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Now just a few touristy pics. The main Christmas market Us walking the streets looking at the architecture We finally saw the sun for 10 minutes after a week of no sun...how, you ask. Well, we took the tall ferris wheel right at sunset and got to see a little bitty sliver of sun! Another view from the ferris wheel Quick! The sun! Get a picture of me in it And just like that...it was gone. We walked over to the city museum which was ok and ran into a concert at the Christmas market

I'm in the middle of installing an aging cellar at the restaurant for meats and cheeses which should be up in about 3 weeks. These will be my inaugural cheeses, then I'll start making my own.

So after we settled our bellies a bit, the chef came out and chatted with us, and ultimately invited us into the kitchen. I asked him about the Global sponsorship and he said his bosses arranged it. Its always good to see how others do their prep schedules Chef Heikki Liekola

So to recap - 7 words from EdselL are the reason we dropped a few thousand and a week and a half of our lives to go have dinner on the other side of the planet. 7 words. No pressure on Edsel! With two other nordic inspired tasting dinners down and we were off to the Ravintola Olo. About two weeks ago they entered the Facebook and Instagram worlds when one of the kitchen staff from Portugal (Carlos Henriques) brought them online. Fortunately I was able to engage Carlos and so I was primed for my visit and they were primed for mine. My sole goal was to eat the type of food that I make since I don't get that opportunity very often. Secondarily I wanted to have a chance to compare my food to a Michelin starred restaurant. And lastly, I was looking to see how they handle service - I like mine proper but friendly, and so I was curious to see Michelin service can look like. We were offerered sparkling and were brought a Sumarocca Brut 2011 along with Linseed rice crisps and pickled cucumber mousse. Then we were directed to see the bread that we were later to be served rising at our table. Sea Buckthorn and yogurt encapsulated in cocoa butter. Fermented carrot and yogurt on oat cracker with vinegar powder Duck prosciutto, gooseberry mousse and gooseberry powder. Pic missing. Benoit Chablis Salt baked celeriac, apple, nasturtium on warm marble. Adele Cotes du Rhone 2012 clairette blanc - really interesting wine that has strong hints of yeasty sea water. I'll pursue this wine. Reindeer heart, celeriac stock sphere, spruce introduced to us as "memories of home in Greenland." Marcona, parsnip, moose tartare, yolk, pickled elderberry and mustard seed. Austrian Stroheiemer Trauben Liebe and Zeit Rot Nº5 - another really nice wine. Rhutabaga, smoked egg whites, and a chicken broth of tarragon and fennel. I said this was their take on an egg drop soup. Roasted sunchoke, fermented and raw; white fish, white wine sauce, salmon roe...essentially an au gratin. Malmgarden Eumer Tripel beer. Our previously risen bread with Finnish butter (pretty salty), garlic soup (less salty). Taleia 2011 (Catalan monks) - another tasty selection. Pike, potato, parsley powder, pike scales and pickle Urchin, fennel, apple granité, seaweed broth with dill. Ramnista 2010 Kir Yianni Greece. Very dry, not our favorite. Reindeer loin and tongue, moss, blueberry, mushroom sauce. Quinta de la Rosa port and Graham & Co. '66 Port 3 Finnish cheeses with gooseberry jam with elderflower juice, onion caramel Local berry tea with bay, thyme, cardamon and black pepper with a goat cheese ice cream sandwich cooked with powdered berry. Errazuriz late harvest SV blanc from Chile. Roasted sunflower seed praline, sunchoke puree, roasted sunchoke, roasted yeast syrup consomme. Birch sap ice cream, licorice syrup, pine tree crumble. Wild & Pure liquors (Lingonberry and Cloudberry). And then we sat and let it all sink in. I'll stop here and in the next post show the tour of the kitchen.

Since these were tasting menus the meat portions were small, so my memory I didn't notice a difference. What I do know is that reindeeer filet at Sea Horse was an amazing piece of meat in flavor and tenderness.

