Vinkkeli

Timo NyyssönenLeave a comment
Helsinki, Finland

After my trip to Slovenia, we decided to celebrate the school autumn break with the family by going out for a dinner. We haven’t been to Vinkkeli (https://www.ravintolavinkkeli.fi/) before, but I’ve heard good things about it, so decided to give a shot. Vinkkeli got 5th place this year in the “Top 50 restaurants” in Finland (chosen by restaurant professionals).

Friendly waitress welcomed us in, took our jackets and showed us to our table. The place is rather small, but big mirrors on the walls give nice feeling of space. The room seemed to be a bit noisy though, so if you are looking for a nice quiet atmosphere, this might not be the place.

Besides à la carte, they offer the fixed price (60€) menu of four dishes. Matching wines roughly doubles the price. We were thinking to go with menu and after hearing what it contained, we didn’t have to think twice. Menu started with sea bass ceviche, accompanied with sweet potato, jalapeño mayo and pickled jalapeños. Really good start, maybe little bit more acid to the fish would have been to my taste.

Next dish suited perfectly the cold rainy weather, the pumpkin soup. The soup was quite rich and served with sautéed pieces of pumpkin and some pumpkin seeds. For main dish, the flask steak with béarnaise sauce and parsnip did not let us down either.

Next dish suited perfectly the cold rainy weather, the pumpkin soup. The soup was quite rich and served with sautéed pieces of pumpkin and some pumpkin seeds. For main dish, the flask steak with béarnaise sauce and parsnip did not let us down either.

Next dish suited perfectly the cold rainy weather, the pumpkin soup. The soup was quite rich and served with sautéed pieces of pumpkin and some pumpkin seeds. For main dish, the flask steak with béarnaise sauce and parsnip did not let us down either. Profiterole filled with white chocolate mousse and cloudberry sorbet was my kind of dessert.

Overall I think it was very nice experience, friendly staff, quite reasonable price (especially, if taking half wine package, which I think would have been enough for a week day…) and most importantly good tasting food from quality ingredients.

Figovec

Timo NyyssönenLeave a comment

Lubljana, Slovenia

I received a recommendation for Figovec (https://figovec.si/en/) from a tour guide few days before, if I want to taste “traditional Slovenian food with good quality and affordable prices”. That sounded good, so I headed here on rainy Sunday afternoon for late lunch. The place was packed so without a reservation a had to wait for a table for almost 30 minutes. They had few seats around the bar, so no problem waiting a while with a nice slovenian beer.

Everything on the menu sounded so good that I wanted to taste almost everything. Unfortunately I was having lunch by myself, so no chance of ordering multiple dishes to taste and share. I decided to go with beef tongue for starters. It was served with some onion and pumpkin seed oil, which slovenian consider local specialty and admit it’s not for everyone. For me, it hit the spot on this one and I really enjoyed the dish with some fresh bread served aside.

For the main dish I went beef cheeks. These slowly cooked cheeks melt in your mouth and the onion and plum served with the meat goes really well. Nice roasted potatoes to complete the meal.

For the dessert I could with anything else except a glass of local brandy. Prices were quite reasonable indeed. One beer, one glass of wine and all above cost me little bit over 30 euros.

JB Restavracija

Timo NyyssönenLeave a comment
Ljubljana, Slovenia

JB restaurant (https://jb-slo.com/) is located next to Ljubljana’s main railway station, next to a busy street. Location might not be the most attractive one when you consider all the beautiful places and the buildings this friendly city has to offer. But nevertheless, when you enter the restaurant, it is a different world inside.

I arrived 30 minutes early and had peek inside and to my surprise the place was completely empty. I was wondering what is going on, as it was fully booked for the evening. But when arriving at 8pm at our time of reservation, almost all the chairs were occupied already.

Amuse-bouche and cold starters were beautiful pieces of food, but left us wondering how careful there were with the tastes. Very basic seasoning and non of the ingredients were not very flavorful either. Nothing wrong with the taste and good food altogether, but not spectacular in any way. Putting together some tenderloin with foie gras does not make alone an excellent dish.

But with warm appetizers started the fireworks. Mushroom risotto with cep, chantarelle and trumpet mushrooms topped with cold smoked trout was an amazing start for warm dishes and it just got better and better. Most memorable dish being probably the famous “JB ravioli”.

Some of the dishes left us the feeling that he had taken the flavors of a traditional Slovenian dish and made it something new. So knowing a bit more about local cuisine might have helped to appreciate some of the dishes. This was the case especially with the dessert. Cold semolina porridge(?) raised some eyebrows.

