No-Knead Bread

After Yining and Emily's successes with this bread, I decided to give it a try. Everyone who knows me knows that baking is my Waterloo but this bread is so ridiculously easy that even I turned out a great loaf my first go.

The original recipe is Jim Lahey's (Sullivan Street Bakery), made famous by Mark Bittman.

These are the four ingredients:
3 cups flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
1⅝ cups water

Simple instructions:

Mix ingredients together. Cover with saran wrap and let rise 14-20 hours. Fold down and let rise another 2 hours. Bake.

Copious instructions, with my personal tips and tweaks:

For the flour, I use 2¾ cups white bread flour and ¼ cup of whole wheat bread flour. (I tried going up to ½ cup of whole wheat, but I didn't like the texture as much.)

Make sure that the yeast is labelled fast rise, instant, or made for bread machines. I bought a strip of 3 little packets, Bakipan brand, and it works great. Note that this recipe calls for very little yeast; you can make about 8 loaves from one little packet. Yeast does get stale, so don't go crazy buying huge amounts.

Mix the salt, yeast and two flours together. Dump in the water. Stir until it's incorporated. The dough should look sort of messy and shaggy. Cover with saran wrap and stash it somewhere warmish. I keep my dough next to a heating vent. Some bloggers have suggested leaving it inside the oven with the light on (the bulb generating the tiny bit of heat required). Leave it there for 14 to 20 hours.

The next day, the dough should have grown about three times in size and now look smoother and doughier.

Give the dough a few turns to deflate it a bit, dusting the outside generously (I use wheat flour for the dusting). Note that this is not a knead, not even a punch-down - it's much gentler. Settle it back into the bowl.

Wet a paper towel and squeeze out most of the water. Drape the paper towel over the bowl (NOT touching the dough) and cover it with saran to keep the moisture in. Let it rise another 90 mins.

After 90 mins, leave the dough alone to rise another 30 mins, but set the oven to 450°. Put a Le Creuset pot with lid into the cold oven and let it gradually warm up as the oven is preheating. I've been using my 5½ quart round, and the dough doesn't quite reach all the edges. If you want a higher loaf, use a smaller pot. The original recipe says that you can use any heavy pot, cast iron, ceramic or Pyrex but I haven't tried those. Some bloggers report using the ceramic insert to a crock pot with success. Like the Le Creuset, any vessel needs to be able to withstand high heat, as well as retain it.

After the oven's preheated for 30 mins, carefully take out the now red-hot Le Creuset, set it on the stovetop, remove the lid and sprinkle a little flour in the bottom to prevent sticking. (For an extra bakery touch, use a sprinkle of cornmeal instead.) Then plop in your dough. It should sizzle when it hits the pot. Don't worry about how it looks now, it will come out of the oven looking very charmingly rustic and artisanal. Cover the pot and put it back in the oven.

The original recipe calls for baking it 30 mins covered and another 15-30 mins uncovered to brown it, but I find that it's already pretty well browned when I take the cover off and it takes only another 10 minutes, if that. Any longer and mine starts to burn. Keep a close eye on it once you uncover it, basically.

When done, it should turn out of the pot easily. Cool on a rack.

This bread has a deep, crisp crust and a great airy but chewy interior. Very hearty, very tasty. A definite crowd-pleaser. Most people I had over for my Soup Open House couldn't resist seconds and thirds, and many asked for the recipe.

It's really easy to make, but it *does* take advance planning. You have to start 1 day + 3 hours before you need the bread.

I usually mix the dough after I get home from work. If the next day is a weekday, I do the turn and second rise after work again. It's in the oven by around 8:00pm and baked by 9:00, so it would work for a late dinner. Otherwise, plan two days ahead. (If you need a quicker turnaround squeezed around a workday, you could theoretically get up at zero dark thirty for the turn, and bake it as you're getting ready for work. I am a zombie in the mornings and would almost certainly burn myself but morning people may find this workable. You are giving it a much shorter first rise, though, and it may affect the texture.)

If you mix the dough on a Friday night, do the turn and second rise around 9:00am for a lunch, or 3:00pm for a 6:00 dinner. Saturday-Sunday gives you the most flexible schedule.

The bread is most delicious freshly baked (natch). The crust will soften a bit if you keep it wrapped in plastic, but that's easily recovered in a toaster oven if you're just doing one slice, or a low temp (~250°) oven if you're doing larger chunks. This bread freezes well - just take it out to defrost for a few hours and warm it up in a low temp oven before serving.


