Category Archives: Europe

Posts about countries in Europe

Oktoberfest

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Germany

Last week was busy and resulted in posts for successive weeks.

The surrogate for Germany was the Old Town Rock Hill Oktoberfest.  It was held downtown at Fountain Park which is the same area they have the Food Truck Fridays.  I parked a little further out than I do for the FTF’s expecting a larger crown but I needn’t have.  There were more people leaving as I got there than there were arriving, not a great sign.  I have to admit I was disappointed as well.

As I walked up I could hear the band playing something that wasn’t quite German but there was definitely some “oompah” in there.  The first tent in line was the ID check and beer ticket tent and what’s Oktoberfest without a beer?  I got a souvenir stein because I needed one more thing to try to fit in a cabinet.

For the price I would have expected it to come with at least one beer ticket but nope they were sold separately.  Well I had a couple of beer tickets and a mug so I figured I was at least partially set.  So here was my first disappointment.  I was really hoping for a biergarten and I’ll not lie I was hoping for fraus walking around with multiple liter steins in each hand serving up good German bier.  Alas that was not the case.  There were a couple of beer trailers and the one with the better beer had a line that was quite long but I persevered and wound up with a Dream Chasers Waxtoberfest beer.  That was enough to get me through my next disappointment.

There were only two food vendors, a pizza truck (WTH?) and the Wurst Wagen which had a line to rival the beer trailer.  How they could have 20 plus food trucks monthly for Food Truck Fridays and only two vendors for a once a year event is beyond me.

The one positive of standing in the line for my wurst was that I got to meet the winner of the wiener dog race.  For a 4 time champ and 2 time second place finisher Oscar was pretty humble and didn’t care for posing for pictures so you’ll just have to accept my description.  He was a solid brown dachshund with some white around the muzzle showing his veteran status and a pretty laid back demeanor for the holder of so many trophies.

The Wurst Wagen had a decent selection of sausages; weisswurst, bratwurst, knockwurst & kielbasa with sides of bacon potato salad, chips or sauerkraut.  I went with the weisswurst and sauerkraut.

The sausage was good but not really hot enough.  The guys were relying on a steamer they were keeping the sausages in to heat them up as they were precooked.  The problem was they were moving them so fast they didn’t have a chance to get very warm before getting served.  The taste was good and the German mustard and sauerkraut were good accompaniments.  I had just enough beer to make it through the meal and a couple of songs from the Foothills Oompah band.  I spent my second ticket on an Old Mecklenburg Mecktoberfest which tasted more like a good German beer than the Waxtoberfest, which had a hint of fruitiness to it.

That was good for a few more songs as the sun set and the fountain to my left got lit up.

Despite the disappointments it was a good evening and I can hope that next year will be better but I’ll let you know either way.

 

Kaaaaahn!

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DragonCon Edition

I guess that should have been Connnn!  Well, nerds gotta nerd.

This past weekend I carted the old culinary passport to DragonCon 2017.  In addition to all the great pop-culture, geek, gaming, educational, art and cosplay available there is no shortage of food options in downtown Atlanta.  In the host hotels and at the Americas Mart buildings you can’t swing a dead Pokémon without hitting a pizza or sandwich stand.  If you walk a bit further the Peachtree Center food court offers a ton of variety all jammed together and offers plenty of opportunity to make new friends as any empty chair at a table is gold and sharing tables is pretty much obligatory and sitting in the floor, back against the wall is not unheard of.  If you want to enjoy a bit of downtime from the crowds you can find some of the restaurants that aren’t totally overwhelmed with con goers.  I visited three while I was there.  One was a revisit and two were new.  They are truly international in theme as one was Italian, one Turkish and one a Pacific rim themed restaurant.

The first of the trio was Amalfi Pizza on Andrew Young Int’l Blvd.  The entrance opens to a wide set of stairs in a decorated foyer that take you into the restaurant proper.  There was plenty of seating and I was shown to a table by a smiling young lady.  I decided to have one of their house specialties, Pizza Amalfi and a Jekyll Brewing Hop Dang Diggity to wash it down.

