Restaurant Stories: A Food-Filled April in Copenhagen

April: Month three came with yet more traveling and more eating. Can’t complain with that now, can we? To celebrate Easter, Ellinor decided to treat Jasmine and I by putting out a cold lunch spread for us to enjoy. Featuring two kinds of pickled herring, smoked salmon, sliced meats, boiled eggs, dark bread, and lots and lots of ost (cheese), it was a probably the most Danish way to celebrate this holiday.

Speaking of lunches, by now I was fed up of trying to pack my own. I have never been that creative in the sandwich-making department, so after eating some rather ratchet creations, I took to the streets, purchasing gourmet sandwiches (at quite the pretty penny) from local establishments. During this time, I hit up Sandwich Pigen and Smagsløget. I highly recommend the latter because they have a 40% STUDENT DISCOUNT on Wednesdays and BIG sandwiches with wickedly awesome combinations that will not disappoint. I do not exactly remember what the sandwich I ordered was called, but it was clearly being marketed as the “spicy” or “hot one” on the menu. It certainly delivered, Thick ciabatta bread served as the base for piquant chorizo, manchego cheese, a menage of peppers, onions, and tomatoes, and loads and loads of sriracha sauce. Oh, and the sandwich was warm and toasty too, perfect for a crisp April day (Yes, there was sadly only a handful of days here where I was able to walk around without a jacket).

Michelle and I also went over to Ma Poule at the, you guessed it, glass market to try out the byens bedste sandwich (city’s best sandwich). What was it though? Well, it was the famed (at least among DIS students) duck sandwich featuring a very French baguette filled generously with shredded duck confit, arugula, and Dijon mustard. I have never been much of a duck fan, usually because the meat can be quite gamey, but this sandwich was a winner for sure! The meat was incredibly tender and oozing with fat (in a good way). Far richer than shredded chicken, but still maintaining of a similar taste, we both loved this sandwich, and it was sure worth the 50-60 kroner we shelled out for it.

Mid April brought yet another travel break, during which I flew down to Spain to visit the homegirl Pooja in Valencia and try out paella, horchata, fartons, and a wickedly strong drink known as Agua de Valencia. Do give it a drink if you’re in the area, but I warn you, make sure you’re not on an empty stomach!

The following weekend my Dad and I took a road trip to Germany where we visited the old Hanseatic city of Lübeck. As there was not a ton to see there, we spent a large portion of our time eating, and I tried liver for the first time! It actually was not as bad as I thought it would be. Yeah, it was little bloody and it certainly had a mineral aftertaste, but oddly enough, I was okay with it. I also liked how it was prepared; the woodiness of the sage cream sauce complemented the liver’s wild flavor perfectly.

When we returned back to Copenhagen that Sunday evening, my Dad and I decided to have dinner together before I headed home. Mistakenly, I took him to Geist, a gastro bar of sorts where we dined on what I thought was probably my favorite meal in Copenhagen. The restaurant operates on the small plates concept, meaning that portions are small and one has to typically order 3-4 plates in order to enjoy a proper-sized meal. Obviously it’s expensive. The small plates cost around the same amount as any entrée would at a standard restaurant, and two glasses of deliciously dry Gruner Vetliner wine cost us $40 alone. However, let me remind you that this is Copenhagen so you have to quickly move beyond the prices and enjoy the experience for what it is. If you seat yourselves by the bar, as we did, you are treated to a large open kitchen where you can watch the chefs prepare the food. In spite of the large open space, the intimate Danish feeling of hygge (coziness) is kept by the numerous candles and tea lights that serve as the main source of light during the meal.

As we didn’t have the money to splurge out on a full course meal here, my dad and I decided to just stick with two plates each and then go over to a nearby ice cream shop to feast on Belgian waffles a la mode afterwards. For my starter, I had a fried spinach salad tossed with piment, elderberries, and samphire cheese. Such an ingenious combination, I must say. The spinach, being fried, was automatically delicious and the elderberries, dried but still full of a sweet and tart flavor, and the elderberries added that local Scandinavian touch, which in my opinion, easily classifies this place as a burgeoning New Nordic restaurant.  My dad started with a raw zucchini salad dusted with some really good curry powder.

