Last night's dinner deserves it's own post, and I have an hour at the internet cafe to make sure I have enough time to write about everything!
I had been reading about this restaurant called Fish Market and the bright, young chef who runs the kitchen. Well, it turns out that Fish Market is about four doors down Adalstraeti from my hotel, so there I went for dinner last night.
I had the presence of mind to photograph each course, so look for pictures when I return home later this week.
They sat me upstairs at the bar overlooking the open kitchen, right in front of the sushi/raw bar chef's workstation. When I say 'chef,' please realize that I mean an Icelandic kid who looked about 14! He was assembling beautiful sushi platters and was very cute, but very focused, and didn't return my impressed smile.
The walls were lined with leafy bamboo and a slice of bamboo trunk served as the stand for my chopsticks. I decided on a first course - grilled puffin. The puffin came topped with a single slice of smoked eel that was wrapped around a mango chunk and accompanied by two fried dumplings. The puffin was blood-red and fatty, similar in texture to duck but with a taste all it's own. The eel was tender and the mango bright.
As the sushi chef continued to work in front of me, I noticed that he would garnish his shrimp sashimi with what looked like red berries, red but slightly fuzzy and about the size of blueberries. I asked him about them: kamasuke, he told me, Japanese plums. He held one out for me to try. Sour and pungent with a seed, they were not delicious.
That said, I'd like to let him taste my kamasuke.
Anyway, where was I? Oh, right. Dinner. For my main course I ordered salted cod, an Icelandic classic, and it was served in cherry juice with a 'Christmas salad' (microgreens) and Jerusalem artichokes which were vaguely potatoey. Nuts and dried cherries were in the sauce, which perfectly complimented the cod. The first time I ever had berries with fish was at Hook in Georgetown when Janice, AVE, and I each sampled a perfect bite of raw tuna topped with a single blueberry and drizzle of blueberry juice.
Oh - I wanted to mention the fish-cooking method I observed, sitting by the open kitchen. The portions of fish were draped over a rod that was laying about one inch above red-hot coals of some kind. The fish were seared that way for a few seconds on each side, and then served. I have never seen a technique like that before.
I finally asked the sushi chef where he learned to make sushi. He said, 'Here!' So, we have a young, serious Icelander making sushi that could pass muster at any restaurant I've ever been to... it was very interesting.
And dessert - oh yes... there was dessert. I ordered the 'Premium Selection,' advertised in the menu as 'One for All and All for One.' I had definitely bitten off more than I could chew... literally. Out came banana creme brulee, banana custard, two scoops of sorbet (one cinnamon custard and one green tea), and banana wrapped in pastry dough and then deep-fried. My goodness. It was heavenly.
For wine I had two glasses of a nice, simple Cote du Rhone, which was refreshed directly from the bottle. All this food, plus eye candy, for a mere 11,100ISK or a little under $100.
Not cheap, but well worth every krona. And as you all know, I am not a souvernir/possession collector, so when I travel I prefer to spend my money on food (and drink!)
