Chufi

That night we first set out on another cocktail quest. Nouf had read about a cocktail bar located above a gay bar called Angel, in an alley called Sauna. We found a bar in Sauna alright, but when we perused the cocktail menu Nouf kept muttering "I can't find that cocktail everyone was raving about" and in the edn we found out we had ended up in the wrong bar. We weren't too happy with our drinks and left after a while to get to our dinner at Bocca Bocca is an Italian restaurant under the same general ownership as Ö, so our expectations were high. The decor is beautiful, serveice very friendly and halpful. When Dennis and I had orderedn a glass of red wine, the waiter cam by after 5 minutes (when we had already taken a couple of sips) and poured us another glass of the same wine from a different bottle, and said that he apologized, he had realized the first glass was not good (possibly been open too long?) and that we deserved another glass. Since we had not complained at all I thought this a nice touch (and the second glass did, indeed, taste better.) However, the food was a bit disapppointing. Maybe I had had my mind set for true Italian food, which this really wasn't: I would call it European food, with Italian influences. Our pastas were all swimming in pools of very heavy, creamy sauce, and the mains were very complicated with lots of things going on on the plate and again, a LOT of sauce. There were some great ingredients (wilde dove, wild duck, lamb sweetbreads, a whole grilled seabream) but instead of letting them speak, they were drowned in sauces that were (to my taste) too heavy. Anyway, here's what we had: Despite the fact that there was too much rich creamy sauce, this was a really good dish and my favorite of the evening: raviolo with rabbit, in a mushroom walnut sauce. This was on the menu as "Gratinated goat cheese with cognac and acacia flavoured red onion", which made it sound much more intriguing and delicious than it was. Dennis had a salad with fried sweetbreads that I seem to have no picture of. Nouf had another starter, ravioli with smoked salmon: mains: Wild duck breast with savoy cabbage stuffed with foie gras and goat cheese in a Nebbiolo wine sauce The meat was delcious and very well cooked, but the cabbage parcel with goats cheese and foie gras was just wrong. The strong tangy cheese completely overwhelmed the foie gras. Dennis had "Oven roasted wild dove, potatoes topped with Gorgonzola and vegetables in a black truffle sauce" and Nouf "Grilled royal seabream with red chilli in mushroom sauce"... no pics. Dessert: tiramisu

I love it too. I haven't done more than some browsing, but so far I'm really enjoying it. I particularly like the short 'interviews' with chefs and professionalsabout why they think certain flavor combinations work. IIRC (don't have the book here right now) when you get to pistachio, there's one person who says you can combine them with everything cause the're so mild, and another who said you have to be careful cause they have such an assertive flavor. I actually think that's cool, cause it makes you think about your own tastebuds and how you perceive things.. And yes, for inspiration, this is a wonderful resource. I already thought of dozens of new flavor combo's to use in dishes, thanks to reading this book.

Patience, my friend. We have another dinner AND a lunch to get through before we get to cloudberries...

Organic vegetables. I refuse to eat non-organic meat, but when the budget is tight, organic vegetables are the first to go. I now tend to buy them only for special occasions.. it´s become a thing to splurge on.

Another day, another walk, another pastry. The Cafe Bonaparte Chocolate cherry cake. When digging into it, it revealed a smooth layer of the omnipresent Estonian curd cheese. it worked really well - the tangy curd cheese and the soft sweet chocolate.