Menu Janez with 10+ courses costs you 130€ and wine pairing of Slovenian wines is 75€ euros. We appreciated most of the wines. The sommelier deserves extra recognition, funny and friendly guy with amazing facial expressions. Janez also himself came to say hello to our table and told us he had been recently to Finland, visiting Helsinki and Rovaniemi. No wonder that one of the dishes had reindeer moss on top of it!

Café Savoy

Timo NyyssönenLeave a comment

Helsinki, Finland

Restaurant Savoy is an institution in the finnish restaurant world. Savoy was opened in 1937 and since 2019 it has been ran by Chef Patron Helena Puolakka. Late last year, a newcomer Café Savoy was opened in the same building at street level and is Puolakka’s creation.

The restaurant (or café, don’t get confused by the name) might not look that inviting looking from the outside, but once you enter, it is a completely different story. The warm light with stylish but cozy interior makes the place very pleasant and large open kitchen adds some charm to it.

They have classic à la carte menu and prix fixe menu (65€, wines 57€). We chose the prix fixe, which consists of four dishes. For starter, there is a vegetarian, fish and meat option. For starter I chose the meat, which was in this case sweetbread. It was prepared as crispy pané, served with apple & envide salad and finished with pepper mayo. Really nice dish with clear and simple tastes. I might have been more bold with seasoning the sauce, but overall very enjoyable start.

Next dish was highlight of the evening, gnocchi with truffle velouté. The sauce is one of french cuisine’s mother sauces (like bechamél, hollandaise, etc.). In this case it was prepared to perfection. To finish dish some parmesan was in top to make it one of those dishes that you remember after years and years.

For the main, you will have again three choices. I went with duck confit. The leg had nice crispy skin and was served with braised cabbage and port wine sauce. Simple, yet elegant and tasty, bravo.

As not being too much of dessert person, I usually select cheese plate as dessert if there is such option. There was, so easy choice for me. I got a taste of rum savarin also and I could say that it would not have been a bad choice.

Service is easy-going and friendly, being very professional at the same time. I can’t wait to visit Café Savoy again.

Boon Nam

Timo NyyssönenLeave a comment

Helsinki, Finland

This Thailand inspired Tomi Björck’s restaurant is located in same building as St. George hotel. If you have been to any other Björck’s restaurants (Farang, Gaijin, etc.) you know what to expect.

Food is usually really good with quite strong and fresh tastes. Boon Nam has two different tasting menus, to be shared with the whole table. When there are individual bites, this works well but when you have to divide one larger portion, I’m not such a big fan of that style. Menus are priced 86€/76€, both having some supplements adding about ten euros to the bill. Pairing wines cost 56€.

Crispy softshell crab was one the best dishes in my opinion. If I remember correctly, Farang has also similar (same?) dish, also very good there. Nothing wrong with other dishes either, all good or very good.

That said, I cannot help getting feeling of being on an assembly line. You come in, you are served food with memorized descriptions, you pay, you leave. Next ones come in and do the same. Well, of course this is basically how restaurants work, but in this case it is lacking any personality and that final touch that makes the difference. If this doesn’t bother you, give Boon Nam and a chance and you won’t be disappointed by the taste of food.

Palace

Timo NyyssönenLeave a comment

Helsinki, Finland

Palace is one of the legends in the Helsinki restaurant scene. It dates back to 1952 (year of summer olympics held ín Helsinki) and is first Finnish restaurant to receive a Michelin star. Palace received second star this summer so I was really looking forward to my first visit in two-star restaurant.

You could sense from the very beginning that evening is going to be an experience. I started evening with a house negroni (16 euros with Tanqueray 10 and two different vermouths). Unlike many other fine dining restaurants, Palace has their menu available online so we knew what to expect from it. Palace has version numbering for the menus, which I enjoy having background in software engineering. Now they are serving menu 21.2. You have also a cheat sheet at the table, which makes it easier to follow and remember what you are actually having.

The menu started with four small starters, served in pairs of two. They were paired with Keller’s riesling. Very first appetizer was one the highlights for me, salted trout with roe and karashi was really good. After these came larger starters, featuring hiramasa (yellowtail kingfish), lobster and the probably the best dish of the evening, caviar with cauliflower and miso. Along these was also the only miss of the evening. I think the grapefruit and pomelo took over the lobster so much that the dish was not on the level of the other ones. With caviar, wine pairing was naturally champagne (Lambardier-Bernier).