For the second plate, I ordered spring onions with squid and nasturtium. The onions were charred, so much so that they could be classified as burnt, yet burnt food has never tasted so good! Crispy and leaving a behind of trail of ashes, cleverly repurposed as a spice to dust the plate, these spring onions were transformed into something so robust and smoky that it hit my palette with a huge “bet you didn’t see that coming” attack. Floored, but in full admiration, I only hope that I can manage to perfect this skill and incorporate it into my next barbecue. The squid, while a little salty, was perfectly tender and soft, and looking back at it, there was reason for the saltiness. The nasturtium leaves, like arugula, were intensely peppery, and they fused with the salty squid to create a plate of composed harmony. While the price of this place was enough to make you cry with sadness, it only made me cry tears of joy. If you ask me, Geist is well on its way to receiving a Michelin star, so if you want to have a taste of the culinary wonders within, visit soon before prices become so high that it will cost you just to look.

One meal that was well worth it, in terms of taste, authenticity, and price, was some damn good Chinese at Magasasa, located awkwardly behind Copenhagen Central Station on the head of Istegade, the street that’s better known for serving as the address for the city’s red light district. Packed with locals (and by that I mean Chinese people living in Denmark) at almost all times of day, it’s no surprise that this restaurant has been touted as offering the best Chinese food in Denmark. On that first visit, Michelle and I shared a platter of barbecued duck and pork belly and a one fiery hot mapo beef. One week later, I returned with my Dad and one of his coworkers to have an eggplant and pork hot-pot that would easily blow anyone’s mind. Service here may not be excellent, the waitresses are quite sassy as they must attempt to navigate through the cramped and tiny restaurant to serve hordes of hungry patrons, but the food never failed to disappoint me. It’s consistently real and spicy, perfect for when you want to take a departure from the tamer European flavors.

On the search for more Indian food to satisfy my ever-growing cravings, I took two of my good friends to Mumbai, a restaurant in the outer-borough of Valby to celebrate my birthday on the last day of the month. I originally read of this restaurant in a Danish newspaper article. Granted that it was all in Danish, I was able to use my limited language skills to pick out that the restaurant was indeed “Indian” and declared by the writer as “the best place to get Indian in Denmark”. Naturally, I took that statement with a grain of salt, but as I had been willingly dinning at other ethnic joints recently, I decided that there was no reason to not give this a try. As is the case with many Indian restaurants, there was a dinner buffet, and without hesitation we made a beeline for it. Everything was… surprisingly great. Featuring a predominantly Punjabi menu, I enjoyed the pakoras, dal tadka, boondi raita, Channa masala, and saag murgh. What really got me though was the rogan josh. A traditional Kashmiri curry made with lamb and colored with the mildly spiced, but sweet Kashmiri mirch (red chili powder), I liked the sweet heat approach with this dish, and it is on my long and never-ending list of cooking projects to attempt sometime in the near future.

Cooking projects this month including the preparation of a passionfruit pound cake for Michelle’s birthday that was quite the labor of love (juicing passionfruit is an incredibly time-consuming task), savoring more rhubarb in the classic Danish, tongue-twister dessert, Rødgrød med Fløde, baking a famed South African casserole dish, bobotie, and collaborating with a fellow Indian friend of mine, Meghana, to prepare a complicated Indian dish, malai kofta for some peeps in our core class. Essentially a dish of fried cheese balls simmered in a rich and nutty gravy, malai kofta can be a challenge to make because the kofta (cheese balls) all have to be shallow fried, to develop a crust and then placed in the sauce to finish cooking, but not for too long because their delicate nature will cause them to break easily. To make things even more complicated, Meghana’s kitchen, which was supposed to be one of the best, considering that she lived in the DIS Culinary House, did not have a working blender or spice grinder, two basic tools that are a needed to complete this dish. Oh and I had the hardest time finding paneer (the cheese used to make the kofta), and I was only able to find the next best thing ricotta, at the last-minute. Despite all of the challenges, it still all came out okay in the end! Yeah, the kofta may have been a bit overfried and the gravy was a little chunkier than I would have wanted, but the end result was still luscious! Furthermore, I think we even made a breakthrough when I realized that ricotta cheese lends to far softer and fluffier koftas than paneer does. It all melted in my mouth so well!

