Gourmet dinner at Statholderens Krostue

I am thrilled to have another gourmet meal at Statholderens Krostue coming weekend. The last time it was the best meal I have had for years. When seeing this years menu, I am convinced that it will be another feast. Here is what is offered there this season.

Dill marinated ceviche of anglerfish on celery mayonnaise with salmon roe

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Luke warm potato tortilla with smoked halibut, fried calamaris and romanesco

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Trout tartare in avocado roll with herb crust and yellow sweet peppercoulis

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Ballantine of Guniea fowl with quail’s eggs, pumpkinpuré and parmesan foam

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Grilled scallops on saffron pasta with brandade, pickled tomatoes and frothy mussel sauce

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Lightly grilled codfish with petit pois royale, lightly grilled porks jaw, sauteed cabbage and gastrix of crusteacas

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Champagne and vanilla sorbet with apple marinated in creme de cassis

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Duck a l’Orange served with baked red beets, black salsify, and cipolle Borretan, onion cream and orange sauce

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Norwegian trilogy of cheese with goat’s cheese from Haukeli in lefse bread with honey, Munkeby cheese, and Kraftkar cheese med date-bacon muffin and quince puré

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Dark chocolate-espressomousse on hazelnut crust with pickled cherries with Tia Maria espuma, home made ice cream with browned Kviteteseid butter and barley-malt crunch

Stay tuned for the account of a delicious culinary treat from Statholderens Krostue here on Enjoy Food & Travel. It will be intriguing to once again experience the culinary wizzardry of proprietor Bent Stiansen.  

See account of the last visit to Statholderens Krostue 

• Statholderens Krostue, Oslo (July 30th 2010)

Rating Fiskeriet Youngstorget - Oslo Norway

Vis UPDATED: Oslo on Enjoy Food & Travel November 2011 i et større kart

Many of us grieved when Erling Moe fish and fine meats at Youngstorget in downtown Oslo closed in 2009. It was one place to buy products hard to get elsewhere in the Norwegian capital. To our joy another specialty shop, Fiskeriet, opened selling seafood, and takeaway. There is also a bar serving a small selection of fish, mussels and crustaceas.   

Rating Fiskeriet Youngstorget: BBBB (3,80 points)

• Location: BBBB+
• Service: BBBBB-
• Interior & Atmosphere: BBB-
• Food: BBB+

Fiskeriet is located at Youngstorget by Storgata, Oslos second shopping street, just a few minutes away from Oslo Central Station. Just opposite is Oslos old police station and the government area heavily damaged during the terror attack July 22nd 2011.

Fiskeriet Youngstorget is an extremely busy place, packed with people buying fish or take away. Quite a few choose to sit by the bar ordering an open sandwich, fish'n chips or a fish soup. The bar area is small and cramped with people.

This is certainly not a comfortable place to eat, but the atmosphere is informal and nice. You are seated on high bar stools around the bar area or by the window, not my favourite eating position. During summer there is additional seating outside.

The staff is extremely nice but busy, busy. They take orders for take away or serving hot food with a smile, and you do not have to wait long to be served.

I definitely recommend the fish'n chips at Fiskeriet Youngstorget, but I was tempted to choose the lobster ravioli, a delicacy I've been served in New England, and definitely one of my favourites. I immediately saw that something was wrong, when served. The pasta used for the raviolis was definitely to thin, as it had burst releasing all the filling into the sauce.

In spite of this, the taste was exceptionally good, well seasoned with a sweetness complemented with a little chili that tickled your taste buds. It would have been sensational if the lobster meat had been concealed in the small pasta pouches.

I had a cold glass of beer to the ravioli, but ideally I should have chosen a dry white wine, a riesling or a chablis, but the beer worked as well. Full marks for Fiskeriet Youngstorget for service, location and taste, but it is not a place offering comfort and marks would have been higher if texture and presentation of the lobster ravioli had been better.

Address: 
Fiskeriet Youngstorget
Youngstorget 2b, 0181 Oslo
Phone: +47 22 42 45 40
youngstorget@fiskeriet.com
Website: http://fiskeriet.com/ 

More lobster stories on Enjoy Food & Travel

• Baked lobster with scallops (October 19th 2011)
• The New England Lobster Roll (October 18th 2011) 
• Baked lobster in Mornay Sauce (October 24th 2010) 
• Luscious Lobster Club at Rustic Kitchen (October 3rd 2009)
• Lobster raviolis at Assaggio (November 19th 2008)

Make your own medister

Ready made Norwegian medister

Medister is not available outside Scandinavia, but it is easy to make your own. Here are a few recipes to try.

Trond Wuellner from Mountain View in California has a great recipe. He use most of the traditional ingredients with one exception. He substitute the traditional potato starch with corn flour, and this should work equally well.

See Trond Wuellners recipe here

Recipe Pascal recommends 1/3 fat and 2/3 lean pork, but no milk. He recommends ginger nutmeg, as well as mace as seasoning.

See Recipe Pascal recipe here

STORY NUMBER 2000 ON ENJOY FOOD & TRAVEL: Poulet farci

Chicken filled with medister - yum, yum!!

