Shanghai Expo 2010 - Norway

My crazy uncle-in-law (my dad's sister's husband's brother) found a loophole in the Expo queue system: if you make a reservation in the dining room, you can tour the main part of the pavilion directly after your meal. (Those Expo lines were no joke. The line for the Saudi Arabian Pavilion ranged from 6 to 9 hours.)

We started with lunch at the Norwegian Pavilion. The food (prepared by fursetgruppen.no) was excellent - seafood imported from Norway, skillfully prepared and presented in that spare Scandinavian way. It didn't look like a heavy meal, but it was deceptively rich and filling. [Postcript: Norway ended up serving the best meal we had at the Expo, completely eclipsing the offerings of traditional culinary countries like France and Italy.]

This is salmon prepared four ways (smoked; with lemon oil; with sliced almonds; cured) and some soft scrambled eggs.

Seafood chowder, roasted potatoes, salmon with beurre noisette and Asian-influenced cod with braised mushrooms. That chowder was thin, but a real umami powerhouse.

This is cod main - pan-fried, topped with an apple-fennel salad, with spinach purée. Also very tasty. We somehow ended up with an extra one of these so I ended up eating one and a half mains. (What? I'm on vacation.)

Dessert: fruit, a lovely lemon sorbet and a chocolate mousse. I also had a glass of aquavit. It's... an acquired taste. (I could easily imagine it being used to de-grease an engine.)

I'm happy to report I was able to fight off the food coma for an afternoon of pavilion-touring.