The pizza was great.  First off it’s from a wood fired pizza oven so you get that little bit of char that adds that extra touch to the pizza.  The pizza itself had fresh mozzarella, spicy sausage, crushed tomato sauce, peppadew peppers, caramelized onions, and their own bacon jam.  The toppings weren’t piled on like a lot of franchise pizzas so the flavors might vary from one bite to the next.  When you got a bit of the bacon jam it gave the pizza an almost barbeque sauce flavor with the sweet and smoky flavor.  The sausage wasn’t very spicy in my opinion but did have a good Italian sausage flavor.  The beer was an IPA, nothing special amid the glut of IPAs in the craft brew world.

Next up was Truva for lunch.  I did a blog entry for Truva last year that you can find in the archives if you choose.  Truva is a Turkish restaurant and is a dimly lit place on a second floor and out of the way enough that only the people from the con who truly want Turkish food show up so it’s a great getaway spot.  This year I decided to have a couple of their appetizers instead of an entrée as I figured it might be a little less heavy.  I got the Etli Borek and Karniyarik.  I loved the menu description of the etli borek, cigar shaped meat pastry.  Karniyarik is stuffed eggplant.  While I was waiting for the apps I was provided with a metal basket of warm bread with black sesame seeds and olive oil & balsamic vinegar to dredge it through.

That bread was worth the trip.  Trying to be mindful of the calories I only ate a couple of pieces and felt like that was showing heroic restraint.  Fortunately my meal of starters showed up.

The stuffed eggplant was partially peeled in sections to provide a decorative presentation and it was stuffed with a ground, spiced lamb and beef combo.  It was ok but honestly I think it could have been spiced up a bit more and the eggplant was a little rubbery.  Not my favorite dish from Truva to date.  The cigar shaped meat pastries were better although it was essentially the same meat mixture.  It benefitted from the pastry dough and the yogurt sauce which tasted like it had some mint in it.  They could have doubled the sauce and made the dish twice as good as far as I’m concerned.  I wrapped it up with a Turkish coffee.  I was a bit disappointed that I didn’t get the fancy cup like I did last time but the coffee was good.  I’d have to give this visit only 4 stars.  I’d have gone as low as 3.5 but the waiter was very good so that kept in the very good range.  Oh yeah and the bread, I finished that basket before I left.

Last but certainly not least was the Pacific Rim Bistro on Peachtree Center Ave.  It covers a wide span of Asian cuisines including sushi.  This place was packed with con goers so I was seated at the sushi bar and even though I didn’t order any I got to watch them make it as I waited for my food.  In addition to seating at the sushi bar they have tables inside as well as outside and both high tops and regular tables.  The staff is also very attentive.  I was checked on by at least three people aside from my server but it wasn’t annoying.  I was torn between the Malaysian curry chicken and the Lamb stew in coconut curry and my server was helpful enough to let me know the lamb stew had been extremely popular so that tipped the scales.

The stew came with big chunks of vegetables; peppers, broccoli, potatoes, and cauliflower, all sharing the coconut curry bath with a healthy portion of bite sized lamb.  The menu indicated it would come with black and jasmine rice but they only had jasmine by the time I ordered mine.  That wasn’t a problem though as this was fantastic.  It was one of the best things I’d eaten all week.  I even like the cauliflower, which is a vegetable I’ve never really cared for.  I’d definitely recommend this dish to anyone that didn’t have an aversion to something a little spicy.

Overall I was quite happy with my international dining experiences while enjoying DragonCon.  If you’re in downtown Atlanta don’t hesitate to check one of these places out.

 

Balkan Sausage Sunday

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Bosnia

Image result for Bosnian passport stamp

More accurately Bosnia and Herzegovina was the targeted country for the Culinary-passport this week when I visited Euro Grill & Café in Charlotte.  This is a restaurant & market in a former residence on Central.  It’s pretty easy to spot and while there are no parking places in front there are plenty in the back and you can enter from there as well.  You walk into the market portion and while there are only two aisles they have a nice variety of the limited number of items they carry including meats & cheeses in cold cases.

From this area you take a couple of steps down through a door into the small seating area of the restaurant.  It has 5 tables that seat between 2 and 4 people.  There was also seating on the front porch too as I saw later when I was perusing the market, which also answered the question of where those other people who came in and paid for food were dining.  It’s a family run place based on the conversation I heard coming from the kitchen.  The young lady waiting on me most of the time was the daughter of the gentleman running the place.  They were both very nice with genuine smiles when they talked to you.

