Dong Bei Hu served an admirable eight courses (with shredded pork repeated as the ninth bonus dish) for seven people. Very heavy on taste and capsaicin – amazingly low on boredom.
Archive of posts filed under the restaurants category.
New York, New York
As they say in Spinal Tap.
I’m in town for a very quick business trip.
Yesterday’s exploration was two-fold: mainly to stave off too early sleep, but also to get a decent dinner.
The former was more than adequately accomplished, with the help of the latter. A seafood pasta, with clams, mussels, shrimp and two kinds of calamari in white wine over linguini at Southwest 44 was the best seafood dish I’ve had in ages.
The shopping was very curtailed – managed to snag a Stockton retro shirt at the NBA Store, take a brief look into the neighbourhood Barnes&Noble and spot a few other shops to visit with more time. Apple store is a few blocks twoards the Central Park, and definitely on the list as well.
The flight was surprisingly smooth. A newish Airbus 330 had wide enough legroom to be comfortable even when almost packed to the gills. Food was expectedly low quality, but a hearty lunch in Seutula helped a lot.
Encountered the first genuine scam artist some fifteen seconds after exiting the carousel. The guy’s claims that in New York all cab fares are per person, not per carload were not exactly convincing. Last time it took a full minute.
Color me convinced
Yesterday proved two things (at least):
My snide comments about Mai Thai a couple of years back are pretty much unwarranted. A surprise lunch there eliminated my negative stance resulting from a sub-optimal meal. The Tom Yam soup was deliciously prickly, and the thickly-sauced Satay chicken quite literally melts in the mouth. Thumbs up, and time to upgrade the review in eat.fi as well.
Had my second run-in with the Rock Band-franchise. The screen design is preferable to the Guitar Heros, at least my eyes were far less strung out even after a lengthy bout. And the songs (based on a random sample of half a dozen, only using twin guitars) were a lot of fun to play.
London, day 2
Began the day again at Sapori, the alternate breakfast spots on Horseferry Road were not open on the weekend.
Had settled on a visit to Kew Gardens as the first thing to do in the morning, and that required another dip into the municipal traffic. Picked up Oyster cards at the closes underground station and found them useful indeed in traipsing around the city. And cheap, using cash is almost double the cost of using the Oyster.
The Kew Gardens was a big area. And unlike, say the tightly-packed Montreal Botanic Gardens, the sights were rather far apart from each other. Most of the greenhouses were ancient, the Princess of Wales memorial the only truly modern environment amongst them. The plantlife varied from commonplace trees to plants that have already vanished from nature. Unsurprisingly a lot of the content originates from the former colonies of the british empire.
A definite highlight of the Kew visit was the canopy walk – about 200 meters long platform that allowed walking on treetop level. While the view was rather the same all the time (chestnut trees, mainly), the height of twenty-ish metres allowed for a good lookout point – London Eye was no longer visible, being hidden behind the bends of the meandering river.
Ate a quick lunch at the Pavillion restaurant and noted that it’s under protection from New York’s most beloved superhero. Someone had forgotten a Spiderman toy on the premises and it had ended up in a vantage position in a fence.
The last greenhouse of the day contained multiple biomes – moving from deserts (a very nice collection of living stones of Lithops-genus) to orchids and waterlilies from quite a but wetter climes. A lot of the plants were protected by glass – otherwise the likes of small cacti and carnivorous plants could have proven irresistible for nimble-fingered visitors.
The garden shop sold insta-gardens – plastic bags that just needed to be torn open and kept watered. I was tempted by the prospect of harvesting mint and strawberries on my balcony, but settled on chili seeds instead.
The next target was Tate Modern, a museum built into an old power station on Bankside. Took a side tour via St. Paul’s Cathedral (imposing, didn’t pay to enter) and walked across the no longer wobbly Millennium Bridge after picking up yet another cache (Monument, below the bridge proper).
