KennethT

Wow!!! That looks amazing. Sorry for my ignorance, I don't think I've ever looked at the Breakfast thread - I pretty much only eat breakfast while on vacation. I'm also not a huge fan of most American breakfast foods, but I agree - that Mett would be good any time of day!

What is Mett?

What do you plan to do with the finger limes? The only thing I can think of is fancy lime garnish. But I feel the way you do about the flowers on my Kaffir lime tree.

Yes, I have seen finger limes but I don't know what I would do with a lot of them.

The weather the next day turned out to be beautiful. After breakfast (we had the same things as the day before - chia porridge/bacon/croissant, etc.). Originally, I was just planning to do a hike to Hangandifoss waterfall (one of Iceland's tallest waterfalls) and Mulagljufur canyon (don't ask me how to pronounce that!!!!). The drive there took us past the most famous Jokulsarlon (glacial lagoon) so we decided to stop on hte way, even though I had scheduled to see it the next day. One thing we learned is that the weather is so variable - you have to take an opportunity when it presents itself. Practically across the road from the Jokulsarlon is Diamond Beach - known for its black lava sand and some icebergs which wash up on the beach. Unfortunately, there weren't that many diamonds that day. After that, we continued on. Because we made the extra stops, we didn't really have time for lunch - also considering that we were in the middle of nowhere and there was no where to eat! But we had a big breakfast, so we really weren't super hungry anyway - so on to Hangandifoss and the unprounounceable canyon. The canyon (and waterfall) is beautiful but doesn't photograph so well when it's so sunny out - too many shadows. I couldn't believe I was actually hoping it would turn overcast! The canyon and the waterfall: Right next to the parking lot for the canyon is another glacier lagoon - Fjallsarlon which is the lagoon for Fjalljokull ice fall. It was about an hour's drive back to Hofn at which point we decided to have an early-ish dinner. I had seen good reviews of this place but didn't know if they were open or not when I was doing my research. Quite a few restaurants in Hofn had permanently closed as they couldn't survive the pandemic with no tourists. We passed this place by the first evening on the way to Pakkhus and I realized it was open so we decided to give it a try. It was more moderately priced and was really good. Unfortunately, we both had forgotten to take photos of the menu... Lobster soup - really good flavor and the few pieces of langoustine in there were perfect. Smoked salmon salad. The salmon in here was awesome - not too salty, and contrary to our hotel's breakfast buffet, didn't look like it was hacked to pieces with a dull axe! Lamb - the seasoning they used was really good (a lot of garlic) but the pieces were pretty thin - most were cooked nicely but one was a little overcooked. Langoustine sandwich. There was a top half of bread, but we removed it for the photo. The langoustine here were perfectly perfectly cooked.. They were amazing. Probably the best langoustine we had in Hofn. I overheard the waitress talk to another table about their homemade donuts... so......

After lunch, we decided to take a hike I had read about which was close to Hoffellsjokull - the closest ice fall to our hotel. It's not a commonly visited ice fall as it's not right off the main road - there's a short drive on a gravel/rocky road. Once we got to the parking lot, there was one other car there and the family was coming off of the rise to view the glacier lagoon told us that it was really windy up there. We had no idea how windy it was until we got up there ourselves... it was like standing in a hurricane! We couldn't stop laughing at the ridiculousness of where we found ourselves. After shooting this we actually were able to get a photo or two of the glacial lagoon. It's very different from the main one that is super popular as the icebergs have more debris in them, which makes for interesting markings. Shortly after taking this photo, I stupidly put my back to the wind for a moment and the wind literally knocked me off my feet onto my butt. Ow. We never actually made the hike - which goes up the right side next to the ice fall - it was just way too windy to risk it. We were also planning on going to a thermal tub place right there but decided against it since it was just so windy and the idea of drying off in 50F and super windy wasn't appealing! So we went back to the hotel to relax a bit since we have been running around seeing so much. We decided to have dinner at the hotel. Here's the view from our table: The menu: Smoked mackerel - this was really good. I was a little nervous as sometimes mackerel can be a bit fishy, but this one was not fishy at all, but had great flavor and was still moist and really smoky. Langoustine soup. They used a good stock but I thought the one we had at lunch had a stronger flavor - this one had a bit too much cream for me. But it was really tasty. Arctic char with a hollandaise mousse and charred onion (and potato puree which was a LOT of butter). Lamb - if I didn't read the menu, I'd no idea it was a rhubarb sauce, but it was very good regardless. This is the birch dessert. I was really disappointed by this - there was no discernable birch flavor and the meringue tasted like it was made 3 days ago and sat around in a steam bath. I was so looking forward to this as I have some nice memories being in summer day camp sucking on birch tree branches while we were supposed to be playing some kind of sports.

Personally, I wouldn't call it unattractive! Is taht paratha or naan? Do you make from scratch?

I'd keep the temps on teh low side. The key to crispy fried garlic/shallots is to boil all the water out slowly - once that's done, it starts browning fast. If you use too high of a heat, the outside will brown before it's completely dry. I'd probably try 275F or so to start.

Who did you get the finger lime and Meyer lemon trees from? What do you do with finger limes? I don't know if I've ever had one.

There is definitely something visceral but it's more than that. China and Korea are countries. So Chinatown and Koreatown are named for that. I think the visceral feeling comes from a history of being segregated, looked down on, and forced to live in ghettos. I'm not saying other cultures haven't experienced the same but it's how I feel.

huh... then again, I shouldn't be offended - English isn't the primary language after all....

Do they really call it "Jew Town"?

no szechuan peppercorns? No dou chi (fermented black beans)? Also, I get pickled chillies from the Hong Kong market on Grand St. - mince fine and add with the garlic/ginger, etc... I find they make a huge difference.

what is "Szechuan style"? ETA - let me rephrase that... I know what my Szechuan style is - what's yours?

Breakfast the next morning - the first at the new hotel. Includes a glacier view. On the left, my wife's plate with tons of the chia porridge, plus a A strip of bacon and some fruit and a slice of smoked salmon. My plate - apple, croissant, smoked salmon, bacon and sausage. Their smoked salmon was really good, but it looks like it was sliced with a tree chopping axe. A dull one. Just a few minutes drive from our hotel was a really cute waterfall hike - Skutafoss. It was a short hike that was really easy, but what made it one of our favorites of the entire trip was the fact that we were basically alone there. There were actually several waterfalls - but I think Skutafoss was the first one. I just love the dark mountain with the green moss look... that guy in grey is there to provide perspective!!! After the waterfall, we went back to Hofn to get lunch. After the dinner last night, we decided to give Hofn another chance at the langoustine... Lobster bisque - this was really good - they used a strong lobster stock. And there were a couple of pieces of langoustine in there that weren't overcooked. Langoustine tempura - this was fantastic - the langoustine were perfectly cooked... soooo sweeeeeet and great texture! