Hey Jenise

Are you not recently returned from a trip abroad? Were you going to give us a culinary report? Those of us who are living vicariously would greatly appreciate it!

[Jenise]

Cynthia, yes I did. I spent five days in Copenhagen celebrating my husband's birthday. As to a culinary report...well, I did post one, and nobody responded to it after a day and change, so I dumped it. Figured I must have been too boring!

I never saw it.

Oh Jenise...I didn't see it either!

Cynthia, yes I did. I spent five days in Copenhagen celebrating my husband's birthday. As to a culinary report...well, I did post one, and nobody responded to it after a day and change, so I dumped it. Figured I must have been too boring!

Hey Jenise - not everyone can check into the forum each day. I'll bet some people only log in from work too, which could limit their browsing time to between what they are meant to be doing at work.
I did read it and thought it was interesting. Sorry I didn't say so at the time.
How about reposting it?

Cheers,
Sue

[Jenise]

Well, all I can say is that I wrote it when I was still jetlagged and even as I posted it, I thought it needed more work. That 40 odd people read it without comment seemed to confirm that, so I just scuttled it. No problem, not complaining, wouldn't even have admitted it but for fear that one of the 40 would have outed me.

Well, I guess you have pinpointed one of the reasons I stopped posting for a while, so know how you feel, girl.

Cynthia, yes I did. I spent five days in Copenhagen celebrating my husband's birthday. As to a culinary report...well, I did post one, and nobody responded to it after a day and change, so I dumped it. Figured I must have been too boring!

Darn, being half Danish myself, I would have loved to have seen your report. I check in everyday, but must have missed it when you posted.

Jenise, with fear of castigation I will go on record as saying that this software for this forum, does not do a good job of denoting unread posts within threads. There I said it. As you know, I was vocal in the Netscape forum, and as you also know I have not been so in this forum, but I go on record as saying that there is room for improvements and a good start is correcting what I said above. Having said that I fully understand that the fix is above the ability of anyone on the forum from Robin down, but it sure would be nice if I knew when a new post was made in a thread already read without being emailed every time a post is made to any and all threads. Ok, I am backing out slowly now with antennae on alert.

Wow, so that's what happened.

I saw your post, and went back to some notes Janet and I have put together for an upcoming trip in July to Copenhagen -- two days as part of a longer cruise.

I put together a half dozen questions in my Word drafting file, added a couple of questions, and tried to find your post.

Thought I dreamed that you posted it, Jenise -- thanks for letting me know that I wasn't dreaming.

Regards, Bob

[Jenise]

Bob H, you mention "unread posts within threads", but that's a whole different subject than independent topics. My post was not within another thread but a topic all it's own. And of course, the software does show the big egg when there are no replies, an item that's probably only of interest to the poster. But for readers of posts, it also tracks new threads (with those symbols on the left) and which threads have new posts since your last visit. It doesn't do it in color the way WLDG Classic did, but it does do that.

Bob R, go ahead and post your questions, I'd be happy to answer them and pass on any reccomendations.

Thanks, Jenise.

We are looking for a great foodie restaurant in Copenhagen. We tried Noma and Ensemble, but both are closed in July for vacation. We have a reservation for one night at Era Ora, but need one for a second evening. Any suggestions?

We are staying at the Grand Hotel -- I've forgotten where you said you were staying. We can easily switch hotels if there's a hotel you think would be more interesting or charming or whatever.

I've spent only a few hours in Copenhagen many years ago, and remember only that it was a charming city. What are the must sees that you would recco if you only have two days to spend sight seeing? I remember your post covered some things that sounded very interesting, but my memory is clouded up with stuff from a guide book and a couple of New York Times articles, so I can't be more precise about specifics.

Do you have any impressions of the value of the following:

Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek -- we both love art and know there is much here to see.

The canal tour -- worthwhile to get a sense of the city?

Rosenborg Palace -- just another royal joint, or worthwhile?

Tivoli -- interesting for adults? -- I was thinking about trying Paul for our second foodie meal.