That evening brought us back to Ö, this time with Dennis, and this time we went all the way with the tasting menu. Here´s the wild dogberry shoot mentioned above. Nouf ordered it, didn´t like it, and gave it to me. Did I mention she´s a great travel companion? We started with the same amuse of beetroot consomme and Baltic herring. Then we moved on to what the tasting menu had to offer us. Jerusalem artichoke cappucino soup Apple wine poached eel with herb emulsion and cucumber Wild goat tartar with fresh horseradish and pickled mushrooms The fish course and meat course on the tasting menu were the courses Nouf and I had already tasted 2 days earlier, so we asked for substitutions for those. Here´s the fish we got. I´m sorry to say I don´t remember much about it, and it´s no longer on their online menu. Nouf, help???? I think it was pike, on a pumpkin puree, with lightly pickled cabbage... Venison with onion marmalade tartlet and celeriac pure with blueberry sauce Oh this was so good. The green stuff in the background were soy beans. In the little tartlet were 2 types of onion marmalade, one of onion marinated in sea buckthorn, one of onion marinated in red wine. We also ordered another intriguing dish: Rabbit with pear strudel and savoy cabbage Cheese course: Delicate goat cheese with cloudberry jam dessert: Blueberry cheesecake with vanilla ice cream and hazelnuts The cheesecake was amazing, with a beautiful gingersnappy crust. It was served with some sort of apple foam and vanilla ice cream. An extra dessert we ordered, Curd cheese brulée with wild strawberry sorbet This was a really good dinner, and at 990 EEK (63 EUR) I thought it was really good value.

yes I read about that set menu on their website and it seems like a good deal... My train arrives at 10:30 at London St Pancras. Is it reasonable to think I can make it to the Cafe for lunch?

Another day, another walk in the snow. I'm posting this picture to show you how riduculously bundled up I was.. In Amsterdam, I NEVER wear a hat and I'm never cold.. But Estonia in January really requires multiple layers of clothing, warm socks, and lots of scarves! we walked all the way to Kadriorg park, where the KUMU art museum is located. Fortunately, before you reach the museum, you pass this beautiful little cafe: Park Cafe so you can have coffee and pastries before immersing yourself in Estonian art. Excellent pastries! I had a nut and cinnamon version, Dennis an apricot one. I also bought a curd cheese pastry to bring back to Nouf who had stayed back at the hotel to get some work done.

breaking the ice is really not that hard.. for instance if you were visiting Amsterdam, you could send me a PM and ask me if I wanted to meet for a drink or dinner.. It's easy! We stayed in a hotel in Tallinn, and to answer your question Shelby, I have no picture of the room.. we stayed at Hotel Shnelli which was, for me, an excellent choice.. really cheap, sparse and efficient, clean, no frills, very close to Old Town.

Hi all, I'll be in London for a weekend in mid-March. I'll be travelling with a group (about 11 women) who like good food but may not have it as their top priority (as I do). It's been years since I've been in London.. I could use some recommendations! Location is not really important since I expect we'll be all over the city for various sights/errands etc. But I would love to hear of some cool places that are not too expensive and where you can have a relaxed dinner with a group of 11 women. I realize that's a hard question, so here's a more specific one.. I'd like to have lunch on my own or maybe with just a couple of my companions, at a place that's really good, new, interesting, different, excellent, talked about. I've been browsing the board here but it's a bit confusing.. haven't found anything that stands out so far. And an even more specific question: has anyone been to the Petersham Nurseries lately, and what's your opinion? Is it worth the trek from London? Thanks!

We're getting into a bit of a time warp here, but I'm sure all eGullet readers are smart enough to keep following the chronology. and anyway, who needs chronology? it's just picture after picture of snow and food.... On Wednesday evening, Dennis flew in from Amsterdam. Before going to dinner we went for cocktails at a place called upupup.. possibly, ububub.. I'm not really sure and we're also not really recommending it for cocktails! Pille had recommended it for lunchtime smoothies, but it was 7 pm so it was cocktails we wanted. We ordered, only to have the waitress come back after 5 minutes to inform us they were out of rum. Since about 80 percent of the cocktails on the menu had rum, it made the choice pretty difficult. We ordered some anyway (they were all green, and I don't have a clue what was in them). They weren't very good, but the rumless cocktail bar got us giggling a bit, and we left in good spirits anyway. Dinner was at Vertigo, a somewhat trendy place at the 9th floor of one of Tallinns modern office buildings. The view is great (although you don't see much of it at night when it's dark). They have both a brasserie and a restaurant, and we opted for the brasserie. The menu was really strange and confusing, with everything from French food to sushi, Asian stirfries, Ceasar salads, and Italian pasta. I had a Ceasar salad with salmon which was pretty good, and bruschetta with various toppings - these were not good at all. Dennis had some kind of lamb dish and Nouf had soup and a salad that I have no pics of, just as well cause she wasn't very happy with them... Food and drink wise this wasn't the best evening, but the company and conversation made up for it...