I don't know which we bought because Tyler bought when he got away from me. It had rice for sure. And the number of places that I "have to" visit is so lengthy that a return is unlikely although it certainly deserves it. My travels are much more spontaneous and esoteric than that. We'll probably hear about some noodle maker on an island in the middle of a mountain lake and we'll head out to have a bowl of noodles

At first I had no idea who you were talking about, but when I went to Wiki I have a vague memory of him from the Grapenuts commercials. I think he and I would have enjoyed talking. Those of us enmeshed in the movement today often forget that people like Gibbons were doing this long ago.

One more quick post before my soak. I've mentioned that we like to wander. (We're easily nearing 100 miles of walking at this point in the story.) That afternoon...I think it was Saturday but the days blurr...we wanted to go to an area we hadn't seen yet, the southeast corner of the main section of town. We stumbled into a bunch of embassies including the US embassy. The area had beautiful architecture. and then we ran into this. Tyler's not one to pass up a museum, and we just happened to find the Mannerheim museum. Mannerheim, we learned, was the liberator of the country so to speak. His past much more involved...Russians, Nazis...but we learned more about the country's history and heritage from this museum than anywhere else on the trip. We now understand the reason for Finnish, Swedish and English. We understand the feelings towards the Russians and Germans. We understand so much which would have colored our trip very differently if we had gone here first. If you go to Helsinki, put this on the top of your list...says the guy who can be in an out of any museum in 10 minutes! I loved this one! On the other hand - the Design museum - poorly designed, sparse and quite frankly not very informative. A few interesting art objects however. I call this one the creepy little boy warriors. It reminded me of the terra cotta warriors. We were both disappointed by this place, but meh, whatever. We headed home to get ready for Ravintola Olo...the reason for the whole trip.

The irony is that my place is very locally driven, so on one hand it has nothing to do with my restaurant, but seeing how others use their area absolutely is inspiring me. I've got a running log of notes - one column is for me in the kitchen and one column is for my lead server. Again, I'll share these later if there's interest. But for now, back to the hottub in Phoenix as I continue to relax.

The next morning we taught ourselves how to get around on the trains and headed to the Hakaniemi Food Market. I was prepared for this to be my gold mine of inspiration! I'll give you the end of the story first - it wasn't. I really had no use for all of the amazing meats, produce and fish since they were fresh. I found a few cool things in addition to the cheeses i mentioned earlier, but its a cool place to visit regardless. They had lots and lots of fresh, cured and smoked fish Decent product, although I'm sure it was limited by the season Amazing cured meats Fresh meats, which I didn't explore much to see how predominate reindeer was over beef and pork Two good cheese stalls More fish and more fish! And always the loaves of dark malty bread. And still more fish - you may recognize my breakfast in this one And pastries Tyler nibbling on the famous cheese bread which is stuffed with rice in this one I had a fancier breakfast of a microwaved mushroom and salmon tart. We were trying to find a woman who does hot porridge outside but we never found her. She came recommended by someone we met along the way. But ultimately I found my goodies at Merja Valo's stall. She had some nice dried mushrooms, jams, mustards and such, and hidden behind the jams were these powdered lingonberries, boysenberries and cloudberries. Just had to dig a bit and spend some time talking to the people. And thanks - I'm glad you're enjoying these posts. This really was a wonderful trip. I haven't even talked about how it might influence the restaurant, and how big picture, I wanted to see how my place compares to a Michel restaurant. Maybe more on that if folks are interested.

Yes you can do it yourself, soak, dry 90%, fry in a large skillet with a good coating of oil. But I more often buy like they say above, revive in an oven for 10 or 15 minutes, then coat.

Not a word from customs, but we always have a friendly spirit when dealing with beaurocrats! They were overwhelmed the crowd was getting impatient. That said, regulations allow the cheese I brought so it shouldn't have been an issue. I still have quite a bit to upload. My goal is to be done before I start up at work on Thursday.