On an unrelated sidenote, I had Algerian food seated on a roof awning in Amsterdam! It was a completely random day as a friend and I ended up getting split from the rest of our group. While we wandered through the trendy Jordaan neighborhood, we were instantly drawn to the unique sitting arrangement of this teeny-tiny cafe-cum-takeaway joint. It also did not hurt to mention that the food here was quite delicious too. The cauliflower side dish I had reminded me a lot of the Indian aloo gobi.

Contact Info:

Sandwich Pigen

SKINDERGADE 44 – 1159 – KØBENHAVN K

Telephone No:  +45 33 91 51 43

http://sandwichpigen.dk/

Always a student discount available if you are a Danish Insitutute for Study Abroad (DIS) student. I recommend ordering the club sandwich.

Smagsløget

Nørregade 38 – 1165 København K

Telephone No: +45 31 33 43 21

Student discount varies by day (on Wednesday’s it’s 40% off). Sandwiches take a while to make, but it’s well worth it!

Ma Poule

TORVEHALLERNE KBH (glass market)

Frederiksborggade 21, 1360 København K

Telephone No: +45 27 63 19 81

Fabulous duck sandwiches, but as it is a French delicatessen, other tasty specialties are available as well.

Geist

Kongens Nytorv 8, 1050 København K

Telephone No: +45 3313 3713

http://restaurantgeist.dk/en/

Dine here before the prices rise through the roof!

Magasasa

Istedgade 4, 1650 København V

Telephone No: +45 33 23 80 88

http://www.magasasa.dk/

Byens bedste kinesk mad! (The best Chinese food in the city)

Restaurant Mumbai

Vigerslev Alle 124, 2500 Valby

Telephone No: +45 33 55 11 77

http://mumbaico.dk/

Restaurant Stories: A Food-Filled March in Copenhagen

March: As I approached the halfway point of my study abroad experience, I began to break more into the core of Danish cuisine, both at home and outside. My host mom, Ellinor, slowly began to introduce Jasmine and I to the foods of her youth, cooking us delicious medisterpølse (a thick and spicy, fried pork sausage), creamed green cabbage, which we topped with cinnamon sugar (I know it sounds weird, but this combination was actually crazy good),  risengrød (a Danish rice-pudding that’s more commonly served for dinner rather than desert), and ægkage (essentially just an omelette with ham, but hey, the name’s cool), and one æbletærte (apple pie) made entirely from scratch. I enjoyed trying it all, along with learning more about these foods along the way.

Around this time, I also became friends with Michelle, a girl in my Danish class. I had known her since like February or so, but we didn’t really bond until a class trip to Christiania (a free town in the middle of Copenhagen populated primarily by, and I don’t mean to be offensive, hippies, squatters, and other alternative folk). Complaining constantly about the bitter cold and blizzardy conditions we were made to walk through, the two of us decided to grab lunch afterward at the Torvehallerne, or glass market, a food emporium in central Copenhagen. The glass market is this large emporium filled with top quality produce and meat sellers along with stalls and stalls of tasty eateries and artisan product vendors. Basically, it was my second home. We ate at the Boutique Fisk, a stand known for its fiskefrikadeller (essentially like frikadeller but made with fish instead). For about 35 kroner (7 dollars) each, we both got a large fish cake, a slice of dark bread, and a slathering of tangy, house made remoulade (a pickle and mayonnaise condiment that is eaten a lot with fish in Denmark). The fiskefrikadeller were hot and fresh out of the oil and the remoulade, with its slight hints of curry powder, went along well as the perfect accompaniment. During this lunch, I learned that Michelle was also a FOODIE like me! We were just made to be best friends, and we decided that we were going to spend the rest of the semester eating our way through Copenhagen. It was perhaps the best decision I had made in a long time.