Variations: Yining has tried adding herbs like rosemary with success. A gajillion people have baked this bread - the interwebs are full of variations, including with more exotic flours like rye or spelt. Explore at your leisure. Mark Bittman himself came up with a faster version, recipe here and commentary here, though unendorsed by Jim Lahey.

WD-50

Occasion: Dinner with Edward at one of my bucket list New York restaurants.
Location: WD-50 on Clinton between Stanton and Rivington (wd-50.com)
Edibles: The 9th anniversary 12-course tasting menu, fully described below.

Musings: The first thing that surprised me was the décor. The furniture is made of thick wood and the walls are painted in these saturated jewel tones. There's a vibrant emerald green wall, a rusty red one and a purple one. The light fixtures look like lava lamps. I was expecting it to look more cold and modern and surgical.

Another surprise - Wylie Dufresne is actually in the kitchen. He's there five nights a week, we're told.

I waffled for the longest time over which menu to order. The $75 5-course "best of" menu or the full $155 tasting menu? My brother supplied the winning argument of "If you're only going to come here once..." We got a very modest bottle of white to nurse throughout the meal.

First course was nigiri sushi with salsify (kneaded with hazelnut oil into a rice-like substance), trout roe, seaweed "roe" and sesame. I loved this. What a great start to the meal. Except for the piece of fish, all of the ingredients were non-standard, but together gave the strong message of sushi.

Next, lobster roe ribbons, lobster meat, charred lemon, green grapes, coriander brown butter. Really delicious and harmonious. The grapes were a nice touch and really brought out the sweetness of the lobster.

Faux pho (or pho gras). Beef and foie broth, terrine of foie gras and a puffed piece of beef tendon. My favorite course of the night. As soon as the waiter poured the broth in and the heat hit the herbs, it was like a flashing neon sign that said "PHO." The broth was insanely rich and concentrated. My own quibble about this course was that the noodles were too slippery to eat with a spoon and fork - it really need chopsticks. The puffed beef tendon, I fancifully thought, tasted like an alien cocoon.

Amaro-cured yolk, chicken confit, "peas" and carrots. The carrot was in ribbons and the "peas" were actually little spheres of cooked carrot, coated in pea powder. Ingenious. It absolutely had the texture and taste of a regular pea. I think this was supposed to be a deconstructed roast chicken dinner. The egg was a revelation. We surreptitiously checked it up on Wikipedia and it turns out that amaro is an herbaceous liqueur. The curing gave the egg yolk a very thick, velvety texture and slightly grassy flavor notes. I ate my dish with the egg smeared on everything and it was great, but my brother thought the carrot was a little bitter on its own.

Veal brisket, za'atar, plum, mustard. I thought the brisket tasted like bologna and the mustard overpowered everything. Couldn't taste the za'atar or the plum at all. Edward got more plum than I did but he also thought the mustard was too strong.

Peekytoe crab toast with saffron and kaffir lime yogurt and arare. My portion had way too much lime; my brother thought his could use more. We both thought the saffron was too strong and overpowered the crab.

Sole, black licorice pil-pil, fried green tomato and pickled fennel. The sole was made into a roulade, steamed and then flash fried. However they cooked it, it was overdone. Mine tasted very mealy. I also hated the licorice sauce - SO strong. I actually scraped it off the fish. Edward liked the sauce more than I did; he thought the different elements came together nicely but didn't stand alone very well.

Lamb sweetbreads, nasturtium buttermilk, zucchini and pistachio. This was one of those dishes that I thought was absolutely well conceived but just didn't appeal to my palate. One of my sweetbreads was way overcooked and rubbery. Edward loved it - he likes sweetbreads in general - but didn't understand why the pistachio brittle was on the plate.

Root beer ribs, caraway spaetzle, apricot chutney. The pork was marinated in root beer, deboned, formed into a roll, and then cooked sous-vide for almost 20 hours. It was pretty tasty, but here's my problem with the preparation: ribs are delicious because they're on the bone. If you cook it off the bone, you've kind of missed the point of eating ribs, no? I also hated the caraway spaetzle - it was the first thing I left on the plate entirely uneaten. Edward liked the apricot.