There were several things on the menu that I wanted to try but since I can’t eat everything in one trip I went for a combo that got me small portions of two of their specialties, the cevapi & sudzukice.  To drink I was planning to have a Croatian beer but since it was 11:30 Sunday in NC I had to alter my plans and try something else.  That something else was a Fanta Shokata.  I’ve given up drinking sodas for a couple of years now but special occasions call for exceptions and a Fanta concoction in a blue bottle seemed special enough.

It was quite different and interestingly tasty.  On first sip it started with a very floral taste that resolved into a citrusy kick as the carbonation rolled across the tongue.  It was pretty sweet but as I said very good and if I still drank sodas on a regular basis I could see adding this to the rotation.  Turns out this is elderberry & lemon soda which pretty much explains my first impression.  This wasn’t fast food but the wait was reasonable since I could actually hear them preparing it.

The specialties were two types of sausages.  The cevapis are small beef sausages that look very much like breakfast links you see in the grocery store.  The sudzukice are the longer, smoother sausages and are spicier that the cevapi.  The bread they were served on is Bosnian flatbread called lepinja and was fanstatic.  There was a side of chopped onions and fries as you can see and the condiments were ketchup, house made sour  cream and roasted vegetable spread.  The cevaps were caseless beef rolls lightly seasoned and grilled and there were 5 of them.  The sudzukice were beef but had more spices including some heat and were about twice the length of the others and there were two of them.  The homemade bread and the number and configuration of the sausages made eating it like a sandwich problematic so I ate some with the fork and some I tore the bread halves in half and made mini sandwiches.  I alternated adding the roasted vegetables and sour cream as I ate.  The roasted vegetables (ajvar) I asked about since I had not idea what it was.  It is made primarily from peppers, eggplant, and tomatoes and interestingly the eggplant was the most distinctive of the three to me.  The fries, while being standard fare were cooked just about perfectly.  After finishing this I decided I’d try some of the Bosnian coffee I’d heard about.

This was an interesting set up.  There was an island of grounds floating on the coffee underneath so when I poured it there was no way it was going to be ground free.  The sugar cubes were dense squares of sweetness whose crystals were not as big as I’m used to but it worked.  It started out very hot but cooled quickly and had a nice strong flavor.  The copper pot held two servings which I finished in less than 15 minutes which earned me a chiding from the owner.  He asked how I liked the coffee and I told him I did and although he hesitated and smiled when he said it he informed me that Bosnian coffee was to be lingered over and enjoyed in small sips over the course of 45 mins to and hour or more.  Ooops, cultural faux pas.  Either way it was good.  The little pink thing was like a Turkish delight.  I wasn’t sure about the flavor at the time but it also had a flowery sweet taste and later I saw they sold a rose version of the candy in the store so that’s what I’m going with.   The water is there for two reasons as far as I can tell; one to give you something else to sip between the lingering sips of coffee and at the end to rinse the grounds out of your teeth, which I think is honestly the most important of the two.

After paying up I checked out the market and wound up buying some Slovenian wood smoked dry cured sausage (that got an approving nod at the register), some sheep cheese from Bulgaria, and some pâtés from Croatia and Slovenia.  I can’t believe I didn’t buy any crackers.

I went deliberately at a time I hoped wasn’t busy but by the time I left I would have expected this place to have more traffic that it did.  The food was top notch and the folks friendly plus a market with stuff you can’t pronounce, how is it not swamped?

If you made it this far check out the link here for a recipe, music, and other stuff – Tell Me More

Mangiare a Milano

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Italy

As promised last post this week is devoted to the food & drink from an overnight trip to Milano.  The trip was quick but we managed to have some great meals just by wandering into places we were passing by.

I was joined on the trip by friend and co-worker Levina and we decided to go towards the downtown area and start roaming around.  The cab ride made it quite clear there was at least one pizzeria per block so we walked only a little way before we found one that looked very inviting, Ristorante Pizzeria da Sasa.  The waiter was standing in the doorway smiling and waved us in to enjoy some pleasant outdoor dining.  His English was only slightly better than my Italian but we managed to get drinks ordered and an English menu.