More fish & seafood came in mains, first dover sole and then langoustine. Last main was white tail deer served with amazing brioche so you could take each drop of the sauce Périgueux from your plate.

There were also two supplements that you could order for the menu. First scallops with truffle (50 euros) and then a cheese trolley with condiments (25 euros). We skipped the first one but went with the cheese which did not disappoint me. Seven different cheese with interesting condiments was a real treat.

The dessert part of the menu was quite extensive, first two larger ones and then some small bites with also something you would necessary expect to find in two-star place, tiger cake. But don’t get me wrong, fresh from the oven cake was delicious. For dessert wine, there was interesting choice from Romania, ice wine by Liliac & Kracher.

Was it the best food I’ve ever had, definitely not. Was it most interesting restaurant experience ever, I might have to say yes. We stayed there nearly five hours, which really did not feel like overkill in a sense that we would have needed to wait for food much or anything like that. Several little details made it a night to remember. Writing them down here would not do justice, I strongly recommend for you experiencing it yourself. Of course, all this does not come with a small price tag. Menu costs you 210 euros and wine pairing 190. Add there the negroni, cheese, tawny port and a 1986 calvados and you are looking at spending 500 euros for a meal.

Kultá Kitchen & Bar

Timo NyyssönenLeave a comment

Helsinki, Finland

When you think of Lapland themed restaurant at the hotel in Helsinki, first thought might be if it a cheesy tourist trap serving mediocre food or something else. First impression of Kultá was opposite, what comes to décor. Some lappish elements but not too many. A bit of feeling of a hotel restaurant, but hey, that’s what it is.

Right after walking in I got feeling that waiters might be understaffed as it took almost ten minutes for them to show us our table. Then another ten minutes to bring the menus and get order for some drinks. We did not waste anymore time there as we had decided beforehand that we would go with a five course tasting. This time it was a little bit different as they are having “Artic Ocean” menu for couple of weeks. Price for the menu is 74€ and wine pairing adds 65 euros.

After a bit of more waiting (almost an hour from walking in) menu started with two types of bread and browned butter, along with amuse-bouche of mushrooms and rainbow trout roe. That was promising start. Next dish with hand peeled shrimps and cucumber was quite good as well. After this was in my opinion the best dish of the menu, smoked willow grouse with beetroot cooked three different ways. Beetroot complemented perfectly very smoky bird breast.

After this came monkfish with mussels and roe. All in all tasty, but I think less components in this one would have resulted tastier and more elegant dish. Also the fish was not evenly salted. Second main was, as you might guess from the Lapland theme, reindeer fillet. On a side was really good, creamy parsnip puree. Dessert had cloudberry and ice cream and something else, but this brought to the table by different waitress, who did not tell what she served and left quickly before we could even ask.

Overall quite good experience, but I think menu was a bit pricey and they would need more staff to have smoother experience. Wine pairing was really good and service friendly and professional, except for the points mentioned earlier.

Furu

Timo NyyssönenLeave a comment

Helsinki, Finland

Support your local (restaurant). Or almost local in this case, being a bit over 10 minutes drive. Restaurant is at Hotel Rantapuisto which feels like a dive into 70s/80s, in a good way. Location is also beautiful, bit of forest and a sea view. On a Monday evening, there few larger groups and few separate couples and diners alone, not too busy.

Our waitress was working for the first day, so she kept apologizing all the little mistakes she was making. No harm done there, that was very understandable. Of course the drinks could have been brought a bit faster, first day or not.

Furu’s menu had five different starters, same amount of main (plus burgers and sandwiches) and couple of desserts to choose from. For lazy ones like me, the have put menu Furu, with a starter, main and dessert. Main can be chosen from meat (pepper steak) or fish (catch of the day).

Smoked roach mousse with Furu’s cracker as a starter was a promising beginning for the meal. Afterwards thinking, catch of the day might have been better choice for the main than mediocre steak. The quality of the meat was not that great. Pepper sauce saved a lot and fried kale went perfectly there. Side carrots were left almost raw, I wonder if that was really intended. Pannacotta at the end was pretty good.

The menu sets you back 54€. Interestingly, if you choose the fish and order all the dishes separately, you save few euros. On the other hand, with the meat options the menu saves you couple of euros.