Jasmine custard, cucumber sorbet, honeydew and chartreuse. I put a spoonful in my mouth and immediately blurted out, "That tastes like shampoo!" The jasmine was too pungent. Edward like the sorbet a lot.

Yuzu milk ice, hazelnut crumble, strawberries and basil. This dessert was a lot of fun. The "ice-cream" was puffed in a vacuum and so it was the ice-cream equivalent of cotton candy. Very light and airy and melted as soon as it hit your tongue. My pretentious comment about this course: "It tastes like dessert you'd get on a hydroponic farm on Neptune."

S'mores with bitter cocoa ganache, frozen meringue filled with marshmallow fluff, black currant. I thought this dessert was badly balanced. The "marshmallow" was too solidly cold, there was too much of the fudge ganache and the blackcurrant brought out the bitterness of the chocolate and made it taste chemical-y. Edward disagreed with me on this one, and thought it worked overall.

Finally, there was a white chocolate truffle with goat cheese, covered with freeze-dried raspberries. Edward and I both agreed that it was tasty and unusual.

So there it is - the full tasting menu at WD-50. It was not exactly what I expected. The use of the science-y stuff was actually pretty restrained. I did feel like taste and flavor were his first priorities. I thought the seasoning got a little bit aggressive in the later courses. It wasn't all to my taste, but I was challenged and surprised.

Kashkaval

Occasion: Last stop in the tapas crawl (after a visit to Tia Pol, an old favorite)
Location: Kashkaval on 9th Ave between 55th and 56th (kashkaval.com)
Edibles: cheddar and ale fondue; some cold salads; salmon wrapped in grape leaves, donated by friendly fellow diners

Musings: I've loved this place since the first time I came here, brought by a Hell's Kitchen resident in the know. From the street it looks like a Greek deli, but there are a number of tables in the back as well as a bar area. It's close quarters - most of the tables will seat a maximum of four. There is a long table with benches that will seat one party of six to eight, which you can reserve.

The dining area is dim and cozy and comes across as very European to me. Kashkaval is open late - until 12:30am Friday and Saturday, 11pm other days of the week - making it a great option for after theatre.

The cold salads (in the case at the front of the shop) are excellent. I like the eggplant, the elephant beans, the beets. The hummus is good, if somewhat more mundane choice. They usually have a few daily specials as well.

For the hot, I usually get fondue. The Kashkaval house blend is good, as is the cheddar and ale. It's a matter of personal taste of course, but I find Swiss fondue a bit plasticky and the gorgonzola, too strong.

Yining and I were eating at the bar. The couple next to us ordered these divine-smelling salmon dolmas. I asked them how they were, and they very kindly gave us one of them to taste. I'm happy to report that they're as yummy as they smelled. I'll definitely be getting some next time I come.

Terroir Murray Hill

Occasion: Spur-of-the-moment tapas crawl with my shenanigan buddy Yining
Location: Terroir on Third between 30th and 31st (wineisterroir.com)
Edibles: Breaded and deep-fried lamb sausage; beet salad

Musings: Hey! There's a Terroir three blocks from me! The original location is lovely, but too crowded on a regular basis and too far to be a regular hangout for me.

The new Murray Hill location has more seats and it's not too crazy yet - though it's only the opening weekend so who knows what it'll be like in a few months. (Since the meatheads found Hofbrau, it's been a complete madhouse.)

Food's good. Serving sizes aren't huge - they're really just to munch on while you drink. Be prepared to spend a lot if you're wanting the equivalent of a full dinner.

A note on the wine: They pour pretty generously on their tasting size. At half the price, Yining's tasting was just a splash less than my (supposedly) full pour. Happy hour prices are great - $6 for their wines by the glass ($3-4 less than regular prices) and free tastings of sherry. BUT... it's only until 6:00. I get out of work earlier than anyone else I know, and even I would be hard-pressed to make it there in time.

[Postscript 2/3/12: The friseé salad with duck confit, shallots and gorgonzola is AMAZING. They were warming up some duck and I literally smelled the delicious aroma from fifteen feet away. Of course, I had to have some.]

Marcus Samuelsson fundraiser brunch

Occasion: Fundraiser for his charity, Horn of Africa
Location: Marcus Samuelsson's apartment in Harlem
Edibles: some kind of spiced rice with bay; spicy stewed chicken legs; mashed lentils; lamb shank stew; collard greens; bread and crèpes and little corn muffins

Musings: I quite liked Swedish-Ethiopian chef Marcus Samuelsson from Top Chef Masters, so I signed up for this brunch.