At the end of the month, my brother flew in to visit me, and we spent the week traveling together across Sweden and Norway. After spending enough money to take us to the moon and back, I came to realize that I ought to be more generous with the cash back in Copenhagen. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity after all. When we returned back to Denmark at the end of the week, we met up with our Dad, who randomly got a job with Maersk and started working in Copenhagen around mid-March. He was being put up in some really fancy hotel near the royal palace, and after reuniting with him after two long months, the three us embarked on a weekend of good eating. Wow, it sure felt great to not be spending the money for once! We started off by having lunch at a restaurant on the famous Nyhavn canal. Now while most restaurants here are quite overpriced, some of them do put out good Danish fare, including the one we dined at, the Nyhavn 17. We treated ourselves to Smørrebrød, without a doubt the most well-known food from Denmark. Literally translating to “bread and butter”, Smørrebrød consists of a slice of buttered brown bread that is then piled high with a dizzying array of toppings and served open-faced with a knife and fork. I ordered Skagen Toast,  a creation with boiled shrimps tossed in a sour cream based dressing with dill, asparagus, and trout roe. My father ordered the “shooting star”, Denmark’s most popular Smørrebrød that consists of a fried fillet of plaice (a whitefish that is similar in appearance to flounder) topped with shrimps and fish roe. Finally, because I wanted my brother to get a taste of everything, I made him order a Smørrebrød platter that consisted of three pieces of Smørrebrød topped with the most popular toppings. It was a lot of food which he didn’t finish. For dinner, I took them for more Danish food at Peder Oxe, a long-standing establishment on Gråbrødretorv, the oldest square in Copenhagen, dating back to the early Middle Ages. The atmosphere was that of an old-fashioned joint. The waitresses were tall, attractive, blond-haired, Danish women clad in traditional dresses. When you wanted to call them, you would only need to turn on a lamp above your table sending a fluorescent green light floating through the restaurant that instantly drew one towards you. The food was more French-Danish fusion than actual Danish. While I wasn’t particularly impressed with my roasted Cornish Hen, I did enjoy the saffron-infused caramelized onions that came with it.

We spent the next day sightseeing, as I ran around trying to show them all of the Copenhagen landmarks that I could think of. Naturally, one of them included lunch at the glass market. We at a stall called Palæo, which features foods cooked according to the Paleo diet, one that is shaped around eating things that our earliest human ancestors ate. I had the most interesting hotdog that was wrapped in an omelette instead of a bun. Packed with protein and a ton of other nutritional benefits, the flavors were also delightful and I like the remoulade and pickled cucumbers in here too. As it was only two days after my brother’s birthday, we decided to go afterward to Konditori La Glace for some traditional Danish lakage (layer cakes). La Glace is perhaps the oldest patisserie in Copenhagen, and it is a must if you want to sample a slice of the old European sweet culture. Even though they don’t have contain much actual cake at all, Danish cakes are still quite heavy and sweet, featuring thick fruit fillings and mounds of unsweetened whipped cream. Order a slice of any cake sitting in the window, and it’s bound to be delicious. Mine certainly was. It was a hazelnut base topped with a rhubarb filling, white chocolate mousse, and then meringue. It set me on a love for rhubarb that would have me eating and cooking with it for the rest of the season.

To cap off the day, my father took us to Khun Juk, an upscale Thai restaurant that he and his coworkers had been to a couple of times. We had a five course meal that was honestly way too overpriced, but it was also way too delicious. My favorite course was the dessert. We had a Thai pancake served with coconut ice cream and tropical fruits. I have never had much luck with Thai desserts before, so this dish was a breakthrough. The richness of the pancake reminded me of Indian gulab jamuns (fried Idough-balls soaked in a sugar syrup) and the coconut ice cream was dreamy and smooth, without that cloying and almost artificial flavor you find in a lot of coconut confections.

In case you had any doubts, I still was in the kitchen a lot during March (I swear, you could have never got me out of there). I made a Pav Bhaji that would have been welcome on any Indian’s table, but proved to be a little too spicy for the Danish host mother, rich and luxurious double chocolate chunk cookies that practically cost a fortune to make, and a less than successful Norwegian-inspired cucumber soup with smoked trout. With its awkward sweet and sour flavor, this chilled appetizer was hated by everyone, myself included. Hey, I can’t be cranking out kitchen wonders all of the time.