-  or chicken stuffed with "medister" farse, onions and apples

I have rediscovered medister, a Norwegian ground meat mixture made from pork. Seasoned with salt pepper, ground ginger and nutmeg it is very popular during Christmas, but can be used all year around. My friends Øyvind and Stian stuffed their turkey with medister, and that inspired this recipe.

The combination apples, onion and pork is great, and when I tasted the stuffing of that turkey during the New Years Celebration, I just knew I had to try it again. So I bought more medister to replicate the stuffing in a much smaller scale, inside two smaller chucks. The result was equally delicious. 

To make this dish you'll need:

Two large chicken (each 1,5 kilo / 3 lb)
Your favourite chicken seasoning
500 grams (1 lb)  medister
1 medium sized red onion, finely chopped
1 medium sized apple, finely chopped

Season the chicken,  I used Montreal Chicken seasoning.

Mix medister, onions and apples thoroughly.

Medister mixed with apples and red onions

Use a spoon and fill the cavity of the chicken with as much as the medister mix you can - the birds should be stuffed to capacity.

The next challenge is to get the ground pork mix to stay in the cavity. If you have an upholstery needle and some thread you can try some easy surgery by doing some sewing. Or you can do as I did - I just found some wooden skewers and impaled the backside of the bird.

When all this is done, you'll find the easy part of the job left. Place in a low oven (i.e. 100 C or 215F) and bake as long as you want. I allowed it to stay in the oven for 3-4 hours. Allow to rest 10 minutes before serving.

Bon a-petit!!!

More stuffed bird and things on Enjoy Food & Travel:  

• Roast duck with red rice and mushroom stuffing, cranberry relish and amandine potatoes (December 27th 2011)
• A Thanksgiving Dinner (December 4th 2010)

Hamburg on Enjoy Food & Travel

Vis North Germany from A-Z 2007-2012 i et større kart

Hamburg is one of the largest cities in Germany and is only one hour flight away from Oslo. It has much to offer, with a hectic nightlife, good restaurants, historic sights and cultural events.  Here are stories on food, hotels, restaurants, shopping, sights and travel that will come from Hamburg on this site.

Bars

• Bei Heidi 
• Gaststätte Dreyer
• Nobis Krug 

Coffee bars

• Speicherstadt Kaffeerösterei

Hotels:

• Stella Maris Hotel

Restaurants

• Casa Ricado
• D. José
• Fishmarkt
• Gasthaus an der Alster 
• Pastalozzi
• Zwick St. Pauli

Sights

• Hamburger Rathaus
• Hauptkirche St. Jacobi 
• Katherinekirche 
• Mahnmal St. Nikolai 
• Petri kirche
• Reeperbahn
• Speicherstadt

Ving Travel launch Aruba as winter destination 2012

View New charter destinations 2012 in a larger map

Aruba, Jamaica ooo I wanna take ya 

Bermuda, Bahama come on pretty mama 

Key Largo, Montego baby why don't we go

Beach Boys

Winter 2012 you can be a Carribean beach bum, as Ving Travel open launch Aruba as their newest charter destination coming season. 

Aruba is Ving Travels latest charter destination from Norway from coming winter season.

The island of Aruba belongs to the Lesser Antilles located in the southern Caribbean Sea, 27 km north of the coast of Venezuela. It forms, together, with Bonaire and Curaçao, the ABC islands of the Leeward Antilles, the southern island chain of the Lesser Antilles.

The islands has a pleasant climate with average temperature between 25-30 degrees Celsius (77-86 degrees Fahrenheit) all year around.

Ving Travels offers 11 different hotels on the west coast of the island, north of Oraanjestad, the capital city of Aruba. Many of them are all inclusive resorts. If you book 2 weeks for two people departure December 11th you will have to pay from NOK 30 790 at Amsterdam Manor, that is the cheapest alternative to NOK 44 972,- for two at Westin with departure late January 2013.

See more information on Ving Travels website (Norwegian only)

Fjord Line submit application to sail Langesund to Strömstad, Sweden

Strömstad is a quaint town on the idyllic Båhuslän coast line.

Fjord Line has submitted an application to sail from Langesund, Norway to Strömstad, Sweden challenging Color Lines monopoly on this crossing. 

1,2 million passengers travel from Norway to Sweden past the Oslo Fjord each year. The Norwegian Color Line has until now been the only company offering transportation from Sandefjord, Norway to Strömstad in Båhuslän county, Sweden. Now Fjord Line wants its share on this attractive route from Norway to Sweden.

Fjord Line has recently applied to sail to Strömstad, that is renovating its harbour to acommodate more ferries. This may create cheaper tickets for travelers.

Good luck Fjord Line!!!

More Fjord Line stories on Enjoy Food & Travel.  

• Fjord Line moves future operations from Kristiansand to Langesund (September 22nd 2011) 
• Fjordline started Skagerak express crossings April 30th (May 21st 2010)
• Fjord Line order two new ferries (April 3rd 2010) 
• Fjord Line back with service Kristiansand - Hirtshals spring 2010 (April 26th 2009)

Video: Palm House - Gothenburg

Here is a video from the largest of the three sections of the Palm House in Gothenburg Sweden.