Marcus' apartment is fairly normal, the most striking feature being the enormous outdoor patio space, perfect for entertaining. The people at the party were the New York-iest people I've ever seen. It looked the way New York parties do in the movies - lots of hipsters and models and artists, people dressed in clothes that are retro or futuristic or both.

Mark and I mostly tucked ourselves in a corner, chowing down and people-watching. Marcus eventually came over to shake our hands and thank us for coming. Really classy guy.

The food was really hearty and filling. My favorite was the lamb shanks, which were made by Maya Samuelsson. Who, by the way, is a gorgeous Amazon of a woman who towers over her husband when she's in heels. She's the one going to Africa to distribute the food and other supplies funded by the donations. Hope her trip goes smoothly!

Mmmm... Oktoberfest III: Tokyo Drift

OK, so I'm now the proud owner of - count 'em - four growlers. There's my two original ones from the first Oktoberfest, plus the two new ones that I just impulse-purchased.

I've named the one on the left Jeannie because it reminds me of the genie bottle from "I Dream of Jeannie" and the one on the right is Gunther, for no particular reason. Gunther was $15 at New Beer Distributors, beer included. A steal, I say, a steal!

I made pretty much the same salads I made last year. Ben sort of stole the show with his homemade pretzels so I'm posting his notes in case anyone out there's feeling ambitious. (Sorry - it's too close to baking for me to attempt.)

Homemade Soft Pretzels

Here's the source recipe: foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/homemade-soft-pretzels-recipe

Ben says: "It really wasn't all that hard (especially since I didn't sift the flour). It's probably more fun if you have an assembly line (one person rolls and shapes the dough, one person boils them, one person handles the egg wash and salt, etc.). And just so you know, they really don't last more than a day (the salt on the outside makes them gummy). The recipe for the mustard [sauce] was ridiculously easy and it lasts a while. I had so much extra that I found myself using it in most of my meals for the next month (cold meats, smoked fish, in a vinaigrette, etc.)"


And finally, for a laugh: theoatmeal.com/comics/beer

Queens meat truck

Occasion: Snack before the US Open (Roddick v. Sock)
Location: food truck at 39th and Prince in Flushing, Queens
Edibles: chicken skewers; chicken hearts; lamb ribs; quail; squid

Musings: This hardworking truck is open from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. All the meats are cooked over a little trench of charcoal. While chicken and beef skewers ($1 each) are undoubtedly this truck's bread and butter, I think what makes it great are exotic items.

Lamb ribs - I've never had these before but I loved them. I'm guessing the guy has a source where he gets them for free because there's not much meat on them, basically just the ribs after the tenderloin's been removed. They're not filling but the spice rub is delicious and the little shreds of meat are really flavorful (as meat near the bone tends to be). For $5 you get an entire rack. Good to share.

The whole quail was also excellent, if a bit cumbersome to eat with your hands while sitting on a park bench. The squid was good, though the sauce was a tad spicy for me.

I'd pass on the chicken hearts - they were fairly rubbery and I've definitely had better.

I recommend that you pick up a roll and a beverage on the way, as the salt tends to add up. There's a little bakery across the street that sells single man tou for the former, and numerous bubble tea places on Main Street for the latter. A cheap, fast and tasty meal.

Fish Market

Location: Fish Market on Aðalstræti in Reykjavik, Iceland (fiskmarkadurinn.is)
Occasion: Our fancy dinner of the trip
Edibles: chef's tasting menu (8900 ISK, or ~$75), courses detailed below

Musings: A friend absolutely raved about this place, so I went ahead and made reservations well in advance of our trip. We actually came here twice, once for lunch and once for dinner. (Since the cod dish I ordered at the lunch turned out to be the sixth course of the dinner, I figured one post would cover it.)

The restaurant has a trendy, eco-hip style of décor with lots of natural woods, rough-hewn stone, etc. The dining room is split into two levels. We ate both times on the lower level but I prefer the look of the upper level, particularly for lunch. Being half underground, the lower level is quite dim and dreary during the day. Something to keep in mind if you're making reservations.