Now its time to knuckle down on some serious food! We headed over to Ravintola Ask which has a Michelin star and and a slew of awards including a listing in the Nordic Guide that just came out yesterday. Ask is a finalist for Restaurant of the Year! And I'll apologize because the photos for the rest of the trip meals just are ungodly dark...just like the country ;p Ask and Olo were touting their recent rankings in the brand new White Guide that came out: And you can guess we did the 8 course, 8 wine menu...you'll note that these menus start to look identical in what they're serving. We were started with rice flour crisps and potato chips with quark or creme fraische. Then a glass of a flute of champagne (Tarrant?) followed by a second snack of fermented carrot with sea buckthorn; fried reindeer lichen with lingonberry, and pudding of blood (v blood pudding) with crisps. The final snack was a cumin scented mayonaisse on roasted turnip with grapeseed oil. The first wine was a Vinho Verde - Aphros Ten 2012. First course was Elk tartare. We had to do quite a bit of digging with the staff to confirm that to them, elk are what we call moose - you know like Bullwinkle. Not an elk, like a deer on steroids. So this was moose tartare with shaved hazelnuts and raw elderberry. Next up: Les Bruyeres Arbois Chard 2011 and Celeriac stock with pork belly and bacon and fermented celeriac. Don Laurent Vogt from Alsace with hay smoked herring and onion ash, house made creme fraiche. Not photo. Das Ohr Kerner (a varietal I had never had before) with Beet, buckwheat porridge, goat cheese curd, parsley and really yummy puffed, crisped buckwheat. Girarden Sartenay - a red burgandy with pike, salted ransomberries, fried and cooked jerusalem artichoke, and brown butter. This was our favorite course. Roccafiore Sangiovese with parsnip and reindeer stew with reindeer heart, apple raw and granité. We added the option trio of cheeses (all aged Denmark goat) one being a 17mos house aged hay cheese, and sea buckthorn candied carrots. I missed the first dessert wine and a dessert of buttermilk along spruce jam, spruce pickle and spruce mousse. The second dessert wine was a Heinrich varietal...really liked it, just don't remember what it was The dessert was cranberry ice cream and warm licorice sauce over sticky toffee pudding and frozen cranberries. They finished us with a plate of acorn ganache, candied parsnip and pine tip caramel. Coffee was served Chemex conical drip. Really great meal, and a perfect warm-up for Olo.

Spent the morning prowling old churches. The first is a seldom visited Lutheran church that if I remember correctly is the oldest structure in Helsinki. The outside looks like an old marble building but its actually 100% wood. The inside is plain bright white and shimmering gold. Then we headed to the Church of the Rock which has truly breathtaking architecture. But then we were off for a quick bite. We stumbled into Vivo's Lebanese which was hands down the best non-tasting menu of the trip. So amazingly flavorful! I just did a basic shwarma plate, but it knocked my socks off. And after the heavy meal, and so much walking, and way too little sleep, I was thankful that nearly ever block has a café, so we grabbed some caffeine to get us ready for Ravintola Ask. On the way we ran into another cool old church. This one had a millitary graduation going on.

I'm back in the states, chilling in PHX before heading home on Thursday. All the loot (cheese, booze, jams) made it safely overseas. Tremendous success!

Just a quick post before we head to our last dinner. I was talking to the kitchen at Olo about some interesting local food products and they said they love to buy a cheese made in Helsinki that is a cheapie at the grocery store, but if you age it, it becomes very nice. So I bought three and we'll see if they make it through customs.

I could eat pickled herring til I made myself sick! This is my second breakfast today - Tyler finally decided to wake up at 2 in the afternoon. I think he ate one too many tasting dinners A not-sweet hearty bread of fruit and nuts with rose scented pink pepper salmon

The next day we headed back into old town for more touristy stuff. Its a good reminder that Estonia as we know it began not too long ago: More walls, more arches, more cold Beautiful doorways Beautiful cobblestone streets Beautiful churches Beautiful history I highly recommend the guided tour of the underground tunnels - best opportunity to learn of the history of Estonia. You quickly realize that it was occupied by invaders from its beginning until 1994...I would love to do a psychoanalysis of the effect of that on its people. We ended up in the museum tower for lunch - nothing special - Smoked fish salad and mushroom soup in bread bowl. and Tyler in the throne and one last beautiful sight before we boarded the cruise ship For dinner we opted for the cruise buffet. I knew it wouldn't be great food, but I figured it would give me a good lay of the land of regional cuisine. and this is where I learned the I love pickled fish with creams and dill and such. And who knew I could eat a half a cup of caviar in one sitting!? And who knew that a drunk Russian singing karaoke on an Estonia ferry could be so entertaining! And so that was our overnight to Estonia. I can't say it enough - absolutely loved Tallinn and really want to return to explore the rest of the country.

