Eating And Drinking (And Spending) In Oslo (UPDATED)

At Bar Boca

In March, Daisy and I took a trip to Oslo -- our first -- to catch one of our favorite comedians, Louis CK, in concert at the Oslo Spektrum. The show was fantastic. It was very impressive to see Louis come out, stand alone on a bare stage under a single spotlight, and make 8,000 people laugh for 90 minutes nonstop.

My doppelganger, Louis CK

Of course, while we were in Oslo, we ate and drank in some cool places.

Daisy's a big fan of the Harry Hole books by Jo Nesbø, so we checked out a few of Hole's watering holes, including the Underwater Pub and Restaurant Schrøder. The former was very cool, all dark wood and cozy little tables hidden in nooks and crannies. We happened to be there on a Thursday night, when professional opera singers come in and perform for free. The latter, however, was a bit of a letdown. The atmosphere was nonexistent and the food just passable. Of course, we ordered Harry's favorite dish: stekt flesk og duppe (slices of fried bacon, mashed turnip and boiled potatoes). Not sure what he sees in it, but what are you going to to? At least it was reasonably priced, by Oslo standards.

Stekt flesk og duppe

The Underwater Pub

We also enjoyed a few expertly made cocktails at tiny Bar Boca in the hip Grünerløkka neighborhood and enjoyed shooting the breeze with the manager, who was behind the bar mixing drinks and making a fresh batch of raspberry syrup from scratch. I liked that place.

Making fresh raspberry syrup at Bar Boca

We also enjoyed a few pints at a bar and jazz joint we just happened upon called Herr Nilsen at C.J. Hambros Plass 5, right in the center. It was a warm and welcoming place and seems like a fantastic club to see some live music.

Our best meal of the trip was at a restaurant called Von Porat in the Mathallen indoor food hall, which I'd read about on a blog called the Nordic Nibbler. The Nibbler described it as a restaurant that "serves no nonsense modern Norwegian food made from local ingredients. It's the sort of restaurant that Oslo has needed for a long time – simple, honest, and above all tasty food that won't break the bank."

We weren't disappointed.

(UPDATE: I just received an e-mail from Von Porat that reads: "We regret to inform you that von Porat restaurant will be closing its doors due to the imposibilty to bear future economical challenges." Achhhh!)

Ivan Zednik of Von Porat (the place is named after a Norwegian heavyweight boxer from the 1920s) told me that the restaurant tries its best to use only locally grown produce and present the possibilities that are hiding behind the Nordic climate, which is quite challenging due to the long and cold winters. The restaurant also prides itself on its vegetarian options.

"Our vision and goal could be formulated as new Nordic gastronomy where season, simplicity, and clean taste stand in the center of our focus," Zednik says. "We like to add that our modus operandi is to buy from local and small producers and show that Norway and the entire north has much more to offer than snow, darkness, and oil."

The Mathallen food hall

Our meal started with flat bread with creme fraiche, dill and salmon roe, followed by a salad of beef cured with fennel seeds and sugar and served with pickled vegetables, raw beet root and smoked butternut squash puree. Then it was a dish of cod served with kale cooked with apple vinegar, and served with potato and steamed mussels, and then another course of turkey breast poached in milk and turkey leg confit, served with sauteed parsley root and pickled and sauteed Jerusalem artichokes. Dessert was exquisite: coffee ice cream with toasted salted almonds, accompanied by a meringue with a biscuit crumble and frozen dried black currant powder.

We liked the atmosphere of the place, looking down as it does from the mezzanine on the bustling market. And for what you get, it's a reasonable price. Our meal, including drinks, came to about $250 (although I was shocked to see that the bottle of Saison beer from the Nøgne microbrewery that I ordered with my main course and which was recommended by the waiter ended up costing me $22.50).

Yes, $250 for two is a reasonable price for a nice dinner in Oslo.

Let me just say that Oslo is the most expensive place we've ever visited. A pint of regular old beer is around $13. I had a regular old hamburger at an outdoor cafe in Grünerløkka that cost me $30. A cocktail at Bar Boca is around $20. You just have to laugh and hand over your cash if you're traveling to Oslo.

The best bargain of the trip may have been our double at the Radisson Blu Scandinavian Hotel. Our top-floor room had a panoramic view of Oslo, including the distant Holmenkollen ski jump, and was around $150 per night, which included a magnificent breakfast. The hotel was also, conveniently, the last stop for the bus we took into town from the airport.

Oslo has a great vibe. Lots of young people sitting outside at fashionable cafes in the sunshine, even when it was below freezing; a nice city park; a developing waterfront; great culture (including a magnificent new opera house); and good food and drink.

