Prøver en på dansk. Svampe tur.

Efter at være kommet hjem fra Mexico, et par uger, er det igen tid der sker lidt herinde.

For en lille måneds tid siden, var jeg med konen og et vennepar på guidet svampetur i hareskoven.

Et dejligt arrengement for folk der gerne vil udvide deres kendskab, til de små gevækster der kommer op af jorden i de danske skove.

Især når man tit finder svampe omkring sig, men ikke har nogen pejling på om man begynder at se syner eller noget hvis man spiser dem.

Det koster en flad 20ér at være med, man mødes i starten, samler svampe og for så til sidst tips og råd og det man har fundet.

Leizel og jeg havde fundet en god slat, ca 15 liter, men efter en hurtig sortering af guiden og små sætninger som "den her giver dig blodtab", "den giver dig nyreforgiftning" og "denne er der kun nogle der kan tåle, andre bliver pisse syge" så var der hurtigt ikke så mange tilbage.

Jeg fandt bla. ud af at en orange kantarel, ikke er meget værd som spisesvamp, så ved man det.

Heldigvis var der dog lidt tilbage og vi kom hjem med en god slat honningsvampe, som faktisk er ret dejlige, en god tekstur lidt hen af bøgehatte (men dejligt at vide, hvor de har vokset, frem for dem man typisk ser der er fra kina).

Vi fik også en del forskellige rørhatte, og faktisk var der rigtigt mange andre, der også fik en del af dem, bla. så vi nævestore indigo rørhatte rundt omkring i kurvene.

Ud over det blev det til et par "stor løgbruskhat" som er nemt genkendelig med den lange sorte stængel og kraftige duft af hvidløg, den er fantastisk at tørre og bruge i gryderetter.

Det er fantastisk med sådan en tur, og man får udvidet sin horisont tur for tur, så det skal helt klart prøves igen.

Det kan varmt anbefales.

Her er lidt billeder fra turen.

Der var ikke plads på bordet da vi kom med vores.

Burde man nok ik spise.

Catch of the day.

De rørhatte vi fandt

Rensning.

Gør klar til svampe i flødesauce:)

Sluttede dagen med hjemmelavet pasta, svampeflødesauce med ramsløgscapers fra foråres og parmasano!

Restaurant Ask, Helsinki, Finland

On our trip to the land of a thousand lakes a couple of weeks ago, we had to stop by restaurant "Ask" in Helsinki.

Ask is a fairly new restaurant, that opened up in September last year, if I remember correctly.

Run and owned by Filip and Linda, this homey, 26 seat restaurant is located on a quiet street, close to the cathedral.

Both have a background in michelin star restaurants, and Filip, who is a friend and old head chef of mine, have a CV ranging from 1-2 star michelin places a as head Chef, and former bocuse competitor for Finland.

It's not the crazy, technical complex elements on a plate, that makes the dishes here, with "ask" they try to emphasize the local and the organic/biodynamic. Most of the ingredients are from little farms and the surrounding lakes of Helsinki and the wines and juices are organic. That means the kitchen will change according to the season, meaning that when we were there it was very light flavors, and in the winter probably more pungent.

Here is what we had that evening:

Our menu for the evening.

To start out, crispy flakes of rice chips with wild herbs, violet potatoes, oats and parmesan cream.
I always liked starting out with crispy salty stuff so this is a pleaser for me, and it worked well with the champagne. 

Appetizer, beets, elder and cream.
Nice little appetizer that evolved while eating is, very refreshing with earthy tones.

This might be the best damn bread I have ever had.
Tough, slightly sour and crispy.
I could have had this bread all night and nothing else, and I would have been a happy mann.

Danish Butter

Salads and greens from a local farm, with tagetes mayonnaise. Light little starter.

Presented as back to the 80s, with of course a little smile on, this old school poached egg with nettle pure, deep fried nettles crispy emmer and mustard vinegrette, actually turned out to be the best dish this evening.

