KennethT

Coming this Xmas/NYs to an eGullet near you...

For the next trip, pack sunglasses, sunscreen and a 2nd stomach.... Penang, Malaysia! One of the street food capitals of SE Asia...

On the road again.... this time it was a 5 hour drive to get back to Reykjavik in order to catch our plane the next day. After packing up the car, we took a short walk to see this small waterfall which we could see from our hotel room. Our first stop was in Vik, about halfway between where we started and Reykjavic, for lunch. We went back to the first place we stopped. At this point we were feeling slightly bloated from eating all the red meat and bernaise/hollandaise sauces that we had over the last week. We rarely eat red meat or those heavy types of sauces. Cured salmon salad. The salmon was a little salty, but not too bad, and had a nice dill flavor. Arctic char. One thing we neglected to have on this trip so far was a hot dog. For some reason, Iceland is known for hot dogs. I was curious so I read a bit about them - turns out that they are typically made from a combination of lamb (mutton?), beef and pork but are mostly lamb (mutton?). We passed this place by in Selfoss many times - it was across the street from the Kurdish shawarma place we went to. This is the basic hot dog. It's covered in a slightly sweet mustard and has fried onions in the bottom. It was really tasty. I don't know if I'd rank it above my NY hot dog with spicy mustard and sauerkraut but it was tasty and slightly addictive. It was a little tough not to walk back and get another one. 550 Krona which is about $4.25 US. We got to Reykjavic in the late afternoon, checked in to our hotel and then walked around a bit before our dinner reservation - I made a reservation once I checked into the hotel using a common reservation app they have there. Most of teh restaurants I had wanted to try were booked, but I found one that had a couple tables left. Outdoor seating filled with tourists The rainbow bridge (street) to Asgard One of Reykjavic's most recognizable spots, a church design inspired by the Svartifoss waterfall Inside the church is a large pipe organ. People were allowed in for free to watch the organist prepare for a concert they were having the following day I really enjoyed watching the guy prepare. I've seen videos of pipe organs being played, but I don't think I've ever seen one played in person. We finally tore ourselves away from watching the rehearsal since we had to walk across the city (it's not that big) for our restaurant reservation. Oddly enough, the prices here were similar to what they were out in the middle of nowhere - maybe even a little less!!! And what we had was fantastic. I think the chef is originally French but lived in Iceland for a long time. Hot smoked salmon with a citrus yogurt. This was fantastic - the salmon was perfectly cooked, juicy and smoky. Hearty langoustine soup a la Robert. Also really tasty - great langoustine flavor and a few pieces of perfectly cooked langoustine. Fillet of horse. This was amazing. The horse is lean and has a lot of flavor, tender but with a decent chew. We really enjoyed it. Arctic char with a croquette of bacala. Again, perfectly done. We're not usually dessert people but this looked so interesting. It's the skyr mousse and rhubarb compote. We really liked how it wasn't too sweet or heavy. It had an interest combination of textures and flavors and the rhubarb gave it a good lift. This was probably the best meal we had, overall, on this trip. I would very heartily recommend it and would go again if ever in Reykjavic. After dinner we walked back to our hotel which is pretty much in the center of town. While walking around Reykjavic during the day it was quite nice, but we weren't fans of it come night - tons of young people who were extremely drunk and loud wandering the streets, some quite obnoxious. It also seemed like cruising through the streets with a muffler cutout is a thing to do there as we saw many cars doing it. The above restaurant was out of the city center a bit and that area was much quieter - like a residential area. I would much rather have stayed in a hotel in that area. Even though our hotel had double glazed windows and we were on the 4th or 5th floor, you could hear the bass from a nearby night club and people carousing. Luckily for us, we're from NYC so that type of noise is like a lullaby but I could imagine it being quite annoying for people not used to it. Our flight the next day didn't take off until around 8PM, so we had plenty of time to walk around Reykjavic some more. Breakfast at this hotel was ok but they didn't have the chia porridge that my wife had every day for the past week. A blue cheese and "camembert", croissant and cured salmon with blini. I have a weird buckwheat allergy, so of course I asked the staff if there was any buckwheat in the blini - turns out that no one knew, even the cook came out and talked to me about it. Evidently they're not made in house but the cook was eventually able to find an ingredient list for the blini and confirmed no buckwheat. After waiting around for like 20 minutes for an answer, I had it and after all that, it wasn't even good! Ha! The salmon was pretty good though - I enjoyed it more on its own. We looked at some classic Icelandic architecture - not that we didn't see it all over when in the countryside... Sculpture celebrating the Viking heritage. We decided to go back to Asgard since you could go to the top of the tower and we didn't have a chance to do that the day before. The bells toll every 15 minutes... I didn't edit the video but I think it's worth the wait. After that we had a late lunch - spoiler alert, this was maybe the worst (and most expensive) meal of the trip. Cured salmon. This was probably the best thing we had. Creamy langoustine soup - they should put more emphasis on the word creamy. It tasted mostly of cream. Arctic char - this was the most overcooked, dry char we had in Iceland... Wolf fish - this was ok, but I could have done without the cream sauce. After lunch (which took a REALLY long time since between our appetizers and main courses a tour bus full of people came in and bogged the kitchen down), we sauntered our way back to the hotel to pick up our bags and make our way to the airport. After going through security etc. we decided to get something to eat as they wouldn't serve anything on the 6 hour flight. Fried chicken legs. I think this was the first time we saw chicken on a menu since getting to Iceland! It was pretty good, especially for an airport. Fried chicken sandwich. The day before, we went to the supermarket to pick up some snacks to have on the plane. We looked all over for more of those lamb sticks but couldn't find them anywhere. Some sort of pork jerky. It was quite tender but very tasty. I think the package contained one long rope! Dried cranberries Crackers So that's it! Thanks for reading along. I'm sure we'll be going back to Iceland at some point - there's so much to see there.

