Copenhagen

Dear friends and family,

Greetings from Copenhagen, Denmark!  My running partner and friend, Laurie, and I arrived here on Monday and oh my gosh, is it cold!  Apparently up until last week it was in the 70s/80s.  It cooled off just in time for our arrival.  The lo's at night reach the hi 40s.  Hello???  Isn't this summer?  It was so much nicer in Tenerife and New York!

We're here on a home exchange.  Yes, ever hear of it?

One of the reasons why I wanted to come visit Copenhagen was because it has become quite the culinary destination now with the #1 restaurant in the world here called Noma.  The day Noma opened up for reservations FOUR months ago, I was already too late -- I was put on the waitlist for lunch AND dinner.  Can you imagine???  So eagerly we're waiting.  Laurie and I even paid the restaurant a live visit yesterday to make sure that we weren't overlooked in any way.  Never mind though as there are plenty of other great restaurants, like the one we went to last night, Geist.

Geist's executive chef, Bo Bech, is the man above.  We were lucky enough to sit right in front of his plating station.  He plated every dish personally.  It was so cool.  Laurie was in awe of the food and the atmosphere.  Why did we come here?  Because we read about this place in The New York Times and Travel and Leisure Magazine.  Seems like all the news outlets are writing about Copenhagen being a culinary destination and this restaurant was on both lists.

We started our evening with a Spanish red from Rioja.  Alcohol here is super expensive and the Rioja seems to offer the best value.  Usually in America the wines on a restaurant list are 3 times the retail.  Here?  It was 5-6 times the retail.

Laurie and I started our evening with crushed potatoes with oyster and almond.  The potatoes were put through a ricer and according to the Times, it was very Joel Robuchon-ish.  I ordered the black lobster with small tomatoes.  These were tomatoes of the smallest kind.  About the size of a marble.  Laurie and I tried counting them as Chef Bo kept plating this dish for other diners.  We think it was 30 tomatoes per plate.

Then we ordered the west coast turbot with fennel ravioli on cheese.  The fennel was used in place of the pasta.  How was it?  Sublime.  Laurie is not a fish eater and she thought the texture was just right.  Not too firm and overcooked.  I had the charred roebuck leg with beetroots.  We both thought it was devine.  No gamey flavor to indicate that it was venison.  It tasted more like filet mignon.  The rioja berry flavors and medium tannins washed it down perfectly.

vanilla ice cream with black olives and liquorice

air in air in air tiramisu

Cotton candy!

For dessert, both publications talked about the vanilla ice cream with black olives and liquorice.  It was sweet and savory at the same time.  As another publication put it, it was 'a wafer of solidified milk.'  We also ordered air in air in air tiramisu, which was VERY airy.  It tasted like mousse but was lighter.  And because perhaps we complemented the chef and told him through our waiter (as Chef Bo never looked up even once in those 3 hours we were there) that we were there because of the Times, a beautiful spun sugar confection of cotton candy with grated lemon zest appeared before us to finish our meal.

Tonight we're headed off to another culinary expedition called Relae.  They warned us to allot 2.5 hours for dinner.  Will report back after tonight's dinner!

Love to all and we'll be home before you know it,
Jennifer

Links:
www.noma.dk
www.restaurantgeist.dk
www.newyorktimes.com