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A Latvian dinner flies via Oslo to Afghanistan

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

In October, I enjoyed an eight-course meal at one of the best restaurants in the Baltic States, Vincents in Riga. (Read more here.) Today, I discovered that its owner and chef Martins Ritins recently cooked up a Latvian dinner in Afghanistan for Latvian and Norwegian soldiers, having personally flown there with more than 400 kg of fresh Latvian products!

Read about his experience below!

“On the 10th November, I and four of my chefs flew to Afghanistan with more than 400 kg of fresh, seasonal produce grown by Latvian farmers to feed our troops. We landed at the army base of Meymaneh on the border of Tajikistan after a 20 hour journey via Oslo and immediately got to work unloading all the good food we had brought with us.

Kelmenes dark rye bread and Dundagas farm butter, hemp seeds, Latgales Rusonas cheese, Aizputes barley and white beans, wild salmon cured with beetroot and caraway, Initas caraway cheese and even pumpkin grown by Laima in Dobele. The list goes on. We brought as much as we could to give our brave soldiers a taste of home. We did have one major problem though, the traditional Martins day goose.

Because of red tape, geese cannot be exported from Latvia , so the only way we could have got them there was if they had flown in convoy behind our plane. Luckily, the Norwegians came to our rescue and provided us with geese which were almost as succulent as those we usually get from our own farmer, Mary.

I have always imagined an army kitchen to be one lone chef, peeling a mountain of potatoes. How wrong I was. They hadn’t even seen a fresh potato since their arrival at the base. We soon changed all that and after a lot of hard work, we served our Latvian soldiers and their Norwegian comrades with a feast that was worthy of them.

It was a phenomenal experience to see how our defense boys live in that far off, hostile country. A huge culture shock, which served to remind me that things here aren’t half as bad as we think they are. I am full of admiration for them all and would certainly be willing to repeat the experience and prepare another feast for them. I salute them all.

I am truly grateful to all the Slow Food farmers who donated so much of their fine produce. My heartfelt thanks to Mehmet of Frisch Paradise who provided me with 50kg fresh salmon at the very last minute so that we could cure it here at Vincents.

However, the very biggest thank you is reserved for Bertolt Flick, President of Air Baltic who flew us to Oslo and back, and handled the 400 kg of cargo. Without AirBaltic we would have got no further than Riga airport on the number 22 bus.”

See us in Afghanistan on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWkO4WK_hVI

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Tags: Afghanistan, Latvian food, Martins Ritins, Vincents
Posted in International experiences | 3 comments »

Food to make your mouth water

Saturday, October 31st, 2009

Fresh sea buckthorn berry sorbet made with liquid nitrogen, snails in a jar topped with a raw egg, and lamprey with chilli and mustard. That’s a sample of what you can expect at Vincents restaurant in Riga, one of the best restaurants in the Baltic States.

Last weekend I dined in Riga at Vincents restaurant – Riga’s culinary gem and probably one of the best restaurants in the Baltic States.

When booking I was informed we would have the special Latvian tasting menu which turned out to be an eight-course set menu, starting with parmesan flavored sticks and finishing up with a chocolate ice-cream which we struggled to finish. In between the culinary journey included salmon, pork, snails, Baltic Sea local fish like lamprey and herrings and waffles.

Sea buckthorn berry, a Baltic Sea speciality features heavily throughout the menu. It’s a bitter tasting orange berry which grows along the Baltic Sea coast and a few berries easily fill your recommended daily Vitamin C intake. One of the highlights of the meal came when the waitress placed a big steel bowl filled with sea buckthorn berries at the end of our table and whipped the berries up into a delicious sorbet by adding a flask of freezing cold liquid nitrogen.

Simplicity, fun and originality are the key word to sum up the menu at Vincent’s. Each course teased our taste-buds and we waited in suspense to see what was coming next and how it would be presented. You feel that the kitchen puts as much thought and creativity into the presentation of the food as into the fusion of flavours. For example, one of our three starters was herrings served in a small tin box; the snails appeared immersed in a soup in a small jar with a raw egg on the side to mix with the jar’s contents.