Slightly smoked wild salmon, mushroom reduction cucumber and herbs.
Filip changed my dish to finnish entrecote due to me not eating salmon, and the quality of the beef are incredible up there, almost looking like waguy in the fat.

New potatoes, roe and chicken infused cream with browned butter.
The sauce in this dish was really a nice touch, only thing is i would have liked the potatoes a bit less cooked, but that is really an individual thing.

Perch, new vegetables and a creamy champagne based sauce.
Light, clean and not anything to put your finger on, pretty classic serving.

Lamb two ways, fillet and braised brisket, onions and reduced braising liquid.
Again nice, simple and light flavors, and really good quality lamb.

Goat's milk as a cleanser.

Different textures of rhubarb, that in the end tasted like a trifle.

White chocolate, sorrel and buckwheat.
Again a good example of light flavors, and a way of letting the ingredients speak for itself.

Leizel had the non-alchoholic beverage pairing, and it all matched quite well, so did my wines, unfortunately I have lost the list of the wines I had this evening.

Petit fours, with our tea.
Lemon tart, with aerated foam, liquorice mareng (about time with the liquorice, we are in Finland:) and a fondant like little cake, very dense and moist.

All in all we had a nice evening at "Ask" the staffs are very friendly and all dishes nicely explained by Filip himself (not just to us, but all tables).

Though the style of the food is a bit too light for me, it really shines thru what the team at "ask" wants to show the diners.

They want you to be able to sit down in homey comfy surroundings, and have a dinner that shows the best of finnish product at that time without too much fuzzing around, and on top of that, your conscience is good when you go, cause everything is organic and as local as possible, good for the environment, and good for you.

So if you like this cooking style, and by any chance you find yourself in Finland, don't hesitate to go to "Ask", with a menu price of 165 euros (that's including the wines) it is about 80 percent cheaper than hitting a Copenhagen restaurant at this level.

Thank you "Ask".

Photo credits to Leizel Avila :)

ahhhhhhhh "nose to tail" yet again.

Let me just say this to begin, "nose to tail" in the meatpacking district, is a must go place here in Copenhagen.
If you like meaty, hearty and sometimes combo`s that makes you think, "this makes me feel like an disgusting human being, but i dont really give a f€=")€€=, right now because it`s way to good", this is defiantly a place for you.
It`s the perfect place to start a night out, with cheap beers, 10kr. fernet shot`s, down to earth service, and food served until pretty late.
Also a great hangout with a friend, family member, job mate`s, having a birthday and........hell just get down there, you will not regret this..
This is my time number 4 ore 5 to this place, and it never gets old.

s

Tatar, pretty strait up, but with ramson capers and a nice slap of rustic bread. Perfect beer food 

Duckheart, and lettuce hearts, lovely fresh thing.
My friend had the pork confit, of course good.

"sol æg"  traditional pickled egg`s though pickled in red cabbage juice here, with mustard mayo and tabasco.
Only fluke this night, cause the brine was way to salty. 

Out of pork cracklings, we had an even better substitute to end on.
Duck flavoured tapioka chips, with, hold on.............bacon mayo!
obscene? yes, but very very good with beer.

Feeling our heart beat racing a bit more then the norm, we decided to call it a night.

And with a bill saying 500 total, that`s a bargain for 6 beers, the food we had, and the lovely ambiance.

See you next time!

Review:.le chateaubriand/ Paris

  

Going to Paris, in my world means food, food and more food.

Restaurants all over the place, food markets, cheese, cured meats, patè`s and dried stuff in casings.

Being on a bit of a budget though, we had to choose one restaurant to ”semi splurge” in.

I did my research and figured that ”le Chautabriand” is the place to see what this whole ”bistronomy” wave that has been going on in Paris the last years has to offer.

Having a childhood friend and his misses in town, we went together on a prebooking, that i did about two weeks before, and let me just say that I am glad we did.

When we came in at 8, the restaurant was half empty, but soon the place filled up, and they even had round 10 people waiting for a second seating in the bar, on this thursday night.