Most of the smaller tables in the lower level are up against the back wall, with one person sitting on a long bench that runs the length of the wall, and the other person in a chair. I was the person on the bench both times, and I note that the fake plastic bamboo plants were quite bothersome, poking me in the back and snagging in my hair multiple times.

As with the tapas place, our table was quite close to the kitchen, affording us a good view to spy on the team in action. The chefs were pretty calm and the place was scrupulously clean. However, the long and narrow space didn't look to be very well laid-out and people did seem to get in each other's way a fair amount.

Our first courses were langoustine tempura with a seaweed salad and honeydew melon, and mussels with bonito in lobster broth.

A less-than-stunning start. I thought the deep-frying completely overwhelmed the delicate flavor of the langoustine, and broth for the mussels was likewise quite powerfully smoky and pungent. I also found an untrimmed beard on one of the mussels. Tsk, tsk.

Our third course was mink whale sashimi with two sauces - a wasabi cream cheese, and a lemon soy sauce.

The whale tasted the most like beef to me; Yining perceived more fishiness and likened it to a gamey tuna. I liked the wasabi cream cheese for its richness but Yining thought it was an odd note.

What struck me the most about this course (and the sashimi I ordered at the lunch) was how bad the knifework was. The whale was presented in clumsily hacked, lopsided slices. It's like the chef only got the basic concept of serving raw fish, completely missing the finesse element of Japanese culinary philosophy.

Next up was a romaine salad with wasabi dressing, fried quail eggs, soy jelly and mandarin oranges. The dressing was lovely and delicate but balance of the salad was off, with too much of the salty soy jelly.

Salmon nigiri, salmon cucumber maki, tuna and scallop sashimi.

Again, substandard knifework, particularly on the tuna. The rice in the sushi was horrible, overcooked and almost mashed into a paste. The quality of the seafood was good, but frankly you can get better made sushi at the takeout place around the corner from my apartment back home.

Cod with cherry sauce, an unidentifiable white sauce, sunchokes and celery, on top of some kind of purée.

Probably my favorite course, but still, there were problems. First, there was just too much going on. Too many flavors and sauces piled on top of the wonderful fish, a cacophony where a couple of strong accents were all you needed. When I had it at lunch, the cod was perfection - really rich and tender, each flake almost like silken tofu on the tongue. At dinner, one piece of fish was significantly smaller than the other and got overcooked to the point of dryness. Also, the dish was much saltier the second time around. And the sunchokes were poorly trimmed.

I know, I sound like a Grumpy Gus. But we went in with certain expectations and instead just kept getting disappointed every course.

Next, chargrilled salmon with potatoes, with a side of broccoli-raisin-walnut salad in creamy dressing.

The salmon was cooked perfectly but that broccoli salad was the worst thing in the whole meal. I think the first word that popped into my head upon tasting it was "disgusting." I almost spit it out.

The final savory course - lamb with sweet potato croquettes and shittake mushroom.

The famous Icelandic lamb was terrific, and cooked to perfect doneness. But, once again, the chronic problem of questionable composition interfering with the purity of the raw ingredients. The dish needed salt, the sauce was too sweet, and the mushroom overpowered the other flavors.

Dessert was white chocolate cheesecake; chocolate cake; crème brûlée; chocolate ice cream and pineapple sorbet. Unremarkable. Unrelieved sweetness across the different items - a little acidity for contrast would have been welcome.

Bottom line, I just don't like what this chef does. On the raw dishes, not enough care with the knifework. On the cooked dishes, not enough editing. Instead of fumbled attempts at innovative flavors, I'd love to see some restraint. Emphasis on finesse and skill. Let the amazing local ingredients shine. They deserve it.

Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur

Occasion: More snacking after, really, a very modest pub crawl
Location: Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur ("the best hot dogs in town") - as for location, I can only tell you that it's down by the harbor, but it's not hard to find because downtown Reykjavik is that small (bbp.is)
Edibles: hog dogs with the works

Musings: Quelle tragédie!!! The crazy hot dog with shrimp salad and mashed potatoes that I thought was an Icelandic thing is in fact.... a Swedish thing. Blerg. Hot dog fail. (FYI, it's called tunnbrödsrulle* and Bourdain had it at a stand called Maxi Grillen.)

But back to the hot dog at hand.... Apparently Bæjarins Beztu was once named the best hot dog stand in Europe? That food reviewer must have been on drugs. The hot dog they serve here is basically just a New York dirty water dog. It's about $2, and comes with standard condiments like ketchup, mustard, fried onions.