Contact Information:

Boutique Fisk

Torvehallerne

Rømersgade 18, 1360 København K

Phone No: +4529175935

http://www.boutiquefisk.dk/index.php

Nyhavn 17

Nyhavn 17 – 1051 København K

Phone No: +4533125419

http://www.nyhavn17.dk/?lang=en

Peder Oxe

GRÅBRØDRETORV 11 – 1154 KØBENHAVN K

Phone No: +4533110077

http://www.pederoxe.dk/

Palæo

Københavns Torvehaller

Hal nr 1, Rømersgade 18, 1362 København K

Phone No: +4533986969

http://xn--palo-xoa.dk/

Conditori La Glace

Skoubogade 3,  1158 København K

Phone No: +4533144646

http://laglace.dk/

Khun Juk

Baron Boltens Gård, Store Kongensgade 9, 1264 Copenhagen K

Phone No: +4533323050

http://www.khunjuk.dk/english/map.html

Restaurant Stories: Four Food-Filled Months in Copenhagen

When I started CookingFever, I envisioned a blog that would both be about food and restaurant-related travel. While I have certainly delivered on the food front, offering numerous delicious recipes for readers to enjoy, I sadly have not gotten much to discussing the wonderful foods made by the hands of others. I have taken numerous photos and collected stacks of business cards, but hardly any of that information makes it up on here. It’s about time that some of these people get acknowledged. I get inspired by foods I eat in restaurants all the time. Therefore, allow me the chance to present with you a dining guide of some of the marvelous places I discovered during my four months in Copenhagen.

I originally planned on putting the all the eats from four months into one post, but after realizing how daunting of a read that would be, I have decided to break this up into to four editions to enjoy and salivate over!

January I didn’t get the chance or take the initiative for that matter, to eat outside as much as I would have liked during the first part of my stay here. The landscape was frigid and unwelcoming, and we were told during orientation week that eating out in Copenhagen was expensive, unaffordable, and should be avoided at all costs. Being Danish, the orientation lecturers were not lying, but I was lame enough to take their advice as if it was the law. I remained cautious with my money and avoided spending it, except for a select few occasions. Lunches were always sandwiches packed at home and dinners were cooked by my host mom, Ellinor. However, this is not to say that I stopped myself from cooking! I figured that most Danes were more comfortable spending their food money on groceries instead of restaurants, so I did the same. I threw a fantastic Indian dinner party for some my friends, taking limited ingredients and turning them into mouth-watering saag aloo (curried spinach with potatoes) and a simplified version of Rajma (a tangy and smoky kidney bean curry). Everything was served with plenty of warm and fluffy pita bread for dipping and awkwardly paired with numerous glasses of a dry Spanish red and cans of hard apple and pear ciders. We finished this delectable feast with my take on a traditional Danish æblekage (applecake). What’s funny about the apple cake in Denmark, is that’s it’s hardly a cake at all. It’s more of a layered parfait of stewed apples and a crumbly biscuit and oat topping. Regardless of what you want to call that, the “cake” was quickly devoured and made a great way to end a night of fun bonding among us new friends.

The one occasion on which I did eat out in January was completely payed for by DIS, the school I studied in. They had organized local network groups of students, based on where we lived in the Copenhagen area, to meet and mingle for brunch at a local cafe. One of my friends, Katie, and I decided to go, mainly cause it was a free meal. After wandering endlessly, getting lost several times along the way, we ended up at the some abandoned and closed restaurant only because the lady organizing the event sent us the WRONG address! Frozen from head to toe with the icy winter wind blowing in our faces, Katie called up the organizer who then told her that the event had been moved to the location they had originally planned for. Severely frustrated and pissed at this point, we debated whether or not we actually wanted to walk all the way back there, till we were approached by another student who had also arrived with the wrong address. Fortunately, they had come with their host family so we were able to get a lift in their warm car back to the venue. We finally arrived at the restaurant, Dalle Valle, which is actually just a stone’s throw away from Nørreport station (the train station we originally got off at) and DIS. You can probably imagine how angry I was at that point, but it all subsided once we were greeted by the delectable brunch waiting for us inside. Katie and I shamelessly filed our plates twice with loads of grav lax (smoked salmon), frikadeller (Danish meatballs), Rugbrød (a dark, dense, and sour Danish-rye bread), creamy bree cheese, vegetable crudites, and ofcourse, the ever present sild (pickled herring). Washed down with a milky cafe au lait, this was a fabulous brunch that I returned to indulge in two months later (this time having to pay though) with my family.

Contact Info: Dalle Valle

Fiolstræde 3-5, 1171 København K.

Phone No: +4533932929

Frokost (lunch) buffet available daily for around 69 kr.

