Kraantje Lek — Restaurant in Bloemendaal

I don't enjoy writing bad reviews, and I haven't yet in my short time of reviewing places, bit this shall be my first. I have to note that we came here unexpectedly with a group of about 10 people, so it wasn't a surprise that we didn't get the best spot in the restaurant. We were placed in an extra building in the back which had absolutely NO atmosphere, the staff was friendly but didn't seem very enthusiastic (maybe because they were quite young and had to work on their Saturday afternoon).

This place is essentially supposed to be a pancake house, so I decided to order a pancake. I wasn't sure if I should choose the Italian or the wild ragout pancake, but I went for the latter seeing as this sounded the nicest and most "luxurious". This was a horrible idea, and I received a thick pancake with one scoop chucked on top that looked like diarrhea more then a ragout (they could have at added a ting bit of garnish on the side at least make it look little bit appealing). Sadly the taste wasn't much better than how it looked. (See picture below) I found €12 to be A LOT for this place of sadness. I'm no master chef, but my own ragout seems like a Michelin star dish compared to this.

If you're going for a nice walk in the beautiful forests and dunes in this area and happen to come by this place and want to have a drink, or have hungry screaming kids (they do have a big playground outside and a very "kid-friendly" menu), or if you're dying from hunger yourself, then you might consider visiting this place. In any other case I would just go for a bite or in Haarlem or Overveen or the...

The space is really nice, the terrace space is amazing and green if you don’t mind lots if kids running around and screaming since it has a kids playground. I think it’s perfect for families with kids. The food is not perfect but not bad either, their day special was entricot and I had it but not only they didn’t ask me how I wanted my steak, but also they just assumed I wanted rare steak! It was rare which would be okay under normal circumstances but the meat had a really strong and not so pleasant smell that basically didn’t let me eat the steak. I didn’t want to be a pain so I didn’t send it back or anything since it was really busy, but absolutely hated it. My friend had the kaas fondue and that one was pretty decent. Fresh vegetables and nice fondue. Their asparagus soup was really good. The service wasn’t that great and the waitress was only talking to my friend who is Dutch, I didn’t speak much Dutch to them and was speaking English to my friend, so they just assumed I don’t live here so they tried to not interact withe me much, which wasn’t very nice considering I live here! Other than that I really like the place because of the...

We ate here in December and the food was okay but we sat inside and there were way too many kids running around and screaming. Not a place to go if you do not have kids!!! We tried to go back yesterday and sit outside in the sun and there are tables around the playground (no thank you) and quieter tables around the side away from the kids. We asked to sit there with our dog and the staff were quite rude and told us that they were short staffed and the quiet area was only for staff - even though the people sitting there did not look like staff and also it was actually closer to the kitchen than the madhouse area with the kids running around. It's unfortunate because this restaurant is on a really nice walking route but we definitely won't...