'gravad lax' or WYSIWYG salmon

'gravad lax'
Originally uploaded by kattebelletje.

I like eating out. I really do. I like the atmosphere and the ambiance of eating places, people toasting, waiters waiting, soft light, glasses of wine... And then I would like to write a good review because the food was so great. However, at the same time, I just can't write a positive blah blah blah blog post of dishes that I feel the restaurant should improve on... Here in Restaurant Cityhall in Leiden, we had the gravad lax starter from the daily menu. I took a snapshot of it - and.. do you see what is wrong with this picture? There is no dill in this whole dish to be found, not a sprig anywhere! True gravad lax is supposed to marinate in a mixture of dill, salt and sugar for at least 24 hours with a weight pressed on top! This was setback number 1. And, setback number 2, the accompanying sauce for gravad lax should be this wonderful sweet mustard and dill sauce, tangy and nice. The sauce here was white, and there was not enough of it (I hate it when there isn't enough sauce as much as when you get rolls without butter), and on top of it, it tasted like sauce tartare. The salmon wasn't bad, and the sauce was tasty allright, but I honestly don't understand why the cook or the menu writer, or whoever, wanted to call this creation gravad lax. They couldn't go wrong with the salad you would say, but alas, it was a little tasteless due to the lack of a proper vinaigrette. On top of everything (see picture) there were way too many onion rings. I mean, is this a hamburger or what! And even if it were, I wouldn't eat so many onions. (There were spring onion chunks scattered around the plate, too). There was a third surprise - which I discovered later, because the way I eat things is to start with the more ordinary things, and work from there to the tasty bits - : the dish turned out to be a WYSIWYG salmon. What You See is What You Get! Meaning, there was no more salmon than you see here : underneath the curly leaves of the salad the plate was empty. The salmon was draped in a kind of circle, so to speak... CityHall, you should do better! Your atmosphere is good, but your cooking could be on a higher plane!