The beer was a local draft that tasted like a lager and it was nice and cold.  We placed our orders and while we waited they provided us a wonderful eggplant appetizer with tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese accompanied by a basket of fresh bread.  It whetted the appetite for our entrees.

The entrees we ordered were spaghetti with garlic oil and spicy peppers and the calzone Napoletano which had tomatoes, mozzarella, ricotta and spicy salami.  We shared the dishes so we could enjoy each.

The spaghetti was cooked just right and the simplicity of the garlic olive oil and peppers meant you didn’t have a ton of competing flavors and could enjoy those tastes.  The calzone was cooked in a real pizza oven with fire and everything, witness the slight char.  There is no substitute for a good wood or coal fired pizza oven.  The fillings weren’t as copious as they are in a lot of the calzones here in the States but the ingredients tasted fresh and the salami was spicy as advertised so it was quality over quantity.  Pizza & pasta, what more iconic first Italian meal could you ask for?  Well maybe an espresso to put the capper on the meal.  The staff was very friendly and inviting and I’d recommend this place to anyone.

From this leisurely lunch we walked, bussed and subwayed around Milano until we would up at the Duomo where we spent a little time gaping before deciding we’d really pay attention to that the next day and chose to stroll through the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II next to it.  This place was loaded with high end shops and some nice restaurants as well so we stopped at one, Ristorante Galleria,  more for something to drink than a meal since lunch had been so substantial.

We settled on the cheese plate which came with five different cheeses with preserved figs and a basket of assorted rolls.

I’m not even sure what all the cheeses were except good.  The brie was obvious and there was parmesan and what I think was romano but it could have been some other hard cheese. It was mild and had a kind of nutty flavor to it.  The other really soft cheese was akin to bleu cheese but it was more finely veined and creamier and the last was a semi-soft cheese that had a bit of a tang to it that went well with the roll laced with pumpkin seeds.  So this was a light dinner but very tasty and filling.  Of course there’s always room for gelato.

I had hazelnut topped by mixed berry and as you can see it came with some crispy thin cookies that you had to eat just to gain proper access to the gelato.  Sacrifices must the made.  This was a nice place that matched the high end shops surrounding it in that it felt fancy but dress code wasn’t really that much of an issue if you could pay the bill.

When we got back to the hotel we relaxed and I had a darker local beer and Levina enjoyed a cappuccino.

The next day we had breakfast at the hotel which was not bad but not blog worthy either.  Lunch was at a restaurant off the Duomo’s square and was mostly notable for the lack of ability to communicate.  We ordered panini sandwiches and Levina asked if it was toasted and was told “No!  No toast!”  I tried to mime both pressing something and also closing a panini press but the answer was the same.  Of course we’re thinking “how is it a panini if it isn’t toasted?”  They arrived, pressed and toasted.  It was no better or worse than any other busy café next to an Italian landmark.

Great trip, good food, you should go.

Germany part Zwei

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Germany

I had the chance to take the culinary-passport on the road for work and Germany was the place to be.  We landed in Frankfurt, spent our nights in Friedrichsdorf and hit some surrounding areas for meals.  This will be a picture filled post highlighting several great meals over the trip and I have to say there was not a bad meal among them just shades of good or great.

There were several meals at the Mercure Hotel restaurant including the first one from a lunch buffet.

You could pay for one trip or multiple trips and I decided one trip would be enough for my time distorted self.  There were a lot of nice options but I went with the turkey roll, which had turkey wrapped around dressing / stuffing, as my meat.   I added an eggplant mixture plus some other mixed vegetables, half a boiled egg, a rice dish with shrimp and a coarse brown roll.  It was a good, filling meal but not really spectacular.  I’m going to cover all the meals at the hotel together so these won’t be in chronological order.  The next meal covered here was the evening before a quick trip to Italy (more on that next post).

This wonderful little container of goodness was the Frankfurter “Dreckschipp”.  It had me at meat with sides of meat.  The contents were, filet of pork, pork cutlet, nuernberger (sausage), and bacon with a mushroom cream sauce and in a nod to healthy I opted for mixed vegetables but to keep things balanced the pan fried potatoes finished out the meal.  This was a great meal that wasn’t as heavy as it might sound.  The portions were enough to give you a good taste without making you overstuffed and the pan fried potatoes were well cooked and seasoned.  The last dinner was also at the hotel.

