The Dutch Wooden Shoe Café

“There are two things in the world I can’t stand; people who are intolerant of other people’s cultures, and the Dutch.” – Michael Caine, Austin Powers in Goldmember.

Well spoken, Michael, but I’m afraid that we here at the Armada are in disagreement with you on the latter half of your insightful quip. Visiting the Netherlands in 1996 afforded me a first-hand look at their liberal views on drugs and sexuality. It also afforded me a two-hand grope at their tendency to forgo the wearing of brassieres, serving to further cement my admiration for these amiable porn-mongers. Up until my trip to the Dutch Wooden Shoe Café on Cambie Street, I had considered Holland’s most influential and distinguished citizens to be Vincent Van Gogh, Gerhard Heineken, and of course, Showgirls director Paul Verhoeven. (That scene with Elizabeth Berkley and Kyle MacLaughlan in the pool warmed many a cold, dateless, high school night) But this was all before I visited the Wooden Shoe and became acquainted with the breakfast teachings of John Dys, Dutch breakfast pioneer, humanitarian and demi-god.

For the sake of brevity I’ll limit his story to the brief summarization that follows. In 1955, looking to flee the Dutch Army (insert superfluous military joke here), our homey, JD, jumped a ship to the land of lumberjacks and curlers and took a job at a local restaurant. 1970 saw him open “The Frying Dutchman”, followed by the breakfast-specific “Original Dutch Pannekoek House” in 1975. Over the years, this ballooned into the popular “De Dutch” franchise that many of you know and lovingly stuff your fat faces at. Desiring to spend more time with his legions of female fans, John sold off his share in De Dutch but, not quite being able to completely give up the smell of sizzling grease, held on to one restaurant, renamed “The Dutch Wooden Shoe.”

For those of you thinking to yourselves, “Well, whoopty-shit, so Mr Bigshot comes on over from Rotterdam, makes a fortune and then sells out, content to kick back and ride out the rest of his life off the profits,” you can think again, ugly. During our visit, we were taken aback to see Mr. Dys himself, slaving away over a hot griddle in the kitchen, his majestic beard twinkling with the morning dew as he fried up our golden-brown ‘koeks. That’s right folks, rather than suffer the indignity of having his product prepared by some acne-encrusted, teen pus-bag, Mr. Dys himself, despite being a multi-millionaire tycoon, contributes blood, sweat, tears and any other necessary bodily fluids into each dish prepared. He refuses to let them leave the kitchen until they meet his rigid standards of breakfast perfection.

Anyway, let’s get to the heart of what we do here, that being meticulously and mercilessly critiquing various breakfasty categories for your reading and, ultimately, eating enjoyment. Trepidation set in early as one of the first things we set our gaze upon when inside was an oversized novelty wooden shoe overflowing with decapitated muppet heads. I eagerly scrutinized it, hoping that perhaps someone had detached the head of pseudo hip-hop star “Nelly” and sneaked it in there but alas, I imagine it remains appended to his equally insipid torso.

The rest of the décor, for the most part, fervently cried out, “Look at me, I’m Dutch! Isn’t that dear?” There were, of course, the obligatory wooden shoes (which I’m sure no self-respecting Dutch would ever contemplate wearing), Euro 2000 Orangemen posters, Grolsch paraphernalia, glass beer steins from around the globe as well as various portraits of Dutch life and Polaroids of frequent Wooden Shoe patrons. The fact that no music was being played prompted me to scan the seemingly endless databanks of trivial knowledge floating around in my brain for Dutch contributions to either popular or classical music. So far, I have come up nameless and thus have concluded that this entire nation simply has no harmonic talent whatsoever. Get it together, Holland, I mean, even Norway had A-ha for Christ’s sake!

At the heart of this operation was the Mexico City phone book-thick menu, certainly the largest and most creative I’d ever seen, offering up breakfast items so exotic it was all my pants could do to contain my raging-hard boner. The traditional 12-inch Dutch Pannekoek was available up with every possible Earthly combination of toppings and/or fillings. For the timid (read: wussy) diners, there were a variety of safe options such as familiar banana, blueberry, whip cream, cinnamon and honey. If you’re feeling a little adventurous however, the options available would challenge the most experienced breakfast veteran as the cakes can be ordered with such remarkable morsels as trail mix, nasi goreng, shrimp, chicken cordon bleu, pineapple, smoked salmon, noodles, curry, vegetarian chilli, garlic, roast beef, corn, onion rings etc, etc, ad nauseam.