I'd like to go back in the summer, when it must be a different place. For now, we've tasted Oslo, and it tasted good. Just be expected to pay through the nose for a bite of it.

Flat bread with creme fraiche, dill and salmon roe

Salad of beef cured with fennel seeds and sugar and served with pickled vegetables, raw beet root and smoked butternut squash puree

Cod served with kale cooked with apple vinegar, and served with potato and steamed mussels

Turkey breast poached in milk and turkey leg confit, served with sauteed parsley root and pickled and sauteed Jerusalem artichokes

Coffee ice cream with toasted salted almonds, accompanied by a meringue with a biscuit crumble and frozen dried black currant powder

Bar Boca

 Restaurant Schrøder

Being serenaded at Underwater

A $30 hamburger in a cafe in Grünerløkka 

Oslo's impressive $700 million opera house on the waterfront

The Underwater Pub, one of Harry Hole's watering holes

At Herr Nilsen (that's about $25 worth of drinks there)

Inside Herr Nilsen

'The Cocktail Book' -- For Private Use

I bought this small book, "The Cocktail Book: A Sideboard Manual for Gentlemen," in an antique shop in Eugene, Oregon, in 2000. The original copyright is 1900, with this particular edition dating to 1908.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am a connoisseur of cocktails -- an (very) amateur bartender, if you will -- and so when I spotted this, I just had to have it. (You can read more of my cocktail posts here and here and here, for example.)

Let me quote from the book's introduction:

This book is not placed before the public as a "bar-tender's guide," nor is it a list of all the fancy combinations of various liquors invented to advertise certain establishments, or for imposing on the ignorant. It is a recipe book compiled for private use. By following the directions given, it is hoped that any gentleman will be able to provide his friends with most of the standard beverages, mixed in an acceptable manner.

Imposing on the ignorant? Indeed!

Anyway, it's a fascinating little volume, for a variety of reasons.

I love old books with notations in the margins or inscriptions or old notes and cards and clippings tucked away in the pages. This book has them all.

The flyleaf has a lovely little dedication:

Greetings!!
to John (alias Jack, "Duke" etc.)
from his ban[c]kers & friends
Johnny Pratt
Waldo C. Hodgdon
Christmas 1909
N.B. "Here's looking at you";
hoping you may say the
same to us, after you have
got to know this books [sic].

On the back cover the owner of the book has glued little clippings of cocktail recipes that appear to have been snipped from the pages of "The New Yorker" magazine. So charming.

In addition, a yellowed clipping roughly ripped from a newspaper and pressed between the pages contains a variety of eggnog recipes ("General Harrison's Eggnog," "William's Eggnog," and "Hot Eggnog" among them) and seems to have been published in December 1936, from what I can deduce from clues on the reverse. Which could mean that the same owner kept this little volume close at hand for almost 30 years. Incredible.

Plus, I really love that this guideboook contains recipes for cocktails using absinthe, which was banned in the United States in 1912. As many are, I'm fascinated by absinthe, and I have a bottle at home, but I've yet to make either of the absinthe recipes contained herein. I must admit, it's not my favorite tipple, but I've vowed to whip up an Absinthe Frappe one of these days.

It's also fascinating to leaf through this book and see how the recipes have changed over the years.

In this book, the standard recipe for a Manhattan, which we drink more than any other cocktail in our house, calls for gum syrup, what we would call simple syrup today, I guess, but with the addition of gum arabic, an emulsifier; Boker's bitters, a predecessor of Angostura bitters that went out of business during Prohibition; Italian vermouth (doesn't specify sweet or dry), and whiskey. Of course, today's recipe for Manhattans do not call for simple syrup or any kind of sweetener. At least none that I've seen.

Even the recipe for a Martini Cocktail calls for three dashes of orange bitters, in addition to the gin and vermouth (again, it doesn't specify), while the recipe for Martini Cocktail -- No. 2 includes, intriguingly, half a teaspoonful of sherry.

Anyway, inspired by a chance encounter with the wonderful blog 901 Very Good Cocktails: A Practical Guide, by cocktail historian Stew Ellington, I thought I'd share this tiny gem with the world.

Of Oysters, Lobster Tail & Cocktails

The oysters at Zdenek's

I love oysters (see my post about my 50th birthday trip to Whitstable, the oyster capital of England). Daisy loves oysters, too.

So it was not without a small degree of excitement that I read Brewsta's review of Zdenek's Oyster Bar, a new restaurant in Prague. He waxed lyrical about the freshness of the oysters and raved about the lobster roll, which I was also eager to try.

Daisy and I had a free evening recently. Guess where we headed?

I can confirm that the oysters are fresh, cold and delicious (albeit expensive at around $13.50 for three Tsarskaya oysters), and presented very attractively. Although for me the choice of condiments is superfluous, as I like to eat my oysters naked (the oysters, not me.)


