Photo Diary: Best of Copenhagen

Scandinavia Journey 2011

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What I ate in Copenhagen

Copenhagen was a delicious way to end our 2-week trip around Scandinavia. After enjoying some tasty meals in Reykjavik, I was a bit let down in Oslo and Stockholm (with the exception of some amazing salmon sushi in Oslo and a Thai buffet in Stockholm). Thinking Copenhagen wouldn't have much to offer, I abandoned the idea of a food list, and instead just decided to eat whatever was cheap and convenient. I was pleasantly surprised. 

Food wise, Copenhagen felt cheaper that Oslo and Stockholm, and seemed to have a wider variety of foods on the high and low end. We went cheap most of the time, but splurged a bit on one lavish dinner and some classy lunches.

1. Food I wished I had but didn't:  homemade smørrebrød picnic, that's the way to go!
2. Food I had but wished I didn't:  shrimp smørrebrød, but I don't like shrimp anyway.
3. What should have been on the list: crepes and pastries
4. Biggest surprise: I did not have any Asian food the whole time!(No lies - I missed it).
5. Most delicious meal: Hands down, the pappardelle with black truffles from Ultimo restaurant in Tivoli Gardens.

Here are my best food memories:

Ice cream cones form Tivoli Gardens, one dipped in crushed candy, and the other dipped in chocolate. Seriously the best ice cream I've ever had. 

A Nutella waffle with bananas, from a waffle cart. 

Crepe with caramel ice cream.

Hotel breakfast buffet, with a latte machine, meat, cheese, and of course, muesli! 

Hot dog from a street cart. Wasn't quite as good as Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur, but it made us happy for a moment. 

The most amazing meal ever. Pappardelle in truffle oil with shaved black truffles and Parmesan cheese, from the Italian restaurant in Tivoli Gardens.  This was a big splurge for us. I think the bottle of water we purchased was $15 USD alone.  Don't ask me how much the pasta was....

One of our more gourmet lunches. Nachos with salsa and guacamole...Danish style.

A three-style smørrebrød sampler. One with bacon, ham, and blue cheese. The other with shrimp (no thanks) and the last one with sauerkraut and chicken.

A delicious sandwich from the cafe in the Louisiana Museum. This was a prosciutto
 mozzarella sandwich .

A chocolate strawberry pastry from the cafe in Louisiana.

Another sandwich from the cafe at Louisiana. Everything in this place was so photogenic. They must have known that tourists would get hungry after the hour-long train ride  to get to the museum from Copenhagen. Still, it is totally worth visiting if you are anywhere in Denmark. 

Helsinki Instagram Diary

What I ate in Reykjavik

After dreaming of all the delicious food I ate in Mexico, I thought I would reminisce a bit on the food I ate in Iceland. Sure, the famously fermented shark hakarl was at the top of my list, but there are many more delicious things to consume in Reykjavik.

Before I left, I made a list of the things I wanted to eat. Because I didn't know so much about Icelandic food, or other food offerings in Reykjavik, the list was more a selection of places than of actual foods:

Te og Kaffi, Baejarin Bestu, Cafe Loki, Hakarl, Black Death, Indian Mango

Yay! I ate everything on my list! Now here is the recap

1. Food I wished I had but didn't:  puffin, I'm just really curious about it...
2. Food I had but wished I didn't:  Black Death, it was worse than the hakarl.
3. What should have been on the list: Icelandic meat soup, so hearty and good.
4. Biggest surprise: honestly everything. I was not expecting the food to be so good and affordable in Iceland.
5. Most delicious meal: Well, everything was delicious, but I especially loved my last night in Reykjavik, when my sweetie and I got take out from an Indian restaurant, and ate together in our apartment. What a romantic way to spend our last night in Iceland.

Here are some of my favorite food memories:

Surprisingly delicious breakfast buffet at the Blue Lagoon. Cheese, ham, salami, fish, mustard, scrambled eggs, and wieners. Arrive early so you can enjoy it in peace and quiet! 

Muesli!!!! This was my first time to have it at the buffet in Blue Lagoon, and this started a Muesli obsession in which I had to have it every single day in was in Scandinavia. 

Pad Thai from an "Icelandic-Thai" restaurant in Reykjavik. It was absolutely wonderful, and not crowded at all.

Tom Kha, coconut soup, from the "Icelandic-Thai" restaurant in Reykjavik.

Icelandic meat soup from Cafe Loki!

Crepe from Cafe Loki.