I've got to try a couple of Danish beers, of course -- but any other must sees/dos would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Jenise. Regards, Bob

[Jenise]

Bob, we didn't have any spectacular foodie dinners after all. We had originally planned one, and when that place closed we didn't rebook thinking we'd figure out something once we got there. The names you mention were on our list. Then once we got there our friends, who are not as interested in fine dining as we are, found the prices rather prohibitive and that more or less put an end to that. Had we done something, however, we likely would have chosen Alberto, I think the name was, at the top of the SAS Radisson on Vesterbrograde not far from where you'll be at the Grand, at sunset. It's the 20th, I think, floor of just about the only building in town that's taller than ten stories, and the 360 degree view is spectacular. We'd have prized that over the food, though the food could be quite good there.

Of the more modest meals we had, the standout was gravlax and Carlsberg Special at the pub in the Hotel Phoenix, which is directly opposite the Amelienborg palace (on the city side). If you're in the mood to restock your wine supply for the boat, a to-die-for wine store by the name of Otto Suenson that has been operating in that spot since the 1800's is about half a block away (toward the Cathedral). We bought Dugat Pys and Lefarges there for relatively modest prices compared to the U.S. (our modest friends DO spend on wine). And at the opposite end of that same block (closer to the Cathedral), there is what has to be the town's best cheese shop if, like me, you enjoy staring at raw materials.

The Grand looks like a fine hotel. We didn't go in, but coincidentally friends who travelled to Copenhagen stayed there last year and recommend it. It's very convenient to the train station (where you can, and should, buy bus passes--it reduces the cost of a ride from 19 Kroner to 11). Buses are plentiful and frequent and go virtually anywhere you'd want to be.

We loved the Glyptotek, it's an absolute must. The sculpture collection is exquisite, and a new French painting exhibit is being readied (but was closed to us, boo hoo).

We left the day before canal tours started, drat it all, but the abovementioned friends showed me pictures and yes, I would do that if I could.

The Rosenborg Palace is very, very, VERY worthwhile. The jewel collection is wonderful, and there are many stunning artifacts. We enjoyed it tremendously, enhanced no doubt by the fact that we had it somewhat to ourselves at this time of year and a guard (who was the spitting image of Garrison Keilor) took a shine to me and thus gave us what amounted to a private tour. His descriptions of the pieces was charming and invaluable, even though we'd purchased the book. The Amelienborg palace, I could warn you, is a lot less worthwhile. To see it from the outside and walk the grounds (it's four buildings in an open square that the public can walk and drive through) is the best of it. Having visited, any time you hear some news item about the Danish royal family you'll have that mental image to reference. But inside what's available is fairly modern and token in nature, and a total yawn after the Rosenborg.

Tivoli was closed, but it's right nextdoor to the Glyptotek so possibly worth walking through. I would have had that been an option, even though it really didn't look like it had anything to appeal to adults.

Many thanks, Jenise, as always, you are wonderfully helpful.

We had totally missed Alberto -- sounds like it might be a perfect choice for one of our two "big" dinners. And that Gravlax and Carlsberg snack sounds just great.

Many thanks. Bob

[Jenise]

Bob, you're most welcome. I should mention our other favorite visit(s) besides the Rosenborg. It's the big church at Roskilde, a 20 minute train ride, and the Viking longship museum that's another .9 km walk downhill from the church. The Dutch Renaissance style Church is where centuries of dead Danish royals are stashed, and it's spectacular. If you do both on the same day, you can see where Kong (not a misspelling) Christiane the 4th (or was it the 6th) died at Rosenborg and later that day, his coffin. The Viking ship museum is where the hulls of five sunken Viking ships were excavated, and where they've built by hand (no modern tools, as it would have been done eons ago) a faithful replica on which 65 archeologists, scientists, and seafarers will sail an ancient route to Dublin this year in an attempt to understand first-hand (no bathrooms!) the Viking experience. Were I to do that again, I'd lunch in Copenhagen before setting out for Roskilde, or find a good spot in the small village near the church. We at at the cafe at the Viking Museum, which I would not reccomend.

Speaking of cafes, there's a lovely cafe off the atrium at the Glyptotek, if you're into coffee breaks.