I started to feel light-headed as I tried to ingest it all and eventually fainted due to the sheer volume of delectable choices. While unconscious, I envisioned that I had died and gone to breakfast heaven where God was a 68 year-old, dirty-aproned, Dutchman and chesty, buttery, angel/waitresses supplied me with tray after tray of divinely prepared early-morning cuisine. Just try to visualize my rank devastation when I awoke to Agent M and Lang Dang‘s ugly mugs slapping the perma-grin off my face and dumping ice cold water on my crotch. I begged for a quick death and thus a return to my fantasy world but the lads declined to indulge me and sadly, I remain Earth-bound until hyper-obesity fells me in the not-too-distant future.

Our food arrived rapidly, delivered by my new favourite waitress, the bootylicious Nenah, whose good-natured spunk and congeniality won over my heart and the majority of my adolescent-level hormones. Her coffee refillage was right on the money as was her in-and-out knowledge of pannekoek lore, so much so, in fact, that I was sorely tempted to invite her back to my place for some late night Froot Loops and Courvosier. What can I say, when chicks talk breakfast, I get as randy as Michael Jackson at a NAMBLA meeting. Nenah, if you’re out there, you know how to get in touch with me. I’d also be remiss not to mention the equally shaggable, multi-tattied Rachel who, while not actually our server, was quite candid in her desire to make it onto the site. Hey, anything for a fan. Seriously, baby, anything.

Amidst so many tasties to choose from, we all had trouble settling on just one but eventually I decided to take my chances on the apple n’ cheddar pannekoek, having never experienced cheese on such a vehicle before. Any misgivings were quickly abandoned as the gorgeous combination of dairy, fruit and dough gently stroked the shafts of my blood-engorged taste buds. I topped this badboy off with a dollop of stroop (thick, molasses-like Dutch syrup) and conjured up images of Mrs Butterworth and Aunt Jemima in a sticky, stroopy make-out sesh, a la that awesome T.A.T.U. music video with the Russian teenage lesbians (download now!) Rarely have I been so satisfied with a food item as I was with that pannekoek as it provided me with just the right level of satiation, not too full, no longer hungry and left a savoury-sweet aftertaste in my slobbery mouth.

Agent M decided to sneak across the border to Tijuana in the trunk of a Budget rental car and sample the Mexican pannekoek, which, if memory serves me correctly, was so named due to its having salsa on it. We’ve found that adding a little Old El Paso to any meal immediately designates it Mexican, just as adding feta makes it Greek, pineapple makes it Hawaiian and dirt makes it Ethiopian. I believe it also came with an assortment of finely chopped peppers, sour cream and other “authentic” Mexican ingredients. Agent M gave the impression that he was quite taken with his meal although he thought it could have benefited from the addition of an egg. To be fair, he probably wouldn’t have been entirely contented unless it had come with a few hits of methadone but, sadly, that was the one thing he couldn’t find on the menu.

The voracious Lang and his monstrous Dang were unleashed on the Hash n’ Eggs and the triumvirate of happy campers was complete. Generous, dense chunks of Canadian back bacon was mixed in with crisp hash browns, Dutch Edam cheese, various veggies and topped with eggs The Dang deemed “done to perfection.” Days when Colonel von Dangenhoven declares his complete and utter satisfaction with the size and flavour of his meal are few and far between thus the fact that he was sated was a true testament to the overall kickass status of the Wooden Shoe.

Worth mentioning is the $9.99 all-you-can eat pannekoek gorge-fest held from 4 to 7 p.m. every Saturday and Sunday. Also, as most octogenarians lack appropriate pannekoek-resistant antibodies in their decimated immune systems, the Wooden Shoe provides a valuable public service with an attempt to cull the population of elderly and enfeebled by offering free food to anyone over 80 years of age. I failed to inquire as to how many old fogies had gone into cardiac arrest on the spot while trying to take advantage of this charitable offer but can only assume they must have a defibrillator standing by for such eventualities.

At the end of it all, the Wooden Shoe easily makes it into my top three, if not the uppermost position on the list of places I could die happy. It’s not unthinkable that I could return there four hundred times (and God-willing I will) and not eat the same meal twice. The only drawback here would perhaps be the price as some of the individual items came in at nearly $13. Add coffee and juice and your graveyard shift at 7-11 is not going to allow you to eat here too often. However, apart from this small stumbling block, this place had everything, great food, unparalleled variety, killer babes, hip attitude, warm atmosphere and above all, The Lord of the Dutch, John Dys. I bow down to you, Oh Great One, and beg of you to keep up the masterful work. Dank u wel, Dutch Wooden Shoe!