Oh, there was another time I ate out in January, this also a being a meal covered entirely by DIS. It was a group dinner with my Danish class. The food in this little bistroesque restaurant situated on Christianshavn (a neighborhood in Copenhagen situated on a man-made island) was nothing to write home about though, so we’ll just leave it unsaid.

February: Not very many exciting meals to talk about in February, other than what I cooked at home (this is how the posts for Butter Chicken, Shakshuka, and the much-praised Sticky Toffee Pudding came about). However, there were two, pretty life-changing foods that I did come across during this abbreviated month. While I never got homesick in Denmark, I did miss Indian food practically all the time, especially when I had to eat whole, unseasoned, boiled potatoes with dinner almost every night (It’s the quintessential Danish meal accompaniment based on my experience). One Thursday night, both Ellinor and my housemate, Jasmine, were out, leaving just me for dinner. Not particularly interested in cooking for one, I decided to take the risk of trying out this Indian take-out joint that I had always seen on the walk home from the train station. I say it was a risk because I have always found Indian food in Europe to be severely dulled down and devoid of any spice or meaningful flavor. However, I was actually rewarded for my efforts this time when I returned home with a steaming-hot aluminum carton of saag murgh (chicken cooked with spinach), basmati rice, and naan. The chicken was so homestyle and “real”, much better than those cream and oil-laden renditions you find at most Indian restaurants, including those in INDIA. It had a decent amount of heat to it, and the spinach was brimming with a beautiful, earthy flavor. To be honest, it reminded me a lot of the chicken curries that my mom usually makes on Sunday afternoons, just what I needed on that cold winter night.

The second great find took place during the last week of the month, and it was definitely a gift dropped down from the heavens. It was a Wednesday, a day of the week that was usually looked forward to by most DIS students because Wednesday usually meant no classes, save for the occasional field study. I too was looking forward to a day off on this day until my Psychopharmacology professor, feeling that we were behind, decided to schedule an extra class! BOOM! My day was instantly ruined. How could he? After all, I already hated that class to begin with because the material was far too dense for a study abroad course, and I don’t know, it just bored me. Realizing my predicament, I decided that there was no way in hell that I was going to sit through a two-hour long lecture in the early hours of the morning without something delectable to munch on. I had heard since day one about the legendary cinnamon rolls served at the local Sankt Peders Bageri. Measuring to be about the size of an average human head, these big treats are known as onsdagsneggle (wednesday snails) because one, they are only available on Wednesdays, and two, the swirl shape of the cinnamon roll obviously resembles that of a snail’s shell. Sure, you may feel as sluggish as a snail afterward because they are quite heavy, but boy oh boy they are probably the best cinnamon rolls in existence! Period. Point. Blank. That opinion is not up for debate. You would easily agree if you have eaten one too, and believe me, if you find yourself in Copenhagen on a cold Wednesday morning, the smell of warm cinnamon wafting down the street alone, will drive you right up to the bakery’s doorstep. It worked for me! No addresses or maps are needed, just follow your nose! Anyways,  the roll comes in two varieties, med sukker eller med glasur (with sugar or icing). I recommend sugar if you’re sober and icing if you’re inebriated. I can attest to both, hehe. Beyond that fact, these rolls are warm, soft, yeasty and full of sweet cinnamon goodness. The best part is the center. The sticky gooeyness melts in your mouth as you close your eyes and think about things that are far more beautiful than you’re ugly psychopharm lecture. Yeah, I pretty much checked out for the day after eating one of these, and I wish I had pictures, but my hands were too sticky everytime! You’ll just have to take my word for it!

Contact Information: The joint is called Sai Take Away and it’s in Glostrup, the little suburb that I had the pleasure to call home for four months.  Situated about 20 minutes by train from central Copenhagen, Glostrup is most likely not on anyone’s vacation plans when they come to Denmark. However, if you happen to be in this little town, stumbling upon this place would be a reward indeed! I unfortunately do not have the address or the phone number, but it is located at the intersection of Hovedvejen and Sondre Ringvej, the two major thoroughfares that run through town, and right directly across a gas station. For about 65 kroner (roughly $12 USD) you can get a boatload of curry with rice. Easily enough for two normal people, or one fatso like me.

Sankt Peders Bageri

Sankt Peders Stræde 29
1453 København K

One large onsdagsneggle costs only 15 kroner! That’s very much worth it and both your stomach and your wallet will thank you!