Re Alberto, it wasn't on our to-be-considered foodie list either. We just started hunting for high ground from which to view a sunset, and this happened to be the best view in town by quite a long shot. It's a nice room--white tablecloth, etc.

Thanks Jenise, for this report! It has now made me resolve to visit Copenhagen one day. Along with every other cool place on the planet.

Thanks, Jenise, Roskilde and the Viking longship museum are right up our alley. We are both looking forward to seeing the Wasa in Stockholm -- it was in a temporary museum when we saw it years ago, and I understand the new digs and restoration were magnificent.

There's a longboat at Mystic Seaport; each time we visit I imagine my ancestors plying the Northern Atlantic in those tiny boats. It would be great to see the boats -- an altogether satisfying outing from your description.

Incidentally, here's a report by Fiona Beckett on Noma which I thought you might enjoy, a sort of thank you for some great suggestions on visiting Copenhagen:


It’s not often you come across a restaurant which is so strikingly different and original it takes your breath away. Let alone one that is run by a chef who is just 29. But that’s exactly what happened to me a few days ago.

Noma is not new - it opened in 2003 -but has been gradually creeping up on the radar as not only Denmark’s best restaurant, not only one of Scandinavia's but, at the risk of hyperbole, one of the world’s best. Certainly one of the best I’ve been to.

Its incredibly talented chef René Redzepi has cooked at The French Laundry, El Bulli and Le Jardin des Sens in Montpellier but is one of those rare chefs who doesn’t simply seek to recreate the dishes and techniques he’s learnt back in his own country. His cooking, which like all great chefs, doesn’t rely just on flavour and visual appeal but on temperature and texture is evolving so fast that his food already looks different from the pictures in his newly published cookbook Noma. He’s (mercifully) done foams and moved on.

He pays respect to molecular gastronomy but his food isn’t remotely gimmicky. He eschews expensive international ingredients in favour of the unique and indigenous ingredients, traditions and techniques of his part of the world. Despite his use of unusual and quite challenging ingredients it’s not remotely taxing to eat in his restaurant. It is a meal not a performance. The surroundings overlooking the deep blue water of the Inderhavnen are beautiful, the building clean and spare. As you can tell, I really loved it.

For those who are not lovers of blow-by-blow meal descriptions, I apologise but the food was so extraordinary that this is an experience I would love you to share. Even though the food and wine pairings didn’t always reach the same heights as the food.


* First there was a basked of the most unusual crisps and dips you can imagine - intensely savoury chicken skins (particularly delicious), puffed cod skins, handcut potato crisps dusted with ground icelandic seaweed, little beignets of dried, salted smoked bakskuld (dabs) with confied duck tongues, crisp knækbrød (flatbread) served with cep mayonnaise and the most sensational ‘oyster and parsley emulsion’ that tasted of sea-flavoured cream They were paired with the 2005 J2 Riesling from Becker Landgraf, a fresh crisp young riesling from Rheinhessen. They would also have been fantastic with champagne.

* The same wine was paired with the next course, pale, delicate Greenland shrimps served with cucumber juice, crisp flakes of potato skin and horseradish ‘snow’. No flavour was strong - just a faint hotness from the horseradish but all the sensation was in the temperature and contrasting textures, the horseradish snow almost acting like a palate-cleansing sorbet

* Spelt bread rolls arrived, still warm from the oven, tucked in a brown felt bag. They were served with two spreads - creamy white pork fat seasoned with parsley and pumpkin seed oil and butter mixed with ‘skyr’ an Icelandic dairy product similar to fromage blanc that tasted like a very delicate cream cheese.

