Last week we visited Corine's Cafe in Mooresville, North Carolina, one of nearly 40 Dutch restaurants, bakeries and stores in the United States that we know of.
Corine's Cafe is located in Mooresville about 30 minutes north of Charlotte, NC. A sign with big red letters marks the spot: 'homestyle cooking with a touch of Dutch'.
Owner Corine Croxell is a Dutch native and her husband Dennis works for a NASCAR team. The cafe captures the family spirit by featuring orange Dutch flags and NASCAR racing memorabilia. The classic American dining room is decorated with 1950's bar chairs and a black and white tiled floor and the cafe was used to create a TV commercial with Dale Earnhardt Jr., a NASCAR racer.
A touch of Dutch
The frontpage of the menu has a picture of classic Dutch windmill and Dutch items on the menu include bitterballen, kroketten, Dutch pancakes, Dutch apple pie and home-made stroopwafels.
The waitress gave us a friendly warning: "the bitterballen and the kroketten are pretty much the same thing". She was right of course, and it was nice to warn us, but we ordered both anyway. The bitterballen are home-made and delicious. They're filled with chicken, parsley and spices. While their crust was a bit thinner than the mass produced ones in the Netherlands, they had a really nice bite to it. Of special note is the mustard used. Corine's Cafe use exactly the right type of mustard for bitterballen and kroketten -- spicy and not too sweet.
Mrs. Croxell is a hands-on manager and starts her day very early bake and prepare for breakfast. "I always have to train the American cooks on how exactly to prepare a pannenkoek", she said. Her lessons paid off -- the pancake was excellent.
We tried the cheese and bacon version and the structure of the pancake was classical Dutch: fluffy, with a great flavor and a little thinner than the American version. In the Netherlands pancakes are served in many different styles and flavors. While using fried bacon instead of smoked spek is definitely American it works out nicely and this is a true Dutch-American pancake.
Mrs. Croxell worked in a pancake house in the Netherlands. She has worked in restaurants from an early age and in August 2005 she started Corine's Cafe. Through the years she has brought many Dutch items from Holland to North Carolina to decorate the cafe; even the pen-holder at the register is a wooden shoe. Mrs. Croxell grew up in Waterland, a municipality just north of Amsterdam, and in the hallway there are a number of photographs of Marken and Monnickendam.
Corine's Cafe is a casual eatery with 225 seats and Mrs. Croxell said they are frequently full. Breakfast is especially popular. They have a lot of regular guests. The Dutch snacks are popular for lunch, for example the kroketten with French fries. The kroketten are also home-made and except for the size and shape are very similar to the bitterballen, as is the case in the Netherlands.
Dutch desserts
The stroopwafels, made one-by-one by Mrs. Croxell in a small waffle iron, are a real treat. They are different from store bought stroopwafels (a little crispier) and remind of the freshly baked stroopwafels on the markets in the Netherlands.
Finally, the apple pie is as Dutch as it gets -- this is the real thing. For a real 'Dutch treat' we had it heated up with a scoop of whip cream on top.
Corine's Cafe is definitely worth a visit. For a real European experience you could combine a visit with a trip to the Ikea a few miles away.
Corine's Cafe
559 E. Plaza Drive
Mooresville, NC
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"Corine's Cafe: homestyle cooking with a touch of Dutch".
Bitterballen.
Dutch specials on the menu.
Kroketten.
Home-made Dutch apple pie (appeltaart).