine catering movement, co-founded by Kusters, which, among other things, promotes the use of more local vegetables in the catering industry. Fortunately, once you are infected with that plant love, you can’t get rid of it.

We take a seat in the still quiet dining room, where, however, a playlist is immediately set up with all kinds of extremely drawl acoustic versions of well-known rock ballads – after twenty minutes of Maroon 5 and Hoobastank we are already quite sky radioed, unfortunately it continues all evening. The house aperitif, a very nicely conceived slightly bitter drink made from local pear liqueur with sparkling riesling het Fonkeltje from wine house Overst in Voerendaal, is also accompanied by an enticing plate of vegetable snacks. There’s a spicy nasturtium flower with honey in it, a kind of snake gourd shuffleboard with green herbs, and a folded radish packet filled with an Arabian-like aubergine puree full of sultry spices. We also get an old-fashioned mushroom soup – very tasty.

On the Boompjes website we have seen a three-course menu, and a menu of four to seven courses, where all dishes can also be ordered separately. But now that we’re there, we don’t get a menu, because there are only two of the chef and waitress – the staff shortage is also noticeable in Overloon. That in itself is not so bad, because we still wanted to take a menu (twice four courses, once vegetarian), but it is nice if something is said about this adjustment at the table. Anyway.

garden

Then follows a palette of vegetables for both of us. French chef Michel Bras first created this iconic dish in 1980 (‘Gargouillou’, he called it – he also put ham in it, by the way). Since then, such a tastefully decorated ‘garden’, where each part is prepared separately, has been a common first course at upscale businesses. I always find it a cheerful starter, because the composition constantly changes with the offer and so it should really be a celebration of what the season offers. That is also the case with Boompjes: on the plate we find the last courgettes and yellow green beans of the summer, also some mushrooms and a beautiful yellow turnip, and fresh white beans, everything lukewarm, meticulously cooked, and very carefully prepared. There is also a fine fennel puree on the plate and some pickled rhubarb cream for some creamy and sweet counterbalance. Very successful.

In the meantime, we have looked at the wine list, which – also very Dutch Cuisine – contains a remarkably extensive collection of Dutch and Belgian wines. We order from the Thorn winery the frühburgunder – a precocious sister of the pinot noir that you will find almost only in the German Ahr, but apparently also doing well in Limburg. As a second course, the carnivore gets a chunky piece of pikeperch on cauliflower, prepared as risotto, with horseradish and some nutty roasted buckwheat. The fish is fine, but it actually works even better for the vegetarian who gets a delicious brown-roasted piece of cauliflower – we taste the raw and spicy, the soft and creamy and the browned savory of the cauliflower in the dish, and that works very well .

In the third course, the vegetables again play the leading role. Rarely tasty summer tomatoes from a local grower (see box) are topped with a clear tomato stock with cinnamon and red pepper. There are all kinds of herbs and plants from the garden, and the whole is intensely aromatic, fragrant and warming savory, almost like a good curry. For the carnivore, there is also a piece of fried plaice – fine – and the vegetable dish contains a slice of grilled alouette potato, with red skin. As far as I’m concerned, that works less well, both in terms of taste and texture.

mess

The main course for the carnivore is a large piece of tenderloin, accompanied by kohlrabi, grilled pickled onions, roasted grains and potato foam. The meat is okay but a bit bland; the potato foam is rather lean and flaky, almost shaving foam rather than nice and creamy. There is also some beef stew. The vegetarian gets another piece of heavily brown roasted pointed cabbage – almost as if it came out of the airfryer. It’s nothing earth-shattering, but the taste is fine.

The dessert is really out of place, because it’s a mess: farm boys’ ice cream with a cone next to it, strawberries, basil oil, crumble and pastry cream. The ice cream tastes slightly raisin but lacks both the delicious texture of the dried fruit and the kick of the brandy; the strawberries are not very tasty and the flavors just don’t match at all. The whole thing really feels like a must, and we suspect the chef’s attentive love for vegetables doesn’t exactly extend to the desserts.

Nevertheless, we had a great evening at Boompjes.