The food was exquisite, made from local Latvian ingredients and the dinner menu changes every week so it’s always a surprise as to what you’ll be served.

Vincents opened in 1994 and is owned by British-Latvian chef, Martins Ritins, who was born to Latvian parents in the UK and moved to Riga in 1991. Outside the toilet hangs a small photo gallery with pictures of Ritins and all the famous faces he’s met and cooked for – from politicians like President George W. Bush, Gerhard Schröder and Boris Yeltsin to royalty including Dutch Queen Beatrix and Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and stars like Elton John, Paco Rabanne and Jose Carreras.

The restaurant is located on the distinguished Elizabetes street, in the basement of a nice Art Nouveau building but walk inside the door and the first thing that strikes you is the ambiance of blue lights, white decor and modern clean cut lines. Step into the next room behind the entrance and there is an alcove with a long table perfect for groups. Further behind is another room with a mirror at one end making it seem larger than it actually is.

The meal was one of the best I have had in several months and the service was ten times better than many of the “in” places in Stockholm. Our waitress was professional, friendly, knowledgeable about the food and spoke perfect English.

If you’re in Riga, this place is pricey but a perfect spot for a special occasion or to try some Baltic States ingredients. It’s the ideal place to disappear for a few hours during the long, dark winter nights – our eight-course menu took four hours but the time flew by.

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Tags: Baltic States, lamprey, Martins Ritins, Riga, sea buckthorn berry, Vincents
Posted in International experiences | 3 comments »

More than just rabbits and rocks

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

Seafood Towers, local Maltese wines, restaurants carved into rocks, English breakfasts and steaks for 60 Euros – just some of my gourmet adventures on a recent trip to Malta, renowned for its rabbit stews, rocky cliffs and British colonial history.

Well, during the past week aside from enjoying an English breakfast or two, some touristy pasta and pizza joints, I’ve found some cozy local restaurants in Malta and enjoyed some great meals with first-class service.

Secluded and romantic

View of the Lupanara wine bistro.

The first is a real hidden gem – and when I say hidden, I mean hidden as it’s literally carved into a wall of rock without any sign of a name or menu hanging outside. The only giveaway is a few scattered tables and lounge seats perched on the quayside. To find it, you pass the Birgu waterfront’s marina on the left hand side and the Vittoriosa casino on the right hand side before you reach what seems to be a dead (and dimly lit) end of the street. But venture around the corner and walk around the water’s edge to the other side and you’ll discover the Lupanara wine bistro. I liked it so much I went back twice during my stay – first for a cheese platter and bottle of wine with some local friends and the second time with my boyfriend for a romantic dinner. And both occasions were equally good.

The cuisine at Lupanara is a mix of everything from seafood dishes to cheese and ham platters – modern European food with a local flair – and with a great selection of local and international wines. It’s a classy but understated place where you hear nothing but the quiet murmur of voices around you and the occasional lapping of water, with the rocks illuminated as a backdrop behind you. Prices are very fair – a bottle of wine, two coffees and two main courses set us back just EUR 46 – the only thing that put up the price was a EUR 20 taxi ride each way from our hotel. But it was worth every penny.

Steaks and seafood towers
If you’re after a decent steak or an assortment of seafood, check out the newly opened Grill 3301 at the Corinthia Marina Hotel in St. George’s Bay. There’s a pretty nice view over St. George’s Bay and the Dragonara Casino – regardless of whether you are a sun-starved tourist who wants to sit on the rooftop to soak up al-fresco dining or if, like the locals, you prefer to sit indoors in air-conditioning (which might leave you stepping outdoors to warm up!!). No matter where you sit, you’re guaranteed a view!

Tucking in to the Seafood Tower at Grill 3301.

And then there’s Grill 3301’s house speciality, the Seafood Tower – a three tiered mountain of seafood where you’ll have to get off your chair to see what’s on the top. On the bottom there are clams, langoustines, mussels; on the second layer you’ll find shrimps, swordfish carpaccio, octopus and on the top lobsters. It’s perfect as a shared starter or main course and with some champagne.