After lunch we went to one of Pille´s favorite cafe´s, Chocolats de Pierre ( you can read more about it here). It´s a beautiful place, lushly but comfortably decorated with sofas and cushions and red velvet table cloths. Nouf had a chocolate cake (with malt and chili, if I remember correctly) and just for fun (because hungry I really wasn´t!) I had one white chocolate and orange bonbon. here´s their counter with all the cakes and chocolates. Nouf ended up having another piece of cake, a curd cheese one.

The next morning I had a bite of this for breakfast: One of the many permutations of a typical Estonian product called kama. More on that later... This particular version is kama flour, mixed with curd cheese. It was very good but a bit rich to have for breakfast... A walk in the snow to burn some calories.. .. and before you know it it´s time for lunch! We met Pille in the Old Town and she took us to the Russian restaurant Troika, located on the Town Hall square. We ordered the intriguing sounding appetizer of pickles with sour cream and honey, and were informed that this would go well with a shot of wodka Sure why not? It´s cold out, right? Note the edible napkin rings: they´re little pretzels. If you look carefully you can see him pouring the wodka from a great height. Nouf and Pille both had the blini with mushrooms, and I had Troika´s famous "Pelmeni Village style: lamb dumplings cooked under a crust with a forest mushroom sauce". I had agreed to share with Nouf so we could each taste both dishes, but I was SO relieved when she only took 2 bites of the dumplings and left the rest for me. It was a very rich, filling, but truly delicious dish, and I ate the whole thing, which I ended up regretting a little, but I could not help myself.

The younger people all do. The older people not so much.. but everyone is really friendly and with a little sign laguage and lots of smiles, you´ll get by easily.

hehe. They´re tiny plum tomatoes, marinated in a mixture of wodka, celery seeds, salt, tabasco and worcesterchire sauce for a couple of days. You cut a little cross in the tomatoes so the wodka has better ´access´. I don´t make cocktails, so this was my attempt to make Verjuice feel at home

Dinner that evening was at Ö, a restaurant that we both had been looking forward to a lot. I had read the menu online before we left, and for some reason the restaurant and almost everything on the menu really appealed to us. We started with cocktails - Kitchen cocktails, as there called, since they´re actually listed on the regular menu and not on the drinks menu (which lists the more ´classic´ cocktails.) Nouf is much, much more knowledgeable about cocktails than I am, and she started working on the cocktail selection straight away. I enjoyed a seabuckthorn mimosa and then switched to wine. I hope Nouf will add some pics of the cocktails later. We started with a little amuse of beetroot consomme and Baltic herring After that we both had the ´cooked to order buckwheat blini with fish roe, sour cream and dill´. This was truly delicious.. the blin was large, very buttery and crispy on the outside and fluffy creamy on the inside. We kind of inhaled it and were almost thinking of ordering another one, it was that good... But before things got out of hand another little dish arrived from the kitchen, compliments of the chef: celeriac soup with chanterelle cream and dill oil. This was also really, really good. After that Nouf had a fish dish that I did not take picture of, and I had fillet of beef with rutabaga, salsify, onion marmelade and pepper sauce. Another excellent dish. The dark ´blob´ at 6 o´clock was not described on the menu, but tasted a bit like blackpudding to me.. like a kind of blackpudding mousse. Too full for dessert, we walked home rosy and happy from great food, drinks and conversation.

After lunch we walked around some more. Near restaurant Balthasar is one of the Kehrwieder cafés, described on Pilles own blog here. We didn´t go in at that moment, but we did visit the tiny chocolaterie that belongs to it, located on the other side of the alley. To give you an idea of the Estonian language, here´s a description of all their chocolates: We bought a couple and munched on them while exploring some more.. and then it was back to the hotel for a rest, before going out to dinner!

Oh and Pille, if you´re reading this.. I have a question for you! The little green leaves you see on my venison salad seemed to be everywhere in Tallinn, used as a garnish on 90 % of the dishes we ate! I thought they tasted like fresh oregano or marjoram, but that seems an odd choice of herb to use as the ubiquitous garnish. Do you know what it is? An typical Estonian herb maybe?

