Firma Pickles – Burgers & Wines, Rotterdam
Rotterdam has a new fancy food hall called Markthal; it houses all sorts of food stands and restaurants and we decided to try out Firma Pickles – Burgers & Wines as the name contains three things we like: pickles, burgers, and wine! I had walked by earlier that afternoon with a female friend of mine, D, and we had asked if we could make a reservation for that evening. One waiter said no, and then another waiter came up next to her, points at the first waiter and then plants a kiss on her cheek. She flinched backwards and I, too, was in shock at this extremely inappropriate gesture. The first waiter looked uncomfortable as well and slowly made his retreat. Unfortunately, my mind goes blank when completely unexpected things happen, so I didn’t come up with clever retorts until we walked away. Though I suppose a slap in the face would have been the best response. D was a bit sharper than me, my brain was still short circuiting when she said, “So can I get a reservation now?”, and we were told if we come back that night we would get a table. We scrubbed her cheek clean and lamented about the male chauvinistic society we live in, and went back later to try the damn burgers (and pickles and wines).