Then comes the tough decision of choosing a main course; unless you are like one member of our group who only eats chicken, then your choice is narrowed to the corn-fed chicken. But if you have your eye on a steak, it’ll take a while to decide if you want rib-eye Kobe beef, a fillet of grass-fed Aberdeen Angus, or, what I opted for – the porterhouse 600g Charolais steak. If you think selecting your meat is the toughest choice, then you have to choose between Madagascar peppercorn, organic mustard or Stilton cream sauces which come served in a cute little saucepan with a miniature soup ladle. If you’re neither a steak, seafood nor chicken lover, then there’s plenty of pasta and risotto dishes. As a crème brulée fanatic, I savoured every mouthful of my dessert, finishing up with a coffee and Baileys.

Dinner here can be pricey – a steak can set you back anything between EUR 19 and 60 – but in today’s recession-hit climate, Grill 3301 has been smart enough to also cater for those on a smaller budget. The pasta and risotto dishes start from EUR 8.50; and there are set menus including starter, main course, desert and coffee for around EUR 30 per person all in. This means it pretty much covers everything from a business dinner to a romantic meal to a group get-together … and with impeccable service.

From wine tasting to rabbit stew
When you think of wine, you probably wouldn’t think of Malta as a major wine producing nation yet the island has some pretty good local vinos (and some not so good) as we discovered at the Delicata Wine Festival in the picturesque city of Valletta. For just EUR 10 you got a wine glass which you could use to sample as many wines as you could take between 19.30 and 23.30, accompanied by excellent live music by local bands and singers.

Rabbit stew is a national Maltese dish, often served with spaghetti.

Rabbit stew, a Maltese speciality, often served with spaghetti.

If you had time – or an appetite to eat – in between refilling your glass, the food stands offered rabbit stew, chicken tikka masala, pasta with meat sauce or pre-packaged cheese plates. But on hindsight as I chewed my way through a paper plate of pasta with meat sauce, it would have been smarter to eat first and wine later! The other two members of our party had downed sufficient wine to disguise the taste of the food!

When in Malta, do as the locals do
If you head further south in Malta, La Favorita in Marsaskala offers great seafood in a relaxed unpretentious atmosphere and is popular with locals. Other locals recommend the waterfront seafood restaurants in Malta’s main fishing village, Marsaxlokk.

So, after a great vacation, my conclusion is that if you are ever in Malta, don’t be put off on your first day by the McDonalds and pizza signs and “so so” pasta dishes in the touristic haunts. Like anywhere, there are plenty of great restaurants around, just be a bit adventurous and get off the beaten tourist track. If you don’t have any locals to ask for advice, check out the survey-based guide called The Definitive(ly) Good Guide to Restaurants in Malta & Gozo which lists the top 150 survey based restaurants in Malta & Gozo. See http://www.restaurantsmalta.com for more info.

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Tags: Birgu, Corinthia Marina Hotel, Delicata, Grill 3301, La Favorita, Lupanara Wine Bistro, malta, Maltese wine, Marsaloxx, Marsaskala, rabbit stew, restaurant guide to Malta, seafood, St. George's Bay, wine festival
Posted in International experiences | 4 comments »

Eating out in Ireland … during the recession

Monday, July 6th, 2009

The effects of the recession in Ireland are starting to hit home – and even though this means pubs, restaurants and cafes are closing down, bars are less crowded, menus are less extensive and opening hours less social than before, it also means better value for locals and tourists alike.

Well, I’ve disappeared for a while … due to a combination of a long weekend trip to Ireland, and a severe lack of sleep in Stockholm thanks to these sharp, bright summer mornings which make me feel like I’m suffering from an overdose of endless jet lag!

Ireland … well, it’s been six months since I’ve been there and the effects of the recession are really starting to hit home. Pubs that would have been overflowing with people three years ago, are now maybe 60-70% full and one of my “regular” bars, The Orchard in Rathfarnham, Dublin, is now offering Friday evening barbeques (a full selection of meats, baked potato, side salad and a free beer) for EUR 10 – this would easily have set you back around EUR 50 three years ago!