Here we had the bacon wrapped veal rolls filled with rocket (arugula) and the rosemary potatoes.  The veal was tender and tasty and the arugula was interesting.  The rosemary potatoes were one of the few disappointments of the trip.  They were roasted just a little too fast and had a mild burnt taste.  One thing I didn’t mention was they provided a bread appetizer with several spreads including butter, olive oil, creamcheese & chives, and something else I can’t remember.  Overall I’d give the hotel restaurant good marks.

The first evening we went for dinner at a great place in Bad Homburg called Shreinerei Pfeiffer.  I have to thank Yelp for this find.  The place had a great atmosphere.  You enter via a little alley and they have seating inside and out plus a hybrid that had one wall open to the outside and we sat at a table in that section.  The walls had old carpentry tools hanging from the walls and the furniture was all heavy wood.  You can check out their link for more info if you are so inclined.  I ordered up the Hessenschnitzel.  It came with a salad that tasted pretty good but it was the first time I ever remember getting corn on a green salad.

The Hessenschnitzel was fantastic.  It was your basic pork schnitzel but they had it covered with onions & melted cheese curd with a side of fries too.  It wasn’t pretty but it sure was one of the best schnitzels I’ve ever had.

Of course I had to wash it down with something so the first choice was the Kronenhof hell beer (picture below).  Nice light, smooth beer that went well with the meal.  I also had a Radler which it turns out is basically a shandy.  I’m not generally a fan of mixing beer with other stuff but this was a nice refreshing little capper to the meal.

The next night we walked to a place called the Lindenhof in Friedrichsdorf.  We had our own room with a big table to accommodate our good sized group.  After an aborted attempt to get the Schweinehaxe (pork knuckle) which they had just sold out of I selected the Ochsenbrust and the house draft pilsner.

Ochsenbrust is beef brisket and came with a generous helping of potatoes and one of the primary reasons for getting it, the local green sauce.  The sauce is yogurt based with 7 herbs and boiled eggs and went nicely on both the beef and the potatoes.  The beer was nothing remarkable but it was competently pilsnery.

We had a full team dinner at Stangs Restaurant in the Friedberg Golfclub.  We sat outside and enjoyed the mild temperatures and beautiful view.

What you can’t see, because I cropped out the people in the shot, is the pond just to the bottom of the frame and close to our tables.  This provided a lovely breeding ground for the multitude of little black, annoying bugs that harassed us throughout our time here.  They were honestly so bad I was encouraging the smokers to light up so the smoke would drive them away.  In spite of the little pests we did manage to get good meals out of the deal.

Just FYI in case you are as ignorant of this as I was but April through June is spargel (asparagus) and strawberry season in this area and it is such a big deal that EVERY restaurant we went in had a special seasonal page or separate menu dedicated to them.  That being the case I figured I’d have to try them at least once while I had the chance especially since we had been passing the fields that they’d been harvested from.

No for the regular asparagus I can get at the grocery stores here in the US I’m a take it or leave it kind of guy but after trying these I get why the Germans are enthusiastic about their spargel.

What you see in the photo above is the white asparagus with two kinds of ham, what they called raw and cooked, plus a side of boiled potatoes and house made hollandaise sauce.  The asparagus was tender enough to easily cut with your fork and had a light flavor that was even better with the hollandaise slathered all over it.  The ham portions were small but that was ok because they were just an accompaniment to the star of the meal.  The potatoes were boiled potatoes and nothing special except when supplemented with a dab of the hollandaise.  I had a house pilsner while we were waiting for the meal but with the meal I had a glass of apfelwein, which translates to apple wine but is better known to us as apple cider.  It paired well with the asparagus and ham.  If it hadn’t been for the bugs this could easily have been the best overall meal of the trip considering the outside dining, view and quality of the food.  I’d still go again given the chance but I’d take a citronella candle to be on the safe side.

I think there is no substitute for eating a culture’s food on their home turf and this trip to Germany didn’t change that opinion one iota.

 

 

MRE Showdown

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USA & Russia pt 1

I had an idea for a do ahead blog to drop in some weekend when I wasn’t able to do the normal blog.  I thought it might be interesting to compare MREs from different countries with the US being one for sure.  The only other country’s rations I could find easily was Russia’s so I ordered up some of each.  Due to the fact that there are multiple meals involved this will be a two part post starting with the challenger, Russia.