Aleria

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Athens, Greece

After a week of traditional Greek food (which is great, btw) we thought it would be nice to see what Athens has to offer on the fine dining scene. I found out that just around the corner from our airbnb there is promising sounding place called Aleria. I made a reservation for Monday evening and the place was already quite fully booked few days before

We could not get table outside (with a stunning inner yard) but inside was almost as nice as it would have been outside. From the first minute the staff was really attentive and polite. After seating, they took orders for water (sparkling/non-sparkling). Only minus for the service was after this: it took some time for the waiters to come to ask if we would like to have some apéritifs. But it was worth the wait, the Negroni was excellent.

After that, we were presented with the menu cards. The options are limited to two; you can have one of tasting menus. The first one is called “Earth and Sea” (with fish and meat) and the other one “Garden and Nature” (vegetarian). For both of the menus you can choose either five (65€) or six course (78€) option. The selection can be different for everybody in the table, so they are flexible in that sense. Also they were really paying the attention to any possible food restrictions and allergies.

With the menu you can choose wine pairing or premium wine pairing. Both include mostly Greek wines (premium might have some from other countries as well) but the premium one is almost double the price. We went with the “basic” one (48€) which turned out to be quite good.

Then the food: starting with really nice amuse-bouche followed by excellent starters, featuring crab, beef tartar and pumpkin as main ingredients. Unfortunately the mains: “catch of the day”, being cod this time and the lamb did not impress me as much. I found the fish dish being too acidy and the meat dish having several good components but not really combining them together. Anyway, there were good but did not keep the level of the previous dishes in my opinion. Also the dessert did not change this. Except for the dessert wine, which I think was the the most interesting one of all the wines.

We were group of seven and one of us took the “Garden and Nature” menu while other ones chose “Earth and Sea” (which I commented above). The vegetarian menu got highly appraised being a real menu instead of being the same menu with meat left out. This said, there was one exception. The pumpkin soup benefited from the salty pork pieces and the extra chestnuts just could not make up for that.

So the verdict would be that while moussaka and souvlaki are great, there is room also for modern Greek cuisine, taking some elements from the old traditions.

Noua

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Bucharest, Romania

https://nouarestaurant.ro/

After a long time not visiting Romania, I was thrilled to see how the fine dining restaurants have developed. Previous trials have not been that great. After some studying, I found this place called Noua (“New”) with pretty good reviews and exactly what I wanted, local cuisine with local ingredients.

We were a large group (13 pax) and had reservation at 6pm on a Friday night (opens at 5pm). As expected, there were not too many customers yet. They have a terrace by entrance where they serve smaller terrace menu, but we were seated inside, where the only choice is the tasting menu (250 lei ~ 50€).

With the tasting menu they have wine pairing (160 lei) and quite extensive wine list. When asking for getting some bubbly for the start, they just presented the wine list without further recommendations even though I kind of hinted that we could have some advice. Well, anyway our choice was decent and we enjoyed it while admiring beautiful interior of the upstairs sitting area with the view to an open kitchen.

Soon after that started the first dish “Romania on a plate”. This is actually 7 different small bites, served one by one. The serving is part of the fun. First they bring you a wooden puzzle frame in the shape of Romania. Then come the dishes, each on a piece of the puzzle and of course the dish is something typical for that geographical area. After you have finished the puzzle, comes a surprise, one more piece. Yes, you guessed correct, Bessarabia. If you didn’t guess, google “Basarabia, pământ românesc”. This whole thing was in my opinion the tastiest and most interesting part of the whole menu.

There were several other dishes after this, some excellent (the two mains, golden gray mullet and the lamb!), some good, some ok tasting. All of the beautifully laid out, superb presentation but in some parts trying too much. Have to remember sometimes to keep it simple as well. All in all, I was really happy with the quality of the food. The wines did not really live up to the food. Some pairings were excellent and good wines, but some not that much.

Then comes the negative. Unfortunately the service was not what you would expect in a level of a place they obviously try to be. Don’t get me wrong, there were polite, explained the dishes well and so on but small details is what makes the whole experience. Few points, they did not ask what we’d like to drink with the food. They started serving the food with some people having nothing to drink. Also, the first forgot that we had ordered one vegetarian menu and served him meat as well. Also, after the mains, we had wait 45 minutes for the desserts. They did not apologize or explain anything before we asked after over 30 minutes of waiting. Maybe some round of drinks would have been nice while waiting, for those we had also ask if we could get some. I’d suggest that chef Alex Petricean would take his staff somewhere top notch place abroad to see what is service in a high quality restaurant. But again, I must stress that these were little things and we had great time. I’d highly recommend Noua to anyone visiting Bucharest.