Thanks for this. I usually write these for myself so I can reread and kind of relive the experience later on (this was great to do with my SE Asia blogs during covid lockdowns) but it makes me happy to read that people enjoy my ramblings as well....

Jeez, this whole "work thing" has seriously cut into my blog time.... Breakfast the next day: Salty smoked salmon, bacon, roasted potatoes, sausage and a croissant Going back for more - the house made sourdough bread, pain au chocolat and some not bad pineapple. My wife had what she had the day before - tons of the chia porridge and some skyr buried in nuts/seeds and some of the smoked salmon. This was our last day of hiking before heading to Reykjavik the day before heading home. The plan for the day was to drive West to Skogafoss, a very large waterfall, which is about 2-1/2 hours away and hike at least part of the Fimmvorduhals trail. This trail goes to Thorsmork - it's about 25 kilometers to Thorsmork, but it's not a loop trail, so then we'd have to hike 25 kilometers back to Skogafoss to our car - we are A) definitely not in shape enough for that and B) it would take waaaay too long. It was overcast and rainy all morning, but the drive over was really pretty: Skogafoss is probably about a half hour West of Vik, which is a small town with a bunch of restaurants (we stopped there on the way East from Reykjavik), so we stopped there for lunch before any of the hiking. This place looked good: The menu: The view from our table: It was really rainy and windy, so I decided to warm up a bit with a cup of tea: I think Pickwick has an exclusive in Iceland - it was basically the only brand of tea I saw over the whole trip - 4 hotels! Since Vik is historically an old fishing town, we had to get: Cod fish and chips. The cod was perfectly cooked, and the fries were very good too. Arctic char with mashed potatoes. The char was great and I liked that the potatoes didn't seem too unhealthy. But I will say that certainly by this point, we were getting a little sick of plain pan fried/grilled/broiled food. We were definitely missing some of our Asian staples of home cooking - but we definitely don't have stuff like this at home: Skogafoss. Note again how there is really nothing stopping you from diving in the water to swim under the waterfall, other than the fact that it must be freezing! There is a little cave if you keep walking to the right where you can get quite close to the falls without getting drenched: The Fimmvorduhals trail starts at the top of Skogafoss - there is a long stairway to get there: I loved the this hike. The beginning part isn't strenuous at all and the trail is well taken care of - and there are some great waterfall and canyon views. Also, there was something magical about seeing these views in the misty rain - I felt like I was in Lord of the Rings or Star Wars or something. At one point, the trail descended steeply and was REALLY muddy from all the rain - not to mention that it was right next to a steep dropoff, so we decided to turn back. We decided to stop for an early-ish dinner in Vik - since it's the largest town between Skogafoss and our hotel - and by largest town, it probably has maybe 10 streets. We decided to try something a little different - unfortunately we both forgot to take a photo of the restaurant's exterior. It was called Smidjan Brugghus - it's actually a brew house that brews their own beer. If I didn't have a 2 hour drive in windy rainy weather, I definitely would have tried one. We got the BBQ ribs: These were awesome - great texture - a little chew but still tender, nice and smoky and the sauce was barely sweet which we really appreciated. The fries were really good too, even once they got to room temp. Onion ring and bacon burger. The onion ring was perfect - one of my pet peeves is when the onion pulls out of the batter ring, but this one was awesome. On the drive back, there were some nice viewpoints where we stopped to get a look. This is Myrdalsjokull - a smaller glacier than Vatnajokull. This is probably the only time we saw the actual glacier and not just icefalls from the glacier. Another waterfall....

One of our favorite curries, Nyonya ayam buah keluak

I don't think I've ever had one, but people who have said they liked it. It's supposed to have good flavor and is fiberless.

Thanks! We love elk - there's a slight gaminess that's really good. I also use bison sometimes - it's a bit cheaper than the elk, but still healthier than beef.

@liamsaunt Yes, to echo the others, thanks so much for this. I always enjoy looking at your Caribbean trips!

Elk mapo tofu

Amen to all of this

@KeralaThanks so much for this. That resort looks right up my alley - I could definitely see spending a couple days there. Kerala is now calling my name...