A brief visit into the replica of Shakespeare’s Globe proved serendipitous indeed: picked up a truly cool hoodie from the shop as well as a long overdue copy of Bill Bryson’s book on the bard.
Rambling around the area revealed yet another old theatre (Rose, almost next door), a hen party (surprisingly well-behaved), and an on-the-wall mosaic Bub (from Bubble Bobble, obviously). Whether this is the work of the Invader or a local copycat remains to be investigated.
Decided on a dinner before entering the museum. Leon, just south of the building proved to be disappointing over multiple axis. Despite being billed as “future of fast food”, the service was extremely slow. Our order seemed to fall into a crack somewhere and only after multiple queries the food arrived. And even then the extras (fried halloumi) and drinks (portuguese beer) had to be requested separately once again.
Skipped the Thorium Box cache on the Tate yard due to milling crowds and headed inside. Walked through the public galleries only – time was running out and so was the endurance. Didn’t see a single Damien Hirst, but other modern artists were well-represented. The museum shop was as big as expected, but unable to deliver the one book I was looking for. Thankfully the very helpful assistant verified that the tome on the design of the London underground map would be available at Tate Britain instead. Inspired by the on the wall Bub, picked up a book on Banksy‘s work.
Along the way back to the hotel stopped in a semi-posh restaurant for a refresher. Northbank served a very passable selection of drinks, even though their mint storage had run dry so that no mojitos were available.
The Big Ben had an odd greenish tint to its face, well visible in the evening darkness.
New blood
Recent pickings. Some of them very rarely updated, some constantly:
- Speakeasy, Wall Street Journal’s culture blog reaches wide and occasionally deep.
- Linuxpundit, occasional insights into embedded Linux.
- Rädyn Rykäisy, Seppo Räty, the finest example of finnish speech has his say about the world of sports.
- Ben Schott (yeah, the one of the Miscellanies-fame) expands readers’ vocabulary.
- Festarit, helsingin sanomat once again tours the summer festivals.
- eat.fi, the blog of the finest finnish sybaritic social network is updated very irregularly.
Breaking fifty
I broke the fifty reviews-barrier at eat.fi the other day.
And certainly don’t intend to stop.
The first couple of months in a very abbreviated format:
- Best food: Dong Bei Hu (recently relocated).
- Biggest disappointment: Casa Largo.
- Most pleasant surprise: Ryan Thai.
- Strangest: Kimito Kitchen (by a mile).
- Next in line: Plenty more reviews.
Updating and arriving
Two sudden changes in old favorites:
Alamaailman Vasarat has released a new album. Huuro Kolkko continues the instrumentalists’ journey into the depths of egyptological horn funk. The background of the album is based on an imaginary early 20th century finnish explorer, and probably serves as inspiration than even stranger song introductions than usual.
Dong Bei Hu has moved from Töölö to downtown Helsinki. The finest chinese restaurant in town continues to serve excellent food. The food remains authentic, the surroundings are a bit posher, the prices slightly hiked – all in all a restaurant I’m sure to return from time to time.
Still starred
No changes in the Michelin stars for local restaurants. One down, three to go.
Breaking twenty
Been slowly adding reviews to the eat.fi-site (a smooth social network for reviewing finnish restaurant), and having written twenty thus far, a top contributor-badge is mine, all mine.
Next: a couple of score more, and hopefully soon a version of the site a bit more accessible via mobile phones.
Mr. Ego, your table is ready
The game reviewing gig for Helsingin Sanomat ran dry after the weekly Nyt-supplement got rid of most of its fixed content.
There’s no end to reviews, however, since I started rating restaurants at eat.fi, a pleasantly web2.0 community site all about where to pay for good food. I’m recycling old experiences, as much as I can remember them. And adding new ones as food in new locations gets sampled.
Thus far I haven’t managed to piss off any vengeful restaurant-owners with my half a score of comments. And since the only restaurant that donated me a dose of food poisoning (Dick Tracy) is long gone, I don’t have too much bile to spill.