Johnnie Fox's, Dublin's "highest" pub, offers traditional music and a great bar menu including seafood.

Also in Dublin, the outdoor restaurants in one of the city’s most popular shopping centers … very quiet on a Sunday evening.

Outside the capital, in the south-eastern town of Wexford, trying to find something to eat on a Saturday night at 20.00 in a city with almost as many bars and fast food chains as shops, proved impossible. Three bars with signs hanging outside “food served all day” were not serving food after 19.00 … strange, bearing in mind that it’s a Saturday night and what better way to start a pub night than with some “pub grub”. The local “potato restaurant” stopped serving food at 20.30 and elsewhere, pubs were closed with “to let” or “for sale” signs hanging outside. After scouring the town for an hour we were left with two choices – Chinese food (there is still a strong supply of Chinese restaurants in most Irish towns where you can even order French fries instead of rice with your sweet and sour chicken, if you wish!!:-)) or a burger from a fast-food joint.

Browsing through local supermarkets both in Dublin and outside, I discovered that food prices seem to have dropped since I lived there almost two years ago. Special offers like “2 for 1” and discounts dominate the shop shelves. A small punnet of blueberries which, two years ago, would have been priced EUR 5.99 now sells for around EUR 3.99.

So, if the Celtic Tiger prices of the last few years scared you off booking a trip to Ireland, now is probably the right time to visit. The recession has lowered prices considerably and hotels, guesthouses (B&Bs), bars and restaurants are much better value for money than three years ago. Restaurants, while maybe not as flexible on opening hours as in the past, are not as crowded as before and many offer special promotions for set menus etc.

And, just a tip, if you are thinking of going to Ireland. Trying to find a great restaurant can be like looking for a needle in a haystack if you don’t have a local recommendation or if you stick to the tourist brochures. Instead, find a pub you like the look of which is not empty and serves food.

The pubs often offer surprisingly good – homecooked and unfancy but tasty – main courses (anything from a beef and stout pie to roast beef with mashed potatoes or a chowder seafood soup with homemade soda brown bread) which you can enjoy with a fresh pint of Guinness or a great Irish coffee to finish up with. And all for around EUR 20 per person.

dublin-dublin-guinness-brewery-alannah-tests-the-black-stuff

Enjoying a fresh pint of Guinness at the Guinness brewery in Dublin. All visitors receive a complementary glass in the glass rooftop bar which offers panoramic views over the city.

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Tags: Dublin, eating out in Ireland during the recession, Guinness, Guinness brewery, Ireland, Johnnie Fox's, Wexford
Posted in International experiences | 5 comments »

A walking dinner

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

Bar hopping’s been a popular past-time for many years but restaurant hopping? Ever tried taking your starter in one restaurant, main course in another, dessert in yet another?

Well, we tried it out in Ghent, in the Flemish part of Belgium. The city boasts around 365 restaurants so picking just one for your dinner, if you are tight on time, can be problematic. Which is why Vizit (which operates throughout Belgium) has come up with a pretty cool concept for EUR 55– four different restaurants for your evening meal combined with a walking tour of the city with a guide. Our tour guide was a part-time rock musician, part-time tour guide, very sociable and very knowledgeable.

The only problem? I was still full from a three-course lunch and a beer tasting so I had to skip most of the meal. On hindsight, I would have saved my appetite for the dinner!

Haven’t heard of this concept in Stockholm but could be a great idea to do in certain neighborhoods – Östermalm, St Eriksplan, Södermalm, Gamla Stan …

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Tags: Belgian food, Belgium, Ghent, Vizit, walking dinner
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Åland Island cuisine – a pleasant surprise!

Sunday, May 17th, 2009

Food may not be the first thing that springs to mind when you think of the Åland Islands or if you do think food, you might think this Finnish owned, Swedish speaking, self-autonomous, seafaring island folk cook up a fusion of Finnish cuisine mixed with Swedish meatballs. Wrong!