My crushing disappointment was slightly mitigated by our very amusing company. A little Korean man plopped down beside us on the picnic bench and started a lament on how difficult it was to find his son a nice Korean girl in Iceland. "We're not Korean," we tell him. "Close enough," was his reply. A little later, the man's Russian business partner joined us. They have a fish export business. Local color - gotta love it.

[*Note: Okay, now I'm kind of obsessed with the idea of tunnbrödsrulle. I will attempt to make some at Oktoberfest IV.]

Tapas Barinn

Occasion: Continuation of snacking
Location: Tapas Barinn on Vesturgötu in Reykjavik, Iceland (tapas.is)
Edibles: grilled squid with chili and garlic; Icelandic sea-trout with sweet pepper salsa; langoustines baked in garlic; a skewer of neck of pork in romesco sauce; ovenbaked monkfish wrapped in Serrano ham with pesto

Musings: Tapas Barinn is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, the food was pretty tasty. On the other hand, the whole place could have used a good scrub and the kitchen is a disorganized disaster.

The place was hopping busy when we stopped by, so we were escorted to a couchy sort of area to wait. The coffee table was sticky from spilled drinks, and so were the drink menus. The dim lighting only helps hide what you see, not what you touch.

After a glass of wine, a booth near the entrance opened up. It was a bit chilly from the constantly opening door, but they anticipated it and provided each booth with some blankets. As a bonus, our booth was right across the open kitchen and I could easily observe the goings-on.

We started with three plates. The squid was okay, not very memorable. The pork skewer was cooked unevenly - the top part that I ate was overcooked (presumably because it was closer to the flame) whereas the lower part that Yining had was nice and juicy. Of the three, the sea-trout was the best. Scandinavian fish continues to impress.

During the slow progression of dishes, we were able to observe the kitchen in action. Here's their problem: the menu's too big for so small a kitchen. The restaurant has two fairly large dining rooms, both serviced by a long, narrow kitchen the size of your average hallway. They had about six people in there, bustling around, each doing their own thing. They also had an underling popping up and down a ladder to get miscellaneous plates and condiments from the attic. You could tell that the kitchen was behind and being harried by the waitresses for food, and yet sometimes there'd be a dozen plates waiting for pickup.

With a space like that, you need to really be smart. Pare down the menu. Design front-loaded dishes and do the bulk of your work in the mise en place before dinner service. Have people work in a single area in the kitchen, performing a single task (e.g. grilling, saucing) for all the dishes instead of having one person responsible for completing a single dish.

(Tia Pol has this down to an art. Their kitchen is maybe six feet square and they produce exquisite food, hot and fast.)

While spying on the kitchen, we saw them produce a baked langoustine dish that looked pretty tasty. I hopped across the aisle and their expeditor confirmed that it was the langoustine with garlic (though they call it lobster). We ordered one. The langoustines had that slightly mealy texture that frozen seafood can get. A second underwhelming shellfish experience.

As a pleasant surprise, the kitchen sent over a monkfish on the house. (I guess the expeditor doesn't get to talk to diners much? I'm not above flirting with restaurant staff for free food but I honestly barely spoke to the guy.)

Each dish was $8-11 dollars, which doesn't sound like much but does tend to add up when you're ordering lots of tiny dishes and getting drinks as well. For what amounted to a hearty snack or a light dinner, we spent enough to pay for a three-course meal with drinks at a fairly nice restaurant in New York. Eating out in Iceland is expensive!!

Noodle Station

Occasion: Pre-pub-crawl snack
Location: Noodle Station at the intersection of Skólavörðustígur (damn - that took 5 min to type!) and Týsgata in Reykjavik, Iceland
Edibles: beef noodle soup (950 ISK or ~$8)

Musings: We weren't expecting much and popped in out of curiousity more than anything. How *is* Chinese food in Iceland?

Pretty mediocre, as it turns out. Neither the beef nor the broth were very good - the former being tough and chewy, and the latter tasting completely artificial and chemical-y. Pass on this one.