The Russian one actually is one package for a full day or 3 meals whereas the US ones are packed one meal per package.  Neither one had what I’d call anything like a normal breakfast but both have fairly high calorie count as you’d expect to need if you’re doing strenuous activities often associated with military life.

The Russian arrived first and as you can see in the first photo it was vacuum packed.  Inside is a cardboard container with a nicely packed series of packs and containers.  Now this is all in Cyrillic and I don’t read Russian so this is pretty much a by guess and by golly although some I could figure out.  So here’s what was in the box:

3 large foil tins, 2 small foil tins, 1 small round can, 4 packs of crackers, 2 individually packed tea bags, one pack of coffee, one mystery foil pack, one pack with peaches I figure is a desert of some sort, a pack of powder with fruits & vegetables on it I figure may be a drink powder, 3 packs of sugar that are at least 2 tablespoons full, salt and pepper packets, 3 two packs of what I assumed were wet naps (they were), 5 charcoal tablets for water purification, 3 waxy tablets and a foldable heater, 6 matches and a striker, 3 spoons, 3 napkins, some weird little plastic device and something that is clearly a pill of some sort.

Since I wasn’t planning to start a fire on my table I threw most of the accessories in my emergency zombie apocalypse stash.  I decided one big tin, one small tin / can, one pack of crackers, one of the other packs and a caffeine source would make a meal.  Here’s the first batch.

The first big tin turned out to be rice and meaty flavored fat dish, allegedly beef.  It honestly had a fairly decent flavor with a  bit of black pepper added. The crackers had a kind of stale taste that was the first thing you noticed and was a bit off putting but I powered through.  The little can turned out to be filled with a cheese flavored substance much like the old C rations had canned cheese but this wasn’t quite that good.  It did have a mild cheese flavor and covered the cracker taste but that’s about all you can say for it.  The mystery foil pack had jam that made me wish I still had crackers left.  It was sweet and tasted like a cross between apple and apricot.  The tea I heated in the microwave and it was nice and strong and a packet of the sugar made it something to carry you through a few more hours.

Here are the contestants for the evening meal.

The tin that looks like dog food was a salty beef in liquid and the white stuff is congealed fat.  When heated it the beef was tender and swimming in what I’m going to call broth.  The beef wasn’t bad but there was so much liquid it had to be part of the equation so I took half the semi-rancid crackers and broke them in to small shards and added them to the mix.  In addition to soaking up the “broth” it had the added benefit of softening the crackers and masking their taste.  The smaller tin had a meat paste that sort of tasted like patê if you’d never actually had any.  The other half of the crackers were devoted to this delight.  The final course in this meal was the fruit bar thingy.  As the picture showed it definitely had peaches but also finely chopped nuts and a peppery taste from some spice.  It wasn’t bad but it’s not going to be on my “gotta get me more of that” list.  So filling but not a meal I’d really want to have again.

The last I only snapped after the lids were removed as my enthusiasm waned but I supplemented with a nice snap of the tea and coffee.

 

The big tin had a beef stew in it and was actually the best of the lot.  It was mainly potatoes and beans in gravy but there was enough meat to let you know it was beef stew and honestly was fairly good.  The small tin had eggplant paste the consistency of pumpkin pie filling but not the taste.  I didn’t know how you were expected to eat it but I busted out another pack of the crackers and used it as a dip.  It wasn’t as disgusting as it looked but it was filling.  The green pack was a drink powder but didn’t have much of a distinct flavor and the coffee was everything you’d expect instant coffee to be.  I didn’t but if you added a bag of the sugar to the coffee that would get you moving for a while.

The beef stew and the tea were definitely the highlights of this package.  To reflect my final judgement let me tell you what should be a joke in the Russian army if it isn’t already.

Why did the Russian dog lick his butt?  Because he was trying to get the taste of the Russian MRE out of his mouth.

To be fair the packaging was well done and the contents efficiently packed.

Part 2 will be 3 US MREs.

Skol

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Norway

Well I did a little searching for some new countries to take the culinary-passport to and while I didn’t find a restaurant dedicated to Norwegian cuisine I did find one that had a Norse theme and a Norwegian burger so that was the stop this week.  The Valhalla Pub & Eatery is in uptown Charlotte on South Church street at the mouth of a cool little alley with several restaurants shops.  I was in the same neighborhood almost exactly a year ago so you can find that post if you’re interested.

