I am rarely as impressed with a restaurant as I was with Little Dutch. It was almost as if I had been transported back a couple of decades to a time and place where eating establishments took pride in the quality of their food and the service with which it was delivered! I went there with two business associates for lunch, and I was definitely impressed.
My first positive impression came from the service. As we walked in, the lady at the cash register looked up, smiled, and welcomed us. None of the cold, impersonal greetings that you usually receive at busy restaurants--she treated us like we were the only folks who had walked in to have lunch that day, but the place was hopping! As she took us to our table and handed out the menus. I wondered, based on the crowd, how long it would take before our order was taken. These folks have their service down pat. Our server materialized out of nowhere just a couple of minutes after we settled into our chairs, and with a big smile, told us her name and declared that she'd be right back to take our drink orders. She was a woman of her word. She was warm and cordial, and she was definitely knowledgeable about the food. We asked all kinds of questions about the menu items, and she knew enough to be able to tell us a lot about the ingredients and modes of cooking for each dish. She didn't seem at all bothered by our questions, but instead seemed pleased that we were curious and happy to help us choose something that would please us. Honestly, she felt more like a solicitous hostess than a restaurant employee; it was clear that she felt ownership in the place and was proud of the food. It was also clear that she knew what she was doing and that she wanted us to have a good meal. We asked her later how long she had been there, and she told us that she'd worked there since the seventies.
Then there was the food, which was delicious. I ordered a chicken breast with red pepper. It came on a bed of rice, nicely cooked (not too dry, not mushy). I ordered creamed spinach as the side dish, and it was delicious. One of my colleagues ordered a hamburger, which looked great. He was very pleased. His side was dutch-oven-baked potatoes, which were very good. My other colleague ordered a salad, which looked very fresh. All our meals came out at the same time, which impressed me. It seems that these days, servers don't feel any compunction at all about bringing a cold dish out to one person before the hot meals are ready.The one person sits there wondering whether to start eating or not, and the others sit there salivating. It's a pet peeve of mine. But at Little Dutch all of the food came at once and within a very reasonable amount of time, and the two hot dishes were very hot--they hadn't been sitting around in the kitchen waiting for the server to get around to them.
If this tells you anything, I left a 30% tip. I also took time to go back to leave the tip on the table and tell our server how much I appreciated the truly excellent service. I halfway joked that she should head up a training program and teach people how to make restaurant customers happy. She smiled and thanked me warmly, and told me she hoped I'd be back again soon.
Both of us "newbies" thanked the person who took us there. I'll go out of my way to eat there again. I highly recommend this restaurant