A restaurant reviewer has given a scathing review of the De Beren restaurant in Almere, Netherlands, citing poor food quality, terrible service, and an overall lack of care. The reviewer’s experience included dishes with unsettling textures and flavors, inattentive waitstaff, and a general sense of neglect at the Almere location. Despite the chain’s widespread popularity and affordable prices, this particular branch failed to deliver on basic dining expectations.

The reviewer described several dishes in detail, including tomato soup with a thick skin, carpaccio with bitter pine nuts and questionable bacon, and a dry, reheated piece of salmon. The Berenburger, a signature item, was criticized for its strange texture and excessive sweet sauce. The ribeye steak, priced at €39, was deemed the worst the reviewer had ever tasted, being both charred on the outside and undercooked inside.

Service issues further compounded the negative experience. The reviewer had to repeatedly ask for a bottle of water, and the waitress appeared disinterested in addressing customer needs. Dirty dishes were left on tables, and requests for dessert substitutions were met with resistance. The overall atmosphere suggested a lack of management oversight and a disregard for customer satisfaction.

Despite acknowledging De Beren’s success as a popular restaurant chain with reasonable prices, the reviewer questioned the quality of the ingredients and preparation at the Almere location. The reviewer also noted that while culinary snobbery should be avoided, the experience was simply too poor to ignore. The combination of subpar food and terrible service led to a deeply disappointing dining experience that the reviewer found difficult to reconcile with the chain’s widespread appeal.