Awake after a short night. The drunks hollered their way home after the 2 am shut down of the bars. The crazy thing is that we got home from Olo at 1:30 am and we think we left at 12:45...not sure how that happened, lots of wine pairings and free glasses of this and that, but we started at 19:00 and I don't think we sat there for 6 hours...very surreal. But back to the trip. So on the way to dinner at Neh we popped into the grocery for some tissues. Along the way we picked up a few chocolate bars made in Estonia. The light colored one is white chocolate and sea buckthorn and the one next to it was created for their annual garlic festival - and yes, garlic and chocolate go well together. And then looking left we see an indigenous blue horned pterodactyl egg. Which may become a funnier joke when you see course 7 at Neh! When I research restaurants I start with TripAdvisor which will often put Applebees and #1, and then Yelp which will put Ruth's Chris Steakhouse at #1, and then I start googling "best restaurant in ___" or "most exciting restaurant in ___" and with all of that info I get a lay of the land for who has the best PR teams or serves the cheapest booze. But it gives me a good starting point when I have nothing to go from. Then I scour a few travel sites like RickSteves.com and of course eGullet if there's up to date info. Finally, I'll google "modern restaurants in ___" and "Innovative restaurants in ___" and that normally hones me in close enough to find what restaurants the foodies go to. In this case you really had to look past the restaurants popular with tourists, and the traditional big portioned business restaurants, but then you find Neh. We opted for what they call the "Endless Menu." Obviously they've never done Alinea's 24 course dinner like we have I'm not sure why but we made reservations for 6...that's early in this region. Almost everyone goes out from 19:00 to 21:00 and that's it. Not earlier. Not later. As a chef I would love that! Tighten up service and get in and get out. But we were early and the place to ourselves for the first hour. Fortunately again because these Ugly Americans only speak English and Spanish, the staff was fluent enough in English. We did take care to learn Tere and Aitah (hello and thank you). But as the wine pairings continued my aitahs became kiitos became gracias. The staff were so gracious and friendly, and I love when you can feel that a restaurant is genuinely appreciative that you chose them. I felt that here. They started us off with a sparkling riesling and "Beetroots from Rautsi farm with goats cheese from Esna" The beets were cooked and ground common to the area, while the goat came as a mild, lightly aged cheese and also as a crisp. Parsley oil finished it off. Next was a housemade dandelion schnapps with "Wild boar terrine with rowanberry and hazelnut" A less effervescent and sweeter, more traditional riesling was next paired with "Miika's sunchokes with smoked eel and egg yolk" Then we had the odd pairing of a sherry in the middle of the menu, which worked, but made me re-think the more traditional progressions. "Soup of mushroom with cottage cheese and wine pearls" This is the point in the night where the photography gets sketchy - my apologies. A nice chablis was then offered and I asked Tyler if we would ever see a red wine! "Cod with leek and salsify." We both loved this course - so flavorful and smooth. It was also the only course with a hiccup - not enough of the leek was peeled away so the outer layers were inedible. A palate cleanser of "Gooseberry granité" presented in a split bottle on a moss topped wood disc. The moss and wood are quickly becoming cliché but the bottle was something I hadn't seen before and was interesting. My inebriated notes aren't legible but some red wine followed by "Quail from Jarveotsa with carrot and buckwheat" and we were instructed to use our hands. I was half way through the bird before I remembered the picture. I've never been a fan of quail because my golden rule is the effort to output ratio, but it was very tasty nonetheless. (recall pterodactyl joke here) A rioja with "Saare beef cheek with parsley root and bacon" Cheek, like oxtail, are such hard sells for me in my own restaurant and its too bad because they are my favorite cuts. Perfectly done here. I couldn't figure out if they really had parsley root or if they meant parsnip or simply parsley...whichever, it was good. They served one course on top of this hot pad...we later saw them at the Christmas market and have inspired me to find a local woodworker to do something similar. One upsell that all of the restaurants we went to did, was "Would you like some cheese before we continue with the menu?" Interesting way to phrase it because of course they're going to charge you but you don't hear it as an upsell...yes, implemented at my restaurant immediately upon return! Three cheeses - 2 aged Danish goats and one local goat with hazelnut bread. A pre-dessert of "Caramel, sweet cremé and crumble" with Estonian dessert wine. And finally a port with "Black currant mousse, compote and tuile" I didn't bother photographing because it was a jar of goo. The chef Yves Le Lay did a fantastic job and I'll say it was on par with the rest of the meals we've had on this trip, certainly deserving of Michelin consideration. After dinner we froze our patooties as we crossed the street to get back to the apartment and crashed into bed.

