Whether it was because we had our dinner at 8PM on a Sunday night, or because they only opened a few months ago, our experience at this Van Der Valk were mediocre, even though the entourage were quite expensive looking.
As said, the looks are very good and drew us in, apart from already having our minds set on a Van Der Valk dinner. This new location is relatively close to Amsterdam so worth a shot.
Waitservice took honor in their title, because apart from waiting on the guests, the guests had to wait a long time over and over before service was acchieved. The full staff appeared to be in their teenage years, a few perhaps in their early twenties, and appeared more interested in entertaining each other instead of the guests. On the few occasions we did receive the service, they were mostly friendly and happy, but they clearly missed the drive I'm used to see at Van Der Valk personell.
The order was handed out with a few errors in the side dishes, but they were of the sort that could easily be rectified. What definately bugged us though was the temperature of the main dish and the poorly prepared meat, very tough to chew on.
When they checked up on our drinks, we told them our concerns and they offered to remake one of the two dishes, the one with the most problems. A long wait later it finally got served out and it was a slightly better attempt but still no high roller.
They also offered us a free drink to make up for the problems, a nice gesture had they not added them to our bill anyway (when we checked our bill they deducted them but still, how many people go through their bill to see if it is correct?)
The dessert was nice, but it took them over 20 minutes to make so we were wondering if they even were busy making it in the end..
I hope for the restaurant this is just a single case of 'restaurant visit with applied Murphy's Law,' however for us it was enough to keep driving the further distance to another Van Der Valk on future visits.