Järvenpää, Suomi
Now almost one year old Gastro Bar has interesting location, it is in the same building as K-citymarket. And not just any K-citymarket, this supermarket is one of Europe’s top selling sushi places. Yes, you read correct, they sell almost 20000 pieces of sushi every week. Would have wanted to taste some before going to dinner, but there was a bit of queue and had to rush.
Sesonki also gets their ingredients from the same shop, how convenient is that. The place it not that big and was packed on Friday night at 7pm, so better make a reservation.
While waiting for everybody to arrive, we had the bread basket featuring three different types of bread with some spread flavoured with truffle salt. Good breads, but charging everybody 4.5€ was maybe a bit too much.
For the dinner, we decided to go with the 5 course surprise menu (58€). To go with the menu, they have wine package 41€ and also non-alcoholic drink menu, which seemed a bit expensive (32€). Nobody had the non-alcoholic drink menu, so cannot say more about it.
The menu started with amuse bouche, which turned out to be weakest link in the menu: pomme noisette type of potato with smoke-flavored crème fraîche. I mentioned earlier the bar getting the ingredients from the supermarket next door, this potato tasted like it was taken from the freezer box and did not even melt properly. The sauce was nice though, and would have made perfect pair for some salmon, for example.
First appetizer was salsify soup with tasty mushrooms. Really good and some lime tasting element gave the soup nice twist. Second came lamb ragù based dish. It was bit surprisingly warm appetizer, but nevermind, it was really tasty. Third was a fish appetizer, semi cured salmon cut in cubes with sauce, cucumber and dill. Good basic dish, but not on the level of the previous ones. Although the others seemed to enjoy it more than I did.
As a main, there was perfectly prepared pork belly (I think it was belly, might be mistaken here). The flavor and the the texture was amazing: bit crispy on the outside and when pressed with side of a fork, it fell it to juicy little pieces.
As a dessert, there was sorbet with berries. I like desserts that are not that sweet, so this suited well for that, but did not not impress me otherwise. Before the real dessert there was a small surprise dessert, but now not being to tell exactly what it was, tells all about it.
Wine package was OK, quite safe mainstream choices mostly. For example, two of the wines were Cono Sur’s 20 barrels wines.
All in all, I was really happy with the food. The service was good as well and the place is… well it is located next to a supermarket with a view to a parking lot. I definitely want to go again and I’m not disappointed if the still have the pork on the menu.
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