Indian Mango

Occasion: Dinner with Yining (while it's full light out - weird)
Location: Indian Mango on Frakkastigur in Reykjavik, Iceland (indianmango.is)
Edibles: chicken tikka masala, aloo gobi (stewed potatoes and cauliflower), tandoori lamb kebabs and two sides of rice (we're Chinese - we like our rice)

Musings: The food was great, on par with what I've had in cities with major Indian populations (i.e. Vancouver, New York, London - that's as close as I can tell on authenticity, having never been to actual India). The spices were well-balanced, the meats were tender, the rice, fragrant and fluffly.

The only slight ding would be for price. The meal ran us about $100 after tip, and that's with no beverages at all. A similar meal at Brick Lane would probably come to about $80 all told. So I figure the math works out something like this: New York real estate < Iceland's short tourist season + cost of importing all of the exotic ingredients, and probably a goodly number of the mundane ones.

Icelandic Fish and Chips

Occasion: Casual dinner
Location: Icelandic Fish and Chips on Tryggvagötu in Reykjavik, Iceland (fishandchips.is)
Edibles: fish and chips, natch

Musings: This place is *really* popular. It also closes fairly early, at 9:00, and they stop letting people in about a half hour before that. So go early, and be prepared for a bit of a wait.

We got two different things to share. First was an order of the battered ling with rosemary roast potatoes. Not great. Yining and I were both surprised. You might be able to see in the photo that a puddle of oil has seeped out from the fish. The spelt and barley batter, which they advertise as "light and crispy", was in fact quite soggy and dense. I think what happened is that the oil had picked up a lot of impurities and wasn't quite up to temp, but the kitchen staff were eager to finish up for the night and didn't bother to change it. (We were almost the last table to be served.)

The other dish we ordered was the steamed haddock with coriander and a side of onion rings. Much better. The haddock was really plump and juicy and the coriander sauce was nice and fresh. The thin, delicate onion rings were also vastly superior to the potatoes, which were dry and leathery on the outside. (Which, again, could have been due to the fact that we came close to closing. Those potatoes tasted like they'd been sitting in a warming oven for an hour or more.)

So at a fish and chips place, the winner turned out to be steamed fish and onion rings. Go figure.

Sægreifinn

Occasion: Afternoon snack
Location: Sægreifinn ("Sea Baron"), a seafood shack on Geirsgata down by the water, in Reykjavik, Iceland (saegreifinn.is)
Edibles: humarsupa (lobster soup)

Musings: I wasn't as impressed by this place as Mark Bittman. On the plus side, the soup was extremely flavorful and full of lobster chunks. On the minus side, I thought the broth was too thin, and both the broth and the lobster tasted to me like they'd been frozen. Iceland's tourist season is short - just a few months in the summer - and I guess it makes sense to make huge batches in the off-season and freeze them. But you can taste it. The vegetables flavors aren't as bright and the lobster meat gets a little bit mealy.

A giant mug with some bread on the side will run you about 750 Icelandic kronor, or just over $10. It's good for a snack, being both filling and warming. (Even in August, you need a medium-weight jacket during the day and more at night. You can also tell the locals from the tourists on the street because the locals are in t-shirts and the tourists are wearing winter coats, hats and scarves.)

Hermans

Occasion: Vegetarian buffet dinner
Location: Hermans on Fjällgatan in the Södermalm neighborhood of Stockholm, Sweden - nearest T-bana stop is Slussen (hermans.se)
Edibles: all the greens and beans your heart desires!

Musings: Although its menu is pretty far outside my usual preferences, I give a big thumbs up to this place. The location is fantastic - right along the water, with picnic tables in a multi-level garden. This was the view from our table:

When the sun started to set, the light gilded the plants and it was just gorgeous.

The buffet is 150 SEK (~$20). Beverages and dessert are extra, but coffee and tea are included.

There was a grill station outside where they were doing tomatoes, sweet potatoes, eggplant and other veggies. They had this great grilled tofu with a marinade of soy, sugar, garlic, ginger and sweet chili paste. Really yummy. I had about six pieces.

Inside, there was a table with all sorts of casseroles, stews, salads and a giant basket of different breads. I know it's not the best way to get your money's worth at a buffet, but is there anything as wonderful as a fresh, chewy piece of bread slathered with butter? I think the below pic was my second go-around. I probably had four plates like it.



The weather was really just perfect that day. While we were eating, about ten hot air balloons lifted off.

We lingered over mugs of tea as it got dark. A perfect end to the day, and to the Stockholm leg of our trip.

[Postscript: You know, I bet a restaurant like this would absolutely kill in Brooklyn.]