Thus far I haven’t inserted any new establishments, but Base on Kalevankatu, with its scrumptious toasts, definitely belongs on the map.
Moody Monday 1.12.2008: Contented
This week’s Moody Monday challenge commands the participants to show something contented.
My take is the following scene, just before digging into delicious Key lime pie at the Boston McCormick&Schmick. The perky pie was the last step on a very successful dinner that followed a full day walking tour of the Massachusetts capital.
Macro Day 23.11.2008: Food
This week’s Macro Day challenge is also about food.
Instead of recycling images used in previous photo memes, this picture of a foamy quail is a shiny new one. It’s taken in CarmaCarma, one of the very few restaurants in Helsinki that has been tagged with a Michelin star. Food was excellent, and the dinner consisting of seven dishes, plentiful.
One of those weeks
Consecutive late nights are not very conducive to long entries in the blog.
Collected excuses and observations:
- Dong Bei Hu on Museokatu provides excellent and well-spiced sichuan food. Heartily recommended.
- Even though the bands start at a shockingly early hour when compared to the late eighties excess, the gigs in Finland are much later than in other parts of the world.
- There is no Bolivian Weasel Beer. Or at least it’s not sold here.
- There’s little over a week until the release of Chinese Democracy.
- The Helsinki Chocolate Festival was packed with hungry visitors, the presentation on tasting chocolate was too brief (and had too few actual tasting examples).
Capsaicin, return of
Had a nice dinner at Cantina West on tuesday evening. Hadn’t been in for quite a while, and was unsure how the place had held up. It has had its ups and downs through the years.
The worries were unwarranted. The portions were big and plentifully spiced, the service good and reasonably fast. And the slammer girls gone extinct as an added bonus.
Had the classic Lucky Luke’s Jalapeños for starter – this dish serves officially the best stuffed jalapeño in the world (scientific research covering three continents already). And a revolution steak for the main course, perfectly medium minus, with a healthy ensemble of sides.
It’s been a while since feeling so stuffed after a meal. Definitely ought to drop by more often.
Athens, for real and from above
Rode the metro downtown again, this time with the full complement of luggage.
Walking to the hotel, Novotel in the Omonia district, took a while, and up until the final corner seemed to be an entirely wrong area for a proper four star hotel. Happily enough it wasn’t, and the fabulous-ish shower provided was much appreciated.
The neighbourhood didn’t seem too lucrative for a proper dinner, and as the hotel advertised a rooftop restaurant, that meant an easy enough approach for the last proper meal of the trip.
The view from the top was indeed great. The surrounding area (and pretty much the whole city) being of buildings of not very great height, the vistas offered pretty much 360 degree access. The sun setting behind one of the hills got to be probably the greatest photo opportunity of the whole weekend.
The dinner, while expensive, was worth the money. Finally got to tick off “octopus” from the list of things to be eaten, and the tuna steak for the main course was a nice change of pace from the ubiquitous souvlakis. Drinks varied between awesome (the margarita for an appetizer) and awful (the daiquiri for dessert was genuinely artificial in taste).
Once more to the feeding trough
Walked into downtown Kifissia for dinner.
The local equivalent of Pigsty (can’t recall the name, had heavily pig-related imagery and the word souvlaki in the name) offered a competent selection of large dishes. Had stuffed vine leaves for starters and a cypriot mincemeat dish (whose name also goes unremembered) for the main course. By far the largest dish turned out to be an appetizer – the pita flambé was correctly noted to be “on the big side”.
Dessert demanded a bit of walking about, since the list was rather meager. Had an excellent chocolate souffle and a glass of local wheat beer (Maisel’s) at the Beer Academy in a way posher downtown location.