* Next there was smoked eel served with a fresh apple vinegar jelly and a creamy, green-flecked soup with dill oil, an extraordinary dish that was subtly smoky and herbal with a touch of sweetness from the apple. This was paired not very convincingly with a Provençal rosé, the Domaines Terres Blanches 2005, Les Baux de Provence but was better with the riesling

* A beautiful crab dish followed - Norwegian king crab just-poached in butter with leeks rolled in ashes of hay, toasted buttered breadcrumbs and a creamy sauce made with mussel stock, birch wine and cream and lemon juice. The sauce gave a classic element to the dish though it was lighter than similar French sauces would have been. The crab and the leek were a textbook combination. But what made the dish quite remarkable again was the textures - the crab only just cooked, the leeks still quite crunchy but tender and sweet and the crumbs crispy and buttery. It was a dish with which you’d have tended to reach for a Chablis or Puligny Montrachet but which was daringly served with a 2004 Steinbach Silvaner from the Franken region of Germany, a deep-coloured greenish gold wine with an exotic passionfruit nose. It worked - just.

* As Noma has a three page beer list we had asked to try a beer somewhere along the line so were served a 4.2% Nilso Oscar Farm Ale from a small brewery outside Stockholm. It was very much in the English mould and though served cool was slightly too malty and bitter for the superb dish of cod with mead and wild mushrooms which followed, a umami rich dish with lovely herbal (dill, parsley, chive and tarragon) notes and a little touch of crunch from what tasted like pork crackling but apparently was simply rye bread croutons. Again the cod was perfectly cooked - there is some incredibly precise temperature control in this kitchen

* A rough hunter’s knife with a bone handle and leather sheath was put in front of us with the next course, a dish of lamb and turnips. Only of course it wasn’t just that. The lamb, which had a soft, buttery texture despite being served very rare, had a remarkable depth of almost muttony flavour, the gravy was made from smoked marrow and the turnips were served like a triple decker sandwich, fine, barely cooked slices alternating with thick, buttery well cooked ones. And it had an egg yolk with it, the only touch during the whole meal we felt was misplaced. The recommended wine match with the dish - an unfiltered Les Baud Chateauneuf-du-Pape 2003 was quite perfect, however, handling the gamey, slightly smokey notes in the dish and also contributing a wild berry sweetness. And the beer that didn’t do justice to the cod was terrific too.

* Next a remarkable dessert - a mousse of sheep’s milk yoghurt, served with a crisp wafer of nougatine and a sweet-sour granita of garden sorrel. Forest green against the white of the mousse, clean, grassy and slightly aniseedy, I’ve never had a better palate cleanser. It was served with an incredibly pretty 2004 Emrich Schonleber Auslese Riesling from the Nahe, very intense for its 8.5%

* Finally - and believe it or not, we didn’t feel overwhelmed by this amount of food - a show-stopping finale described as ‘caramel in textures, malt in textures’. Redzepi had been telling me how he wouldn’t use ingredients out of season but few chefs would have had the ingenuity to get so many different flavours and textures out of just milk and sugar - a caramel mousse, an ice cream, ‘malt chips” which tasted like a shattered creme brulée topping, more skyr (see above) and what the waiter explained was ‘malt soil’ - dark, sugary crumbs that turned out to be made from malted flour and white flour, ground hazelnuts, beer and butter. It was creamy, caramelly, sour, sweet and salty and it tasted sensationally good with the sweet, slightly woody, tawny port-like 1998 Château la Casenove Rivesaltes Ambre from Roussillon in the south of France, which added its own deep layer of caramel flavour.


An interesting postscript: During our visit we learnt a Time magazine reporter had apparently just spent five days with Redzepi and his suppliers (to his slight bemusement). Food and Wine magazine had also recently visited twice. The coverage could propel Redzepi towards the sort of super-stardom enjoyed by Ferran Adria, Thomas Keller and Heston Blumenthal. Book now while you can still get in . . .

Noma’s website is at http://www.noma.dk Reservations can be taken on (+45) 3296 3297 or booking@noma.dk

http://www.matchingfoodandwine.com/ -- this review is for subscribers only, but Fiona's site is well worth checking out.

Thank you again Jenise -- I'm sure we'll enjoy Copenhagen.

Regards, Bob

.... Of the more modest meals we had, the standout was gravlax ....

Ah, now I remember you saying this in the 'original' thread.

And if you make it to Roskilde, not far away is Lejre http://www.english.lejre-center.dk - very cool! (And if you're traveling by car, you can stop at some of the Viking burial mounds along the way - one of which is possible to walk into!