Since I know from my Norse mythology you don’t just roll in to Valhalla and I couldn’t find any Valkyries to take me I settled on a Lynx.

It was nice parking at the end of the light rail line and riding uptown.  I experienced no frustration, didn’t cuss at anyone, and didn’t have to find or pay for parking when I got there.  Yay transit system!

The Valhalla lives up to its name and is a nice little pub.  It wasn’t crowded when I got there but it started to get a little more lively as the football crowd started arriving to watch some match.  What?  There’s no football being played now you say.  True.  This was the other football, the one with the totally round ball.  Some of those fans were odd but there was no face or body paint (visible). One guy brought his ball like he thought a pick up game might happen or maybe it was his lucky ball, I don’t know.  Anyway I got out just before the match started so I won.

Back to the food and drink.  I went for the previously mentioned Norwegian burger and a local brew, Black Blaze Chocolate Milk Stout, to wash it down with.

The Norwegian burger is not your normal round burger but an oblong mix of beef and pork on a nice soft roll.  It came with Jarlsberg cheese, a smattering of red onion, something called Norsk sauce and fried egg topping it off.  That egg was over easy and runny so it added a little moisture to mix.  It was good and I liked that they were very spare with the red onion.  You got a taste but they didn’t overwhelm the meat and cheese.  The other item I considered was the Norwegian meatballs but since I did meatballs for Sweden that felt like it would have been redundant.

The Chocolate Milk Stout was really smooth and as you can see from the photo quite dark like a good stout should be.

I did appreciate the sentiment expressed by the chalkboard hanging on the wall.  And this isn’t something you hear everyday but the bathroom was kind of cool too.  No pictures were taken in there because I do have limits.  Standards no, limits yes.

Overall I enjoyed the outing to Valhalla and honestly I can see doing it again.

For some more authentic examples of Norwegian culture check out the Tell Me More page.

 

French Deux

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France

That’s right I’m leading off with the dessert pic (spoiler – I had dessert) since it’s nice and colorful.  So this weekend I wanted French food, probably in large part due to a friend posting pictures from France.  Whatever the reason I took the short drive to downtown Rock Hill and popped in to Amelie’s French Bakery.  I’ve been here several times for breakfast, which is fantastic, and I’ve had lunch at the flagship store in Charlotte as previously posted but never lunch at this location.

They had several savory options available that looked good but the turkey & cheddar quiche was what called my name.

It was a generous slice and was quite tasty.  They kept it really simple so the taste of the few ingredients stood out.  In addition to the turkey there was bacon as well and there was plenty of both so you got some of each in every bite.  They weren’t stingy with the cheddar on top either and being cheese it just complimented the rest.  The only nit I’ll pick is they didn’t leave the quiche in whatever appliance they used to heat it up quite long enough.  Tasted great but could have been better had it been hotter.

I didn’t bother snapping a shot of it but to wash this down I opted for their “mélange riche” coffee.  A medium dark roast with notes of blah blah blah and hints of yada yada.  It was good coffee, not as strong or dark as I prefer but a whole lot better than a lot I’ve had in some other restaurants.

One thing about Amelie’s is the eclectic décor and they love some interesting light fixtures as you can see from the one that was above my table.  There was another that had more fringe than a 20’s flapper and yet another that was an inverted Eiffel Tower with a cloud themed lamp shade.

As the spoiler lead off picture showed I had to grab some desert since I was at a bakery.  My selections were a pistachio macaron, a salted caramel & fudge macaron, and a fresh fruit mini tart just to give an impression of something healthy.  They were all three good but it was a toss up between the salted caramel macaron and the tart for the top spot.  No matter, they were just the thing to fortify me for some afternoon yardwork.

If you didn’t check it out the first time check out the Tell Me More – France page.

Polska

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Poland

After a couple of weeks off due to holidays and the snowstorm that wasn’t, it was time to grab the passport and head out.  Destination this week was Taste of Europe in Matthews, NC that specializes in Polish cuisine.  The restaurant is kind of small and has a split seating area.  The front has 4 tables and there is another area in the back that I didn’t venture into but it wasn’t huge either so it doesn’t take long to fill up.  I don’t know about the back but the front was noisy even with so few tables so if you want a quiet meal keep driving but if you just want some good food park and head in.