And as a teaser the Olo staff told us to go to a specific restaurant for tomorrow. We were going to take it easy but here comes our 4th tasting menu in a row! Good thing we walk a lot.

Just hold your reindeers because we've now had reindeer heart three nights in a row! Just back from Olo...but first there are bars calling my name!

Its a tough question asking the differences in red game meats, especially when flavors vary based on whether its wild or farmed, time of year, terroir. I'm keenly experienced in elk, venison and lamb because of the restaurant, and while I don't serve beef hardly ever at the restaurant, I've naturally eaten plenty. This was my first experience with reindeer. I will only speak of farmed because restaurants (at least legally in the US) can only serve farmed and not wild. Lamb older than 6-9 months gets its reputation for the musky flavor. Younger lamb, like what I serve, really only has a bit of that flavor that most people miss unless then do a focused exhale after a bite. Elk comes off more rich/rico to me, with maybe a butteriness in its flavor - big, bold, solid. Venison tends to be much more neutral but still has a not-unpleasant gaminess that makes it interesting. So with my opinion (right or wrong) on the other meats, I'll say that reindeer, in the two instances I've had it on this trip so far, is closer to deer, but clearly the diet is different. It was juicier (maybe just fresher than what I can get) and cleaner tasting - less gamey. Cleaner...that's the word that keeps popping into my head. I'll pay more attention tonight since i'm sure we'll be served some reindeer.

Remember the pop-up restaurant woman? Well, she helped us figure out the transport to Estonia. I booked reservations at Neh and we needed to take the ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn. We looked at the options and ended going for the cheapest since it was only 2 hours. We took the morning trip at 08:00 which cost €17 per person each way...not too bad. We were warned to get to the dock at least 1 hour prior which we did, and I'm glad because there was already a large mass of travelers. This is also when we learned that almost everyone drags rolling suitcases behind them...empty! Why you ask. Because they're about to load up on cheap booze and cigarettes. We didn't find the prices that much better but I guess its akin to Americans going to outlet malls which at one time were a good deal, but not so much anymore. We didn't eat on this leg and just parked ourselves in front of the TV to watch the Estonian version of Good Morning America. This is also when I decided that Finns are all super models...every last one of them. Its humbling and titillating at the same time! We needed a quick bite so we stopped at a pub where I erroneously read the sign as the oldest pub 1893...it was, of course, 1983...the fall of the soviet empire. So, not so nostalgic and in fact kinda a dumpy tourist bar, but the beer was fine. This is where Tyler learned that pickles dipped in honey and sour cream is oddly good. This is Tyler's look throughout most of the trip. He's gotten a lot of looks which we can't figure out if its because people think he's a "handsome woman," or a trendy American... Regardless, we headed straight to their Christmas Market which was much better than Helsinki's. Still small, but better goodies! Then we wandered and wandered the twisted cobblestone streets. We found St. Catherine's Alley which had some interesting crafts. The rocks on the left are at the opening to the alley and are ancient tombstones. We didn't find much that excited us as far as goodies, but we really fell in love with this town, both the historic section and the larger city - we would definitely return IN A HEARTBEAT! But back to the task at hand! A trip to Alko...state run booze store where I picked up a few interesting things. The one on the left I bought because it had crystals on the bottom of the bottle and for no other reason. Kannu Kukk I bought because its sort of the national drink of Estonia. And then the other two...well, they're interesting and not something I sea at home. I haven't broken the seal on any of them to help get them home safely. And finally, we were off to find our AirBnB which I gotta say was a gazillion times nicer than my house and only and for only $63 a night! I get the sense that some of these former Eastern block countries are finding all sorts of ways to make a living - both of our apartments are owned by people who are making a side living by buying places and renting the out to AirBnBers. A quick nap and then we were across the street to Neh, our first pre-planned fancy dinner. I'm cleaning up for Olo right now, so more on that later.

