Ron Gastrobar Oriental

I found this place overrated. Not bad, but they just couldn’t get their flavors right. To salty, other dishes to plane, to long in the deepfrier… Obviously they don’t fully get the Asian hang of cooking. And their fusion dishes with goose liver had to little of it in the recipe. Cocktails were a bit to sour or watery too. Staff was nice. But I would recommend people looking for Asian fusion cooking to look elsewhere.

I wish I could use half stars here but since I can’t I’m going to have to round down to three. It was certainly an all right meal and the experience was about the same. We first sat down we really felt like we were being ignored while ordering. This picked up a little throughout the meal but there were only three other tables there at the moment so wasn’t much of an excuse.
For the meal and the drinks they were both a little better than average but it didn’t knock my socks off. There were a few bites of the duck which were good and then the next would be really chewy and in edible. Both of the side and Swika really nice. The mushrooms had a lot of flavor and the okra especially was nicely cooked and spiced perfectly.
Not really sure that we will make a return trip as it’s a little pricey for what you gifts but in our case it was special occasion so you decided to splurge on it.

This is Amsterdam’s newest Ron Blaauw hard to get into hot spot — after trying multiple failed attempts at both a weeknight walk-​in and calling ahead, I finally just asked to be placed on the next evening’s waiting list should anyone abandon their reservation and had some luck with this! (hint)
I’m being VERY critical of this place as I was wow’ed by Ron Gastrobar previously — the concept and menu are very similar to that restaurant (small plates meant to be shared), but with a Chinese spin to it. I am also a big fan of Asian fusion restaurants and being Chinese myself, I wanted to see how Ron would interpret some of these dishes. With all this in mind, I was not expecting authenticity by any means but I also did not expect to be as underwhelmed as I was.
Dim sum was almost a complete letdown — from this part of the menu, we tried two types of siu mai (chicken and scallops), ha kau (shrimp dumplings), and the pork buns. Except for the porn buns, which were excellent if not a tad salty (they’re also pan fried as opposed to traditionally steamed, and you’ll never get a complaint from me about that!), it seemed as if these were brought in from another dim sum place and a flourish was added on top of each in an attempt to add something to the dish (ex: a dash of wasabi mayo or caviar). Very overpriced for very basic dim sum.
Most of the small plates were very good — heads up for those who cannot handle spicy foods whatsoever: many of the dishes DO have quite a kick to them (as denoted by the number of Betty Boops next to each item — wut?). The stand outs for us were the lamb pancake with mango chutney, sweet and sour prawns, wonton salad with pork and crispy peanuts, and black angus tartar. The others were tasty if not a little indistinguishable from each other, with oyster sauce being a main flavor. We also tried the udon noodles — for 5 euros, this was actually a nice big portion, but was definitely not Singapore style by any means.
We didn’t find anything that appealed to us on the dessert portion of the menu, but luckily our waitress brought out some little cones of gelato (vanilla/​cinnamon/​sesame) on the house that were yummy! Bigger portions of these, please — I’d even pay you for them!
The damage was a little under 300 euros for 6 people (including alcohol — the wine list actually has a number of wines by the glass that are good and reasonably priced, something for everyone). Service is also excellent here, the staff are attentive and can help you make sense of the menu options. Overall, it was an enjoyable meal but I couldn’t help but expect more from something with Ron in its name!

Wir waren hier mit einer Gruppe von 10 Personen, hatten reserviert und der Einfachheit halber eine fixes Menü bestellt. Es gab mehrere Runden mit je zwei Gerichten. Das Essen war sehr lecker, interessant gewürzt und gut abgestimmt. Die Lokation an sich ist schick, aber etwas laut. Bei den Weinen gibt es meiner Meinung nach noch Verbesserungspotenzial, aber ansonsten ist die Getränkeauswahl in Ordnung.

Would recommend the dim sum and starters. The pan fried bun is really good. The small dishes need to be tweaked they are the weakest link. Char Sui isn’t chat Sui what you would get in Chinese restaurant. Maybe they should tweak the description. Egg tart desert was too heavy, too much filo dough.

Really good food for a good value. I like the format of Ron Gastrobar and this Oriental version is even better, with a Dim Sum style. Every dish is very curated and the atmosphere is great. Sitting at the bar gives the opportunity to chat with very friendly bar men that invent amazing cocktails on the spot!

All dishes were extremely flavourful and though I usually am a big fan of Asian food I have never experienced something like this before. Don’t expect a strict traditional Chinese place, but expect the greatest oriental food in the Netherlands and possibly beyond. The price is high, but the quality of food is even higher, so you’re actually getting a great deal.