I didn’t see anything on the menu I wouldn’t have tried but in the interest of my waistline and wallet I just went with the Polish Sampler that came with a cabbage roll, a piece of grilled kielbasa, and a few pierogis in your flavor choice.  My choice was sweet farmer’s cheese.

The cabbage roll was stuffed with seasoned meat and rice and had a nice mild tomato sauce over it and was quite tasty.  The polish sausage was pretty much the same you could find in any grocery store.  I’d never had sweet farmer’s cheese pierogis before but now that I have I would recommend them.  The farmer’s cheese is a soft white cheese as you can see from the second photo.  It has a consistency that reminded me of ricotta cheese, is really mild and they added a bit of sugar to sweeten it.  You can get the pierogis either boiled or pan fried.  I opted for boiled as that is the more traditional. Interestingly, according to the lady who was the lone server talking to another patron, most Americans prefer the fried.  That might just be a southern thing but I’m sure they would have been good fried too.

I was disappointed they didn’t have potato pancakes but that was probably for the best anyway since the sampler plate was enough to fill me up but not leave me stuffed.  Overall I’d rate this a great comfort food kind of meal that felt like authentic Polish.  I think I’ll be going back at some point to try the hunter’s stew and pork cutlet.

If you like cabbage rolls, Polish music or random trivia stop by the Tell Me More page.

A final note, the one year anniversary of the blog is coming up in a couple of weeks and there will be a giveaway to celebrate so stay tuned for details.

Lunch Wasn’t DIY

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Sweden

Image result for swedish passport stamp

It realized today I had missed one obvious (but not until it occurs to you) place to dine on a country’s cuisine.  From the title you’ve probably already guessed I trekked to north Charlotte and had lunch at IKEA.

This was my first trip to an IKEA and honestly my life will not be diminished if it’s my only trip to IKEA.  The store and the way it’s laid out to keep traffic flowing is actually ok and the products were worth checking out but the people, oh my goodness at the people.  There were just so many and quite a few had no apparent agenda except to wander slowly from side to side in the aisles.  It was like trying to navigate a moving slalom course.  I did however make it through the people maze to the restaurant portion of the store.

If you haven’t ever been to an IKEA either it’s set up cafeteria style except they have these cool carts you can put multiple trays on and have meals on wheels.  Since I just had the one tray I opted for the slide and carry option.  Apparently the Swedes like their deserts quite a bit since that’s the first section you pass followed by a case with salads and cold dishes, including a nice looking salmon dish.  Somehow a slice of Swedish apple cake found its way onto my tray.

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The entrée options are limited but I knew going into it I was going for the Swedish meatballs which came with steamed vegetables, mashed potatoes & gravy plus a little lingonberry jam.

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The standard $4.99 meal came with 8 meatballs and you could get 4 more for just a dollar.  I know this because of the upsell pitch the cafeteria lady made to everyone who ordered meatballs from the petite teen in front of me to the half-giant a couple of people behind me.  I stayed with the normal since I had the apple cake.  The next station had some additional sides & soups I skipped.

Finding a seat was easy, even with half of Charlotte milling around in the store, because they have more seating than most restaurants in town.  Not fancy but able to accommodate a ton of folks.  It was well lit by the floor to ceiling windows on two sides.

Now on to the food.  The meatballs were, for sure, the star of the meal and were the most flavorful of the four items although the lingonberry came a close second.  While the flavor was good the texture was a bit spongy which I’ve seen with most mass produced meatballs.  The vegetables were bland but cooked just about right, not too crunchy & not too mushy.  The potatoes and gravy were not bad but not worth spending more space on.  The apple cake was good and worth snagging.  The apples were tasty and tender and the cake had a bit of cinnamon but not a lot.  The part that looks like a pie crust was like a dense cake rather than a pastry like pie crust.  Overall I’d say this would be 3 stars out of 5, competent and filling but I wouldn’t make special plans to have it again.

I’m sure Swedish home cooking is probably better and you can find an apple cake recipe on the Tell Me More page.  There is also a video worth checking out if you have never seen a nyckelharpa.