We did. There were two "owners," and the other was a former super model. She was very exotic and fortunately, not the twig thin style of super model. CatPoet answered this, but the immigrant movement has had other influences. Lots of Nepalese restaurants as well as more expected ones like Chinese, Sushi and Pizza. Subways are everywhere - the American sandwich chain, and BK and McDs too in lesser numbers than Subway. I sit here thinking...if I were an immigrant from any of these countries...why Finland? Its a great country and there must be some incident that precipitates the flow, but seems an odd choice with such harsh seasons. But, of course, in America with have the same thing with Somalis in Minneapolis which was instigated by formalized relocation efforts. Now, back to the trip. After the pop-up we prowled the neighborhood looking for a shop that was recommended by Slow Food Helsinki - Herkuttalo (Mariankatu 15). Very nice shop, but she specializes in French items so that wasn't quite what I was looking for. She did have a couple of Lapland jams - Black current and Cloudberry. We were getting hungry so we headed to Sea Horse which was recommended to me by one of the chefs at Olo. Ravintola Sea Horse is a landmark in town and the decor reeks of 1981 as does the menu and food styling. But, if you want a slab of reindeer with some beets and potatoes, this is the place to go. I started with some long words that must have meant Sampler Platter because I got beets, potatoes, sour cream, chives, minced meat and other things. For my entree I was going to go light (and cheap) but at the last second called the waiter back and got the reindeer filet. While the staff at one of our latter fancy restaurants laughed at me when i said it, this was the most tender piece of red meat I've ever had in my life...including the reindeer served to me at said fancy restaurant. What was even more fun was how the crowd looked like they were straight out of a cold war KGB movie. I can't talk about this trip without emphasizing the darkness. Today is Saturday at around 6 and we arrived Monday in the afternoon. We have seen light not even 30 minutes during this time. Even if the clouds were gone the sun would only be up 6 hours a day, but with the clouds...oye! It is dark, gloomy and wet. Here's the view from our apartment.

I agree. I remember Christmas markets in Germany being much bigger and better - not so much factory made stuff...but maybe they were and my memory is clouded by gluchwein. That's a bit like our Peter Piper tongue twister! And yes, the language is hard especially after going to Estonia. I was doing good with Kiitos, Hei and hei hei (Thanks, Hi, Bye). Next we explored the city center and got to see some wonderful holiday sites like the displays in department store windows. I always need something to look for for myself or I get bored. This trip I'm looking for artisanal food products (always), unique boozes, and some stylish clothes - because literally all I wear is jeans, shorts and t-shirts at work. This display was pretty friggin amazing. We stumbled upon our ultimate destination of Olo...and note, that I look like crap - haven't slept in longer than I can remember between work stress back home and jet lag and well hell I'm getting older! But Olo will have to wait because we don't eat here til tonight and there are plenty of other great meals waiting for us. We have a way of stumbling upon things because we walk everywhere and since we don't know the language...we just find things. We popped our heads in a door to warm up and were greeted with "Hei! Welcome to our pop-up restaurant opening day!" Woo hoo! We were their first customers at what they called a vegetarian Marrakech restaurant. They had two items so we ordered both. Turns out that one was just the sandwich version of the other - a couscous dish with seitan and veggies. It was very good. So to summarize. We came to Helsinki and at kabobs and now couscous...Looking ahead in the story I see a theme emerging. But more on that later. But the real score was the owner sat down and helped us figure out how to take the ferry to Estonia tomorrow, and even searched out best fares for us along with tram lines to get us to the proper docks - there are different docks for different ships...don't want to screw that up! I'm still a few days behind on posting, but I have to go to one of my top itinerary items - the big food stall market. I'm skipping breakfast because someone somewhere on this trip told us that we must get porridge for breakfast at the market, and so we will!