Eating our way through Northern Europe

[tclowe]

Thought I would start a fun thread about our food experiences during our recent cruise trip.

 

We started our pre-pre-cruise land adventure by visiting Reyjavik, Iceland. Yummy skinny hot dogs (sort of crispy skin) and they had a "French" hot dog where the skinny dogs are encased inside a toasted sesame bun with a lots of mustard. Wallet shock when we went to eat at a Chinese restaurant (Kina Husio) that cost us almost $120 USD for 4 small basic entrees, 3 bowls of steamed rice, and 2 glasses of soda (In San Francisco, this would have cost us about $20 USD maxi!) Our fun and expensive meal was at 3 Frakkar, we had raw whale meat (Japanese style) and puffin slices. Actually, whale meat is hard to come by because there is no more fishing of whale in Iceland but large slabs of whale can be frozen for over 30 years. We really liked the whale meat, but puffin was a little liver-like and went down slimy.

 

Our next pre-cruise stop was Copenhagen. We ate at some of the Tivoli restaurants - Promenaden (not good), Bryggeriet Apollo (okay with decent portions - we had scampi platter, spareribs, and fish dish) best was spareribs but they charged a lot for a couple glasses of soda $18 USD for those two glasses, and our favorite was Wagamama - Tivoli's new Asian noodle restaurant (we like the menu variety, portions, price, and taste).

 

First cruise port, Stockholm. We had a leisure lunch at Ahlen's Dept. Store. Great self-serve cafeteria with comfortable seating. They had open-faced sandwiches, salads, taco salad bar, yummy meat & mushroom quiche, fish and veggie dish, and lots of dessert. Cost was reasonable and you can pay by credit card.

 

Next port, St. Petersburg. On the first day, we went to Stolle (more cafe-like) and had delicious russian pies filled with meat, fish, green onion, cabbage, mushrooms, salmon, or even rabbit meat. Then they had dessert pies as well. We must have ordered at least 10 slices of pies with different fillings (our guide and driver had a good time eating with us) because all the other tables had russian couples who ordered one slice to share and we ate at least 1 1/2 slices per person.

 

On second day of St. Petersburg, we ate at Blow-Up. A very trendy restaurant in the city. We tried slices of calf (or was it moose) tongue, small blini pancakes with red caviar, some sort of tomato-base cabbage soup with a big dollop of sour cream, and had Asian fusion or Italian fusion entrees. Asian inspired foods are very hot in the city and locals like thai, sushi, and Korean style foods when they go out.

 

Oh, they seem to have a new Ice Bar (Lyod) in St. Petersburg. We wanted to go but they were closed. I think they open at 12:00 am until the last client (according to their business card).

 

In Helsinki, we ate at Cafe Kappeli. It is confusing but they have different menus in each area of their restaurant. Both terraces have different menus, the left side of the interior have a cafe with desserts, and the right side have a nice restaurant. It was a hot day so we ate inside on the nice restaurant side. My kids shared an Elk-meat patty, we have some sort of wonderful appetitzer with crabmeat & scallop on a cracker with red caviar on top, yummy mushroom soup, salmon dish, and the most sinful ligonberry ice cream (when my son needed to use the potty, I inhaled half of his ligonberry ice cream).

 

In Gdansk, we had lunch at Pierogarnia U Dzika for pierogis. They were well known for their boiled dumplings filled with meat, cheese, fish, vegetable, mushroom, or cabbage. We ordered the meat and cabbage dumplings - you get 10 per plate. I think the cabbage tasted better. We loved their mushroom soup in a bread bowl. We went in and then saw many cruise passengers follow in. We tore into the mushroom soup and loved the soup soaked bread pieces. However, we were sort of ashamed of our San Francisco clam chowder in a bread bowl style because other diners who saw our bread bowl, ordered it, and just finished the soup inside without touching the bread bowl. The waitress brought back at least two whole bread bowl (intact with the bread lid) from other patrons and our table only had an empty plate to return to the kitchen. My son had to have a cheese pizza here. It was okay.

 

We were in Gdansk during St. Dominican Faire. Even though we had just finished lunch, we couldn't resist the smells coming from the fair. We tried fresh baked mushroom pizza and corn on a stick. We bought breads and pastries from inside this tent shaped like an enormous round bread. Sort of wished we didn't eat lunch at the restaurant and instead rub shoulders with the locals and eat the interesting street food at the fair.

 

Hope you enjoyed reading and it wasn't too boring. We had a fabulous time sightseeing, shopping and EATING our way through Northern Europe.

 

Cynthia

[Jane110]

Cynthia,

 

Thanks for your report. One of the pleasures of travel is enjoying the local cuisine. I've never understood why anyone on a cruise would run back to the ship for a meal (unless there are dietary issues), I guess it's about the money.

 

We especially love cruises where the ship stays in port for an overnight so we can enjoy some dinner and local nightlife. Makes it a much, much better cruise in our experience. I guess that why most of our trips are on land, but on cruises, we have overnighted in Cardiz/Spain Bordeaux/ France, Curitiba/Brazil and of course, St. Petersbug and then some pre/post cruise stays.

 

I wish we had seen the poerogi place in Gdansk. We ate at a nice place in Gdansk, but don't recall the name.

 

DH and I have also eaten at Cafe Kapelli in Helsinki and 3 Frakker in Reykjavik. Reykjavik is only 5 hours from NYC, so we went there for a long 4 day weekend. If you ever go back, make sure to go to Perlan (the big geodesic dome) and Apotek downtown.

 

BTW, if you're looking for a fabulous vacation, go to Hobart, Tasmania in Australia for new year's. The famous yacht race from Sydney to Hobart takes places then and it's alot of fun to be there in Hobart watching the boats arrive. The same week they have a "Taste of Tasmania" festival where they set up a huge canvas structure on near the water and many kiosks are set up by farmers, ranchers and winery's selling small tastes of what they produce. Great wines, exotic meats (emu, kangaroo), the best seafood, cheeses and desserts made from the best cream and fruits. There are live bands, performance artists and the whole city is one big party. It's just great!

 

Bon appetit!

Jane