"De Roste Muis" - The Red Mouse
I have no idea why as a young teenager I set foot in "De Roste Muis" for the very first time. Certainly not for an alcoholic drink. They would have refused to give it to me. The door was too low and it was dark inside. The ceiling was also too low really. I remember at least one of the walls was leaning outwards. They said you could have knocked the whole place down with a feather. There were only four men there. They were playing cards. One of them was the innkeeper.
The oldest part of the pub is at least 250 years old. In those days the men who worked in the fields came here for their lunch and midday drink, a kind of gin or perhaps a beer or two. For years it was a "secret" pub: everyone knew except the tax people.
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Times have changed. Now the oldest part of the pub is more like a museum. Mr. Peter Hageman has added other buildings. There is a restaurant where they serve fine regional dishes such as eels in a green sauce or eels grilled with butter.
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"De Roste Muis" is a very pleasant place for a beer or for a cup of coffee with a pancake, for a slice of bread with ham or for an entire meal.
On his page about the Red Mouse Mr James Martin talks about "full (and filling!) meals". I agree. He also talks about "a disjointed wooden structure". I don't know of any wooden pubs or restaurants in Belgium and in my humble opinion this isn't one of them.
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When it's cold and wet outside they put a few logs on the open fire. And in the Summer when the sun shines you can sit outside. There is plenty of room to play for the children and there are some cudly animals. And at the bottom of the lawn there is the Oudeman Creek with the statue by Christine Ferket.
You will find it between the center of Waterland-Oudeman and St-Jan-in-Eremo. It's sign posted. Highly recommended !
Here you may visit its official website, in Dutch. And you too might like (some of) the pictures you find there better than ours here.
More pictures of the "Roste Muis"
Back to our text on Waterland-Oudeman