This tells a bit about how popular this place is.

It is one of the most hyped places, and the kitchen of Inaki, is casual, playful and seems to be with no certain direction.

No locked concept, and the aim I have heard is to give the dining experience some more surprising elements, but also give the room for mistakes, which makes this to me a kind of ”hit and miss” kitchen, in the good way though.

We were asked if we wanted to know the menu or get surprised, we chose the surprise.

There is only one menu, and 3 of us went for the wine pairing menu as well.

We started with the appetizers/snacks.

First up, Cheese puffs, and ceviche in tomato juice.

Funny thing here is that we got pairings with the snacks as well.

The cheese puffs came with a nice cider, that cut of the richness of the cheese pretty well, just before it got too much.

Next up,

Red mullet, pomelo, piment and cikory.

This was a miss for all of us, the pomelo I think was way too overpowering for the little piece of fish, we did however get a nice champagne with this, that also went for the next snack.

A very large mussel, (unfortunately i dont know the name of it), cooked to perfection, it was slightly chewy in the good way, and the celeriac infused milk foam that went with it was a simple touch of genius.

Duck broth, with raw mushrooms and passion fruit, were a miss.

The duck broth was unfortunately lacking in taste, and the amount of passion fruit was too small to make a difference.

Raw mackerel, oyster infused fromage blanc, sage sausage, bitter salads and hazelnuts.

This was again a funky mix of ingredients, and was a lovely dish.

The kitchen forgot to put nuts on mine, so I asked to get some, and I’m glad I did, cause they made a world of difference.

Only thing I would have done different here myself, was to maybe blowtorch the mackerel, because it ended up more as a textural component than a main product.

A very nice Chardonnay, worked nicely with this light yet rich dish.

Bril (baked i think) broccoli variation, fried dill and angelica.

Very nice dish, perfectly baked fish, and the fried dill (though very old school) worked pretty well in the dish.

Main course:

Gunie fowl, potatoes and uni.

A very tasteful main course, leg and breast of the fowl cooked perfectly, roasted bronoise of potatoes and chips, and slightly cooked uni, in a way when you hear the dish, it sound a bit boring, fowl, but there were so much taste in all the elements, and the uni worked very surprisingly with the rest. Note that none of our dishes had sauces, nor did they need it.

Only thing here is that I could have used a bit more uni, to really make the difference in every bite, 3 small pieces, didn’t do the trick all the way through.

Pinot noir 2010 was again a very nice match.

Cheese plate.

4 (very small pieces) of cheese, but a nice selection, especially the brie the moux was perfect in temperature and aging.

But 12,5 euro was in my mind a bit much for the size of the plate.

Mandarin sorbet, yoghurt sifon, zest and rhum raisins..

Not my favorite, fresh and light, but the zest unfortunately was a bit too bitter for my taste.

Don’t remember the wine for this one, only that it was very nice with the dish.

And then the final sweet dish.

Apparently a signature, and a take on a basque dish.

Sugarsoaked, and bruleed egg yolk on some sort of pastry i didn’t get what was, and semi burnt (i think cause i still had some bitter from the previous dessert in my mouth) macaroon powder.

This one bite dish was an absolute surprise.

Bursting of sweet fatty egg yolk, and then the caramelised taste, which the macaroon powder made even stronger, no doubt the best thing this evening.

To finish off, pineapple, with different seeds (I tasted fenned, green anis, and lavender.)

That gave you a cleansing, almost soapy taste in your mouth, a good way of ending the meal.

Only bad thing here, was that the lefover wine I had in my glass now tasted a bit more perfumy J

So all in all, a lovely meal, and comparing the price and quality, and originality, its a very good value for money place. 200 euros for 2 persons, cheese for sharing and one wine menu. It is as said a hit and miss place, but I really enjoyed that, cause the price and settings made that perfectly okay, it is after all a bistro serving playful gourmet food, so even the 16th best in the world is not perfectJ If you get the chance to go here, don’t hesitate, just go, but make sure to book in advance.