The next day, Tallinn looked even more beautiful in the grey winterlight, with a thin film of snow on the roof tiles. It was COLD though! Fortunately, the city is loaded with restaurants and cafes that are warm and welcoming. We had lunch at garlic restaurant Balthasar, overlooking the main square Raekoja Plats. It´s elegant, a little more formal than I expected. The food was good (the hot soup was especially welcome after our cold walk) but not exceptional. Garlic soup with a garnish of smoked salmon salad with venison, smoked beetroot and blackberry sauce Nouf had a pumpkin soup and grilled vegetables with gratineed goats cheese.

On a Monday night in January, Tallinn wasn´t exactly bustling. We wandered around for a bit, looking into mostly empty restaurants, and finally decided to have dinner at Olde Hansa. This medieval restaurant (waitstaff in costume, nothing but candle light) may not offer the most delicate gourmet food, but it´s a fun experience, with satisfying, hearty fare. I really enjoyed the caraway eau de vie I had as an aperitif, and after that we had a plate of what they call Neptune´s feast - a variety of smoked and pickled fish, served with bread and curd cheese. As I said, candle light only, so the pics are very fuzzy... I had wild boar stew, served with sauerkraut, saffron barley, a curd cheese cake, pickles, and berries. I dont exactly remember what Nouf´(who will, no doubt, chime in here at some point!) had except that on her plate was something called ´bag of beans´: After dinner we wandered the empty streets some more and revelled in the fairy tale like atmospehere of the Old Town. It´s a beautiful place.

When you tell your friends you´re going on a trip, their first response is: "How nice. Where to? With whom?" It´s not until you mention that you´re travelling to an icy Northern European country, for a whole week, with someone you met only once, months ago, on 2 subsequent nights filled with cocktails and tequila... that eye brows are raised, noses wrinkled, and lips start twitching. "Are you sure you know what you´re doing?" Well, no, but let´s take a risk. It´s fun. Those of you who frequent the Southwest Forum may have read Chiles in the Desert, my trip report about 3 weeks of travelling and eating in the Southwest USA. It was on this trip, last fall, that my husband Dennis and I met Nouf (aka Verjuice) in Santa Fe. A cocktail party at her house, and the next evening a night on the town, 3 months of regular emailing, and then fast forward to ´let´s take a trip together´´where to?´´let´s go to Estonia!´. I´d been wanting to go to Estonia ever since I read Pille´s eGullet blog about her life in Tallinn. So last week, Nouf and I took off for a week in the snow, with Dennis joining us for the latter half of the trip. Our guest arrived at dawn, with a suitcase heavy from the delicacies she had brought from the UAE: That night we had Amsterdam based eGulleter markemorse and his wife over for dinner. I was feeling a bit under the weather, and maybe overwhelmed by the masses of culinary talent at my table, so as was to be expected, I was very critical of the dinner I made. 2 things I was happy with: the appetizer plate (bloody mary tomatoes, eggs with tarragon mayo, and smoked mozzarella) and my labor of love trifle: home made pistachio cake, poached quinces, custard, home made quince liqueur. The next day I stayed in bed, gathering my strength for the trip. On Monday we left, and arrived in Estonia to find the streets of Tallinn dark and deserted... (on the right you can see the entrance to the Olde Hansa restaurant)

That's amazing. I wish I wasn't too lazy and disorganized to do something like that.

I particularly like to take a Chinese leaf cabbage and use it for multiple meals, because you get different textures from 1 vegetable: the soft leafy tops are so different from the crunchy, juicy pieces near to the root.

I'm making a trifle, and to make the cake base a little more interesting I want to add ground pistachios to the cake. I have a good basic pound cake recipe that calls for 2 cups of flour. Can I just use ground nuts for some of the flour? How much? thanks!

if I have a pureed soup, I like something crunchy as a garnish. I often fry up tiny cubes of potato in a little olive oil, and serve them in a bowl to add to the soup at the table as a kind of crouton.