A beatiful mess

When selling food to customers, one is likely to consider a few factors. First of, you would like your food to taste good. You would maybe try to make it comfortable for the guests, and then if you got some spare time; present the food in a way that a blind pig would at least taste it.

I am not saying that all the food I eat look like a Monet painting, but when I pay 500kr. for two courses, it's nice to know that an educated or at least dedicated chef prepares my dinner. It didn't look like that on Cafe Cristiania.

Cafe Cristiania is one of the more well known resturants, with it beeing placed in the middle of Oslo, right next to Stortinget. And this isn't just a somewhere mid-town, that earns easy money on tourist, minister-lunches or 16-year olds on date. It has a historical look, and allthough it opened in 2005, it looks and feels very old.

We were just trembling down Karl-Johans gate looking for a place to eat, maybe somewhere romantic, and not to expencive. This wasn't a bad choice, but there were one thing I just couldn't miss. I'll get to that later.

For a starter, I selected the mushroom soup. Perfect for a cold winter evening. It was served in a deep plate. Not the normal soup plate, no that would be to easy. This plate was so deep, I almost had to drink the soup, because the spoon couldn't do its job in the end. Nevertheless, the taste was very good. Creamy and nice, with long pieces of mushroom that would hang out of my mouth like spagetti. I would suggest either knife and fork or smaller pieces. And I almost forgot the last piece of this artistic disgrace; randomly chopped parcley spread all over the plate. The exact same garnish as on other starter, foie gras, that The Waitress ordered.

Well, next i had a poached arctic char. Without using to many words, this to had a very good taste. But the garnish, the same chopped parcley, mushrooms and a pure, was all totaly randomly placed. It was almost like the chef made the food, and then he let his baby son put it on the plate.

After beeing served two rather large portions, we didn't really need a third dish, but i could imagine the sufleé beeing served with bits of parcley on top. Beacause this isn't a bad place to eat, not at all. I just wish that we hadn't gone there on bring-your-children-to-work-day.

Bistro-de-Luxe?

I've had the pleasure of eating in what I belive is the best concept of future resturants. Acctually, it wasn't a resturant, it was a Bistro-de-Luxe. Focus was on quality and presentation, and it was good. I have been on Madklubben.

You had a very simple price-range; one course - 100DKK, two courses - 150, three - 200, four - 250 and 50 ekstra if you wanted the more expencive meals on the chart. I did, of course, try all four.

It was a cold and windy evening, so the only logical choice was the soup for starter. A sunroot soup, nice and creamy, with two-three slices of smoked eal, what seemed to be red-apple-vinegar, nuts and horseradish.

Not only was this a perfect dish to get warm again, but the presentation was smart and original. The soup came a-parte, so the other ingredents became thus more visual alone on the white porcelen.

My next course was piece of ox. A big piece. Period. Nothing else on the plate, but ox, sauce, and two small onions. Yes what was on the plate was delicious and more than enough food, but I did expect more than this. And this couse did cost 50kr more.

Third course was simply three nordic cheeses and some nuts in honey. Nothing extraordinary.

For dessert i was served a simple and good pear- and plumcompote with icecream. Simple and good, served with freshly brewed coffe.

Although the food could have been better, the idea of eating out for 100kr, de-luxe-style, is a good lovely thought. I had a nice evening, with good service and simple, rustic atmosphere. This is an evening I won't forget in a long time.

PS: The winesuggestion, a 2005 Ripasso, wasn't the perfect choise for me. A light and fruity wine for 500g ox just don't do the triks.

A late start...

Well, so far, the two of us have been to a few restaurants, including Victors, Fjord and Palace Grill. My simple plan has been to log our comments on the different places here. Easy and smart, i thought. Yes probably, but nothing have happend yet.

It's a new year and thereby time for second chances. So, without further typing, i present to you; The Chef and The Waitress (the blogg).

Our first (planned) misson goes to Via Condotti, a simple but exclusive italian resturant. The date is set to Valentines Day, so I kinda hope that the place fit the day.

That's all for today. I'll write again after the beautiful day of love!