Zdenek's lobster roll

The lobster roll ($25), too, was heavenly (including that giant slab of claw meat right on top), though I expected the entire sandwich to be slightly larger than it was based on the photos I'd seen. It's served on a toasted buttered bun and with a choice of two sauces ("red island," with brandy, ketchup and egg, and a dill sauce), as well as some spicy Andalusian gazpacho and delicate rosemary potatoes.

Daisy thought her lobster meat left a bit to be desired in the texture department, and she didn't finish her sandwich. Indeed, Brewsta tweeted me that he'd had the lobster roll again. "Tail meat was fine, but claw was overcooked and dried out, tasted odd. Subtract a star." Daisy was right.

A half-liter of very drinkable Pinot Grigio was 300 CZK. It seemed to disappear too fast. Hard to believe that little carafe held a half-liter. We ordered another.

An impressive tray of homemade breads with olive oil was automatically brought to our table. Only when we got the bill did we notice that we'd been charged 65 CZK for the bread. I would say either include the bread in the price of the pricey seafood, or ask customers if they'd like the bread platter.

I really liked the vibe of Zdenek's Oyster Bar. And I liked the fact that Zdenek himself was there, presiding over the evening and making sure the customers were satisfied.

The tall bar tables and stools on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant are pleasant on a summer's evening, but not the most comfortable place to sit for an extended period.

I'm definitely going back. Zdenek's is a worth the splurge. Just try not to think too much about the final bill.

From Zdenek's, we walked over to the Hemingway Bar. I'd been wanting to visit the Hemingway Bar ever since I'd heard about its authentic absinthe, served using the classic ice water drip and sugar cube, not the stupid Prague method of setting a shot glass of absinthe on fire and stirring in a melted sugar cube. I've heard of tourists setting themselves on fire this way. I'm quite sure this method is a Prague affectation and that absinthe was never drunk this way in its heyday.

The Hemingway Bar's very cool promotional video also had me eager to stop by for an after-work drink:



I'm also a big fan of Ernest Hemingway.

Sadly, once we arrived, we discovered that the bar was closed for a private party. A peek inside revealed a very cool, cozy dark wood bar, perfectly lit (that is, dimly). We'll be back.

Instead, we walked over to Bugsy's, my favorite cocktail bar in Prague but one which I feel doesn't get its due. Other cocktails bars, such as Tretter's, seem to have more buzz, but Tretter's is a meat market, and I don't believe the bartenders are the artists that they are at Bugsy's.


Gentlemen, choose your poison.

One of my favorite evening occupations is to walk into Bugsy's in the early evening, sit at the bar, order a cocktail, and just watch the bartenders at work. They are gifted.

Daisy and I sat at the bar. Erik was our bartender. I liked Erik very much.

I ordered a Vesper Martini, the original drink of James Bond in the 1953 Ian Fleming novel, "Casino Royale." It's made from a mixture of vodka, gin and Kina Lillet, a French aperitif that's difficult, if not impossible, to find in Prague. I'd always wanted to try one. It was delicious. Daisy ordered a Negroni, a sort of bitter Martini, one of our favorite cocktails when we're at home, Campari being the operative ingredient.


The Scotland Breeze

For my second round, I ordered something from the exhaustive bound menu simply because the ingredients intrigued me. It was called a Scotland Breeze, and it contained whiskey, vanilla syrup, freshly ground ginger and grapefruit juice. Let me just say that I have found my new favorite cocktail. A little smokey. A little sweet. A little sour. And a lot delicious. Daisy ordered one, too. I had another, as well.

I've been trying to find the recipe so I could make the Scotland Breeze at home, but I can't find it anywhere. I'm guessing it's a unique Bugsy's creation.


The Maple Old-Fashioned

For my last round, I ordered a Maple Old-Fashioned (not cheap at 195 CZK), made with maple syrup instead of caster sugar, as well as bourbon, bitters and orange zest. Fantastic. Even the ice in the Old-Fashioned was hewn into a rough ball from a solid brick of ice as I watched. I loved that. Here's a video of a bartender making one. Believe me, the bartender at Bugsy's has it all over this guy:



Bugsy's is such a class act that the bartender even had nice things to say about the Hemingway Bar.

I can't wait to go back to both.


Even in Prague, in the middle of tourist season, it was possible to find a deserted Old Town sidestreet as we walked to the Hemingway Bar.

Choose Your Poison

We had a few friends over a few days ago and decided to make it a cocktail night.

Daisy asked me for 10 cocktails I could make, and I was really tickled with the cool menu board she came up with, including different fonts and editor's comments.

We had a blast, from what I can remember.