I’m just back from a three-day trip to Åland where we tried everything from the local Åland svärtbrot (a dark, soft and moist bread which is slightly sweetened), salty cheese, home smoked salmon and pike perch from the clear Åland archipelago waters to havtorns marmelad (sea buckthorn berry jam), the local Stallhagen dark beer and home-brewed apple wine from Tjudö Vingård. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to try another local speciality – the Åland Island pancake which is as far from the stereotypical pancake as you can get – it’s like a cake made from rice or semolina and served with stewed prunes and whipped cream. It’s on my “to do” list next time I visit the islands.

I was so taken with the local delicacies that I filled my suitcase up with the jam, dark bread and apple wine to take home for my friends and family to taste.

The much-loved Åland pancake. If the stewed prunes don't do it for you, try it with a local jam instead!

And the restaurants on Åland are not half-bad either! My personal favourite was ÅSS, a stone’s throw from the Viking Line terminal at Mariehamn. Owned by Michael Björklund, one of Scandinavia’s most famous chefs and a native Ålander, in 1997 at the tender age of 22 he was named chef of the year in Finland. Three years later Sweden bestowed the same honor on him!

His speciality is New Scandinavian Cuisine and at my lunch on Friday I tried out his sesame salmon on a bed of couscous and boiled vegetables, with a side salad. Simple but delicious. There’s no pomp or airs and graces about this local celebrity, his restaurant is a simple red rustic wooden building perched on the waterfront with a lovely outdoor terrace and a cozy ambience. The lunchtime prices are good value for money. If you’re in Mariehamn with a few hours to kill, stop by for lunch, dinner or a mid-afternoon snack!

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Tags: island food, Mariehamn, Michael Björklund, Stallhagen, svärtbrot, Tjudö Vingard, Åland Islands, ÅSS
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Cocoa sniffing and Choc-tails in Belgium

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

Well, I’ve disappeared for a few days due to a three-day trip to Flanders in Belgium where I was sated with three-course lunches, beer tastings, chocolate testings and four-course walking dinners. After the first day of eating three times my normal daily food intake, I skipped breakfast still feeling full from my wholesome beef steak the night before. On the second day, I had to skip dinner still feeling full from my three-course lunch and an afternoon beer tasting with cheese dipped in celery salt and Dijon mustard snacks. By the third day, I struggled to look at a menu and even though it all sounded good, for once my eyes were smaller than my stomach.

Are the portions of food really so small in Sweden that I got “food overload” in Belgium? Or am I simply poorly trained to eat such gigantic portions of food? Or is home-grown Belgian cuisine simply just too much for those of us who are used to a sandwich for lunch and sometimes, sushi or a Thai takeaway for dinner?

Our tour guide in Ghent, a town in Flanders, put it well when he said on Thursday, “Flemish food is Germanic portions with French quality.”

Belgium may be famous for Tintin and being the heartbeat of the EU but it’s even more famous for mussels, beer and chocolates.

And yes, it is a chocaholic’s paradise! Especially The Chocolate Line in downtown Brugge run by Dominique Persoone, a well-known chocolate chef, who definitely counts as one of the most interesting and creative chocolate chefs I’ve ever met … not to mention one of the most charismatic.

He dazzled our tastebuds with a Choc-tail – Costa Rican 64% bitter chocolate ganache with lime pipette filled with tequila silver and Maldon crystal salt. How do you devour it? Simple. Lick the salt, squeeze the pipette on to your tongue and finish up by swallowing the chocolate. Even though Tequila turns my stomach, the experience is something truly memorable. Forget dark chocolate flavoured with chilli pepper, think chocolate mixed with basil flavours, smoked cocoa (cocoa beans smoked with rosemary and Herbes de Provence) and Oud Sluis caramel, which mixes Cabernet Sauvignon vinegar and a praliné of pine nuts. Truly exotic and unforgettable. But even the most sceptical non-chocolate lovers, couldn’t help but be impressed by his sniff cocoa – sniffing cocoa with ginger and mint to get a kick and enhance the chocolate experience. But don’t worry, it really is just cocoa powder.