This is the meal to order if you are in Iceland. Cafe Loki's Icelandic Plate II. "Two rye bread slices, one with mashed fish & the other with smoked trout.  Flatbread with smoked lamb. Dried fish with butter and bit of a fermented shark."
http://www.textil.is/ENGLISH/pages.php?idpage=1461

Icelandic Plate III from Cafe Loki. "Two rye bread slices, one with mashed fish & the other with egg & herring.  Loki‘s unique Rye bread ice cream."    

A waffle with caramel and whipped cream from a waffle cart.

A fantastic pizza from a local pizzeria! We had one pizza the night we arrived, and the other on the day before we left. The perfect was to start and end a journey.

Our last meal at home. Indian food from Indian Mango, with some juice from a local convenience store.

Reykjavik Instagram Diary

Stockholm Instagram Diary

Snapshort from Vancouver

Hanging from a tree, Vancouver, Canada

Snapshot from Helsinki

In front of Helsinki Lutheran Cathedral, Helsinki, Finland

Oslo Instagram Diary

Snapshot from Stockholm

 Hiding under a statue, Stockholm City Hall, Stockholm, Sweden

Snapshot from Oslo

Hanging on at the University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

Snapshot from Denmark

Lost in a sea of bicycles, Copenhagen, Denmark

Copenhagen Instagram Diary

Blue Lagoon

Alright, this is another thing I've been meaning to talk about for quite some time. The coolest thing I did in Iceland was also happed to be the first thing I did once I stepped off the plane. The Blue Lagoon.

Only a twenty (or so) minute bus ride from the airport, this geothermal hot springs resort is the thing to do in Iceland. Our plane landed at 6:00 a.m. local time, and I didn't feel like dragging my suitcase through the streets of Reykjavik for eight hours while we waited to check into our hotel. Knowing that this would be the case, I reserved seats for a "tour bus" (it's not much of a tour if they don't talk) to drive us to the Blue Lagoon.

Now the resort technically opens at 8:00, so when we arrived the only thing we could do was eat at the breakfast buffet in the restaurant. This ended up begin awesome. Not only were we the first people there, but we were also the only people there, so we could really enjoy the whole place to ourselves. 

We sat by the window...best seat in the house

I wonder how busy it gets later

The food was seriously awesome. An nice, Scandinavian assortment of meats, cheeses, fish, eggs, and muesli. I also had coffee and orange juice.

Breakfast plate #1. That's smoked salmon and mustard in the right corner.

Muesli, the most delicious thing ever.

The view from our breakfast table..right above the water.

We probably spent an hour or so enjoying breakfast. Then we wondered around the complex before the pool opened. It was amazing to experience the resort empty. I took these photographs from atop the restaurant roof.

This is the pool, before opening.

At first I wondered why I took the below image of the parking lot. Then I realized that this image is truly characteristic of Iceland's  geography. Notice how there are no trees, no grass, and just miles of flat rock and open sky.

Me on the roof taking pictures

 After we passed some time taking pictures and wondering around the complex, we changed into swim suits and  jumped in the pool. Just as the pool officially opened more people came out of nowhere, but the place was still sparse. We got our first pick of the lockers, and had plenty of privacy to change into swim suits.

It was uncomfortably cold (around 45 degrees - which is considered warm in Iceland) so no one wanted to remain outside the water in a swim suit for long. It was so painful to have to step outside the pool and take this pictures. 

This tourists are rubbing a kind of clay on their bodies which is supposed to be good for the skin.

This is the sauna, also known as the hottest place on earth. I could barely let my feet touch the ground for more than a few seconds.

At the pool bar I ordered a slushy, which in Iceland is called Krap. Hehe...Krap is delicious.

Haha, soon came my turn to pose in the warm water while being photographed by a freezing boyfriend. Hehe...

This lounge is right outside the locker rooms. I slept here for one hour before it got crowded. When I awoke, there was hardly a free seat.

We probably spent a total of three hours in the pool and facilities before taking off for the city. Mostly this was because I had grown very tired and cranky from our international flight, and I was anxious to check into the hotel. I could have easily stayed a few more hours though, but by noon the place was swarming with European tourists, so we fled before the crowds overwhelmed us.

The sulfur in the water turns the rocks white.

I was ready to go home

My hair got totally messed up in the water. I mean, I shampooed and conditioned it 5 times and it could still break the bristles off a comb. It felt like horse hay for weeks after the Blue Lagoon. This was the only negative aspect of our visit. I love everything about this place, and I want desperately to return, but next time, I'm bringing a swim cap.

While waiting for our bus, we took a walk on trails surrounding the resort. Here you can see the details of this unearthly landscape. Having no vegetation, the landscape looks more like the moon than Earth.