Palm House, Gothenburg

The Palm House in Gothenburg, Sweden is a horticultural gem

I love botanical gardens and in particular green houses with tropical flowers. In Gothenburg city centre you find a horticultural gem, a large green house filled with most exquisite tropical plants and trees.

The Water House

Palmhuset in Gothenburg was built in 1878 and was modeled after Crystal Palace in London. It was commisioned in Scotland and it was designed by Alexander Shanks & Son in Arbroath.

It was totally restored 1980-1985.

There are four greenhouses, and the structure in the middle of the complex is twice as tall as the three other green houses.

The different houses are named the Tropical House, the Water House, The Camelia House and the Mediterranean house.

The tropical house is the largest structure. Here you find large palm trees. The Water house is dominated by a large pool where you can find the famous Victoria Water Lily.

The Mediterranean house contains trees and flowers from the European temperate zone. There is also a house dedicated to the famous camelia flowers.

Here are some of the plants found in the Palm House

A wonderful carpet of green plants covering the surface of the pool in the Water House

Bright red flowers of a begonia plant

A magnificent cluster of pink flowers

The fruit of the cocoa tree

The breathtaking beauty of a camelia flower

Dracaena draco - the Dragon tree endemic to the Canary Islands

The mistletoe is a parasite also found in Norwegian flora

A beautiful white camelia in bloom

The sun rays play with the beautiful flowers of a South African clivia miniata

See location of Palmhuset on this map of Gothenburg 

Vis Gothenburg on Enjoy Food & Travel 2009-2010 i et større kart

More story on Botanical gardens on Enjoy Food & Travel

• Jardin de Majorelle and the Yves Saint Laurent memorial (January 11th 2011)  
• Universeum - a garden of Eden (December 17th 2009)
• Barcelona Botanical Garden (December 4th 2009) 
• Resisting the Norwegian winter (March 8th 2008) 
• Breathtaking Botanical Beauty (February 13th 2008)

Haunted hotels of Norway

When somebody talk of haunted hotels, I always think of England. But even in Norway there is a considerable number of hotels said to be haunted. Here are a few hotels where something supernatural is going on. 

Utstein Kloster (1164)

Utstein Kloster is a 850 year old monestary located at Klosterøya outside Stavanger. It is a conference center. Here you have 18 rooms with a total of 25 beds.

The monastery is haunted by "The White Lady" Cecilie Widding Garmann that died in childbirth in 1759, 25 years old. The story goes that her husband promised her, on her deathbed, never to remarry a promise he held for 20 years. During his wedding, he is supposed to have seen Cecilie in a vision, fell into a coma and died 8 days later.   

Address:
Utstein Kloster
Mosterøyveien 801 
4156 Mosterøy
Website: http://www.utstein-kloster.no/

Elingaard Manor (1749) 

Elingaard is located in the municipality of Onsøy in Østfold County.

The present manor house was rebuilt after a fire in 1749, but the manor has belonged to several noble families from the Middle Ages.

Elingaard is not a regular hotel, but belongs to the Museum of Østfold county but you may stay the night here in the restored bed rooms. If you do, you may see shadows and catch the scent of old perfume, or see doors open by themselves.

Then you will have met Birgithe Christine Kaas, the woman responsible for rebuilding the house in 1749. She is supposed to guard the old manor as the eternal mistress of Elingaard Manor.    

Hald Pensjonat (1795)

Hald Pensjonat is a complex made up by three houses built in the 18th century. It is located close to the village of Mandal, on the southern most tip of Norway.

It is a bed & breakfast during summer. The ghosts at Hald plays the piano, and monk like apparisions have been seen walking the first floor.

Address:
Hald Pensjonat
Halseveien 37
4517 Mandal, Norway
Phone: +47 38 26 01 00
Website: http://www.haldpensjonat.no/index.html 

Bårdshaug Manor (1860)

Bårdshaug manor was the home of the financier and estate owner Christian Thams. It is located in Orkanger municipality in Sør-Trøndelag county.

There has been many reports on two ladies roaming the many rooms of Bårdshaug manor.

Address:
Bårdshaug Herregård AS
7300 Orkanger
Telephone: 72 47 99 00
Telefax: 72 48 19 23
E-mail: post@baardshaug.no
Website: http://english.baardshaug.no/index.php

Dalen Hotel (1894)

Dalen Hotel in Telemark county is a fantastic wooden building  in Dragon style built in 1894.

If you are stain in room 17, be prepared to meet Miss Greenfield or "the English lady". She stayed in the room just after the hotel opened, and gave birth to a child there. Miss Greenfield abandoned her child in a box to die there, and went back to England. You can also hear the cries of the abandoned baby in room 17.

Miss Greenfield was tried for murder in England but committed suicide before the trial.

Dalen Hotel
Postboks 54
N-3886 Dalen i Telemark, Norway
Tel. +47 35 07 90 00
Fax +47 35 07 70 11
post@dalenhotel.no

Website: http://www.dalenhotel.no/