Walking in the area was interesting. The streets were very unevenly equipped with any kind of walkways, and the availability of streetlights varied between blocks completely. Locals in the more suburban roads tended to carry sticks to deter dogs, but never bumped into any on the way.
Duo of unusual museums
Spent a couple of hours around noon walking around Tampere and catching two museums I’d long planned to visit.
The Lenin Museum was smaller than I thought – basically two rooms packed with paraphernalia (letters and documents mainly) on the life of the first soviet leader.
The Spy Museum was a slightly bigger affair, and packed with lots of information and goods. The museum in Tampere claims to be the very first establishment on the subject in the world, but the vastly bigger one in D.C. has surpassed this. Though here photography is not banned, it just costs extra.
Rounded out the trip with a visit to Swamp Music (new Alice Cooper and Blackfoot’s Flying High amongst the loot) and a lunch at Plevna (excellent mutton sausages accompanied by stingingly hopsy pale ale).
Ate Berlusconi
Ate a Berlusconi-pizza the other day, voted the best in the world earlier this year. It’s a partially rye-based pie, with chantarelle, red onion and reindeer as toppings.
And it’s by no means a bad pizza, especially when compared to the usual fare offered by Kotipizza.
But “best in the world”, that’s a stretch…
This isn’t even the best in Helsinki, as both Virgin Oil and the cellar of La Famiglia beat this hands down.
And definitely not best in the world, that honour is still carried by a forgotten pizzeria somewhere in or reasonably close to Genève, whose Volcano (avec tout as toppings) still reigns on the very top of the list.
Gastronomic heptathlon
Had my very first meal in a Michelin Star-equipped restaurant.
The place: Carma on Ludviginkatu.
The occasion: bi-annual team day.
The food: a five course menu (supplemented by two additional chef’s surprises).
The highlights: quail stuffed with sweetbread (main course) and rosehip-spiked white chocolate cream (prequel to dessert).
The drinks: the wines recommended by the staff.
The oddity: many of the dishes featured plenty of foam.
The duration: three hours and change.
The verdict: Sold. And I definitely ought to look up the other star-recipients in Helsinki, this was a delicious meal.
Golden Adler
Had dinner in Golden Adler, the oldest restaurant I’ve eaten in (the advertising alleged that it was founded already in 1390).
Ancient or not, the venison accompanied with spinach-knödels and chantarelles was very good.
Sacher twice in a day
Ate twice in Cafe Sacher today. And that’s accomplished well before dinnertime, but I don’t really see the need for a hat trick.
The Utah reunion continued with a walking tour of the old town and capped the two hour stroll with a brunch in the most famous Austrian cafe (not the original, obviously, that’s in Vienna). Their schnitzel is pretty close to perfection, and a slice of the famous cake for dessert certainly hit the spot also.
Payday spoils
Celebrated payday by going shopping.
Refrained from picking up anything significant (like a new television, camera or an apartment), and concentrated on music.
The theme was definitely metal, of a retro-ish kind. Not of the spandex-wearing kind, but metal that can be respected even while completely sober.
The first discovery was Death Angel‘s new Killing Season. First old school thrash album I’ve bought in ages. The record was sold with a fifty-minute dvd of a gig in Strasbourg back in 2003 – definitely a nice bonus.
Since I’d been quite impressed by Electric Wizard‘s Let Us Prey, just had to check whether Keltainen Jäänsärkijä had anything further from the Dorset doomsters. Certainly, and there’s still a few albums to be purchased on subsequent visits.
Encouraged by the availability of old doom, just had to check out two old favorites of the genre whose output has been recently re-released… The store was sadly sold out of Solitude Aeturnus, but had plenty of Trouble. Bought the second album, the Skull, and have been very pleased with it (especially since it, too, contains a bonus live dvd).
Capped the day consisting mainly of random wandering around by enjoying an excellent stuffed squid in Empire Plaza in Kamppi. Perhaps the place is not as authentic as Dong Bei Hu, but it sure is conveniently close.
