On today's menu, an advice on something you should not in NL as much as you can: eat a pizza.
Yes, I know I am a food nazi in this respect and I also recognise that there are loads of crappy places in Italy and indeed little variety when it comes to foreign cuisines, but I feel like I have to warn all the good people out there. Or maybe I just feel like ranting today...
But back to pizza.
A colleague of my bf warmly recommended a "real Italian place, with proper pizza", quite well known in Den Haag. I have been there before and I can attest and certify that a) they are not Italian and b) they don't make a pizza that's worth eating.
These kind of fake "echte Italiaanse pizzeria" are easy to spot.
They have at least 2 of these tacky "typical Italian" decorations: Chianti bottles used as candle holders, a sepia poster with Venice or Florence, a plastic-marmoreal reproduction of the Tower of Pisa or possibly the Colosseum, bunches of garlic hanging from the ceiling, pictures of famous Italian actors of the past, red and white chequered table cloths. The worst offenders display all of the above.
On the menu, apart from an array of grammatical and spelling mistake that any Italian will be able to point out to you, appear dishes such as the abominable pizza Hawaii, with pineapples; a pizza called Mafia; a pizza with chicken; a pizza with a misspelled name of a well known Italian city. If you are extremely unlucky, you will find a pizza topped with chips, a pizza with
bolognaise* and (true story) a pizza called afghani kebab.
Now, it's a free country and everyone is free to do, go and eat where and what they want of course, but I really felt the need to share this poignant rant/piece of advice with the general public after eating last night what tasted like a piece of cardboard smothered with melted white plastic.
*Bolognaise it's not an Italian sauce either.