Putting lime on fruit is really common basically everywhere I've been in SE Asia. It makes dragonfruit taste great! Another good thing is a little dish filled with salt/chilli. Or what they do in parts of Vietnam - make a paste out of lime/salt/chilli.

Yunnan style elk with 6 herbs

OK - if you plan to do that, then I think SV would be fine for the grass fed for sure. I'd probably SV it at 132-133 or so for a couple hours for medium. It'll creep up a bit more during the sear.

I don't know if SV would be the best way to go about this - it won't melt any of the fat. The grass fed one seems to have huge chunks of fat that will just sit there looking as it is now. I don't know if I've ever had a wagyu that marbled, but I've always heard that you need to cook wagyu more to get the best out of it as the fat transitions from solid to silky.

I had one sharpened a couple years ago. It restored it to be like new. I don't think I would do it twice though - mine's getting to the point where it should be replaced.

Thanks so much for taking us along!!!! I really enjoyed this!

Sichuan double cooked mahi mahi

I think this depends on location. Here in NYC, I don't know any place, ethnic or otherwise, fancy or inexpensive that serves outsized portions that could be reduced significantly. Many restaurants have largely abandoned the "appetizer/main course" concept in favor of small plates (that don't have small prices) since the total bill usually winds up higher in that concept. Here, I have seen most restaurants raise prices. One of my go-tos, Yellow Rose, has raised prices a few different times since prices started going up. They're also really popular and I don't think most of their patrons are necessarily regulars who would know the difference. In fact, each time prices have gone up, I've asked about it just to make sure it wasn't an error and the guy (or gal) taking my order said to me, "huh, I didn't realize - no one else has noticed"... then again, there are times I go there once a week and get the exact same order, so I know what the total was.... Oddly enough, my local pizza place hasn't increased prices at all in over a year, and their size is exactly the same - they're probably the only ones I know that haven't raised prices in some way.

Panang curry with chicken

That tomato looks amazing. Did it taste as good as it looked?

After loading up on breakfast (we wouldn't get a real lunch today) we headed back to Skaftafell park, which was the meeting place for our guided glacier walk. Most companies have a couple of different options, we chose the longer one (it's about 5-6 hours) which gives you about 3 hours on the glacier as opposed to maybe 1 hour on the glacier. While they call them glacier walks, they're really ice fall walks, as it's basically impossible to get up on the glacier itself without being dropped off by a helicopter. The company outfits you with a harness (which is unused, but is there in case there's an accident and they need to pull you out of a crevice with a rope), crampons (metal spikes that attach to hiking boots to enable easy walking on ice), small ice axe, which isn't really useful for chopping ice, but is used more as a walking stick and helmet. Walking to the ice fall. The brown semicircle to the right of the white is actually all ice, covered in a thin later of debris. At the first stopping point - we wound up going halfway up the icefall. In the summer, the ice is covered with what they call "mojito ice" which looks kind of like crushed ice, but directly underneath it is rock solid blue ice. But the crushed ice is easy to walk on with the crampons. At one point, the ice we were standing on was hundreds of meters thick. We walked by several fissures - If the walking ever got even close to dangerous, our guide was there to help us across: Sometimes, if he felt that the ice was too steep to walk on easily, he would make some steps with his axe: Once we got as high up as we would go, we had a 10 minute break to have a snack. I brought along a bag of cashews from home, my wife had a fiber bar and of course, our ever present sack of gatorade. At one point, our guide left us for a minute to scout out the route going forward - the glacier is constantly changing, so they can't necessarily take the same route every day... which left us a few minutes... I took the opportunity to demonstrate how hard the ice was underneath the mojito ice. And a view during our rest break: Once we made it back down, it was probably around 4:30 or so, so we split a fish and chips as a pre-dinner snack: Driving back to the hotel showed some Icelandic road hazards... For some reason, with all that space, the sheep liked to eat the grass/moss by the side of the highway. The day before, we had decided to stay in the hotel for dinner after the glacier walk since we didn't know how tired we'd be. This was house made sourdough (they also had it at breakfast), served with room temperature icelandic butter with some lava salt. I loved the butter presentation We got the sheep carpaccio This was really tasty. Great smoke flavor and slightly gamy. Seafood soup. While the description said there were various seafoods in there, we only found langoustine - not that we were complaining about that! This had a great langoustine flavor - maybe the best one we had on the trip. Arctic char... why they decided to pair it with quinoa and kale I'll never know, but the fish was fantastic. The asparagus struck me funny - while they looked heavily cooked, inside they were practically raw - which is fine because they were really skinny. Beef two ways. 2 medallions of tenderloin and some slow cooked beef cheek. Unfortunately, there was only a small amount of beef cheek - it was amazing, although the tenderloin and sauce were really good too. The two large white chunks were celery root - I don't think I've ever had roasted celery root before, but it was really tasty. Usually I've made it into a puree like a potato.

I also used to get them regularly and haven't been able to find them for the past few months. Hopefully they've solved whatever issues they had and will be back long term.

@KeralaHow do people make the batter for dosa/etc. They're ground, right? Is it typical to do it by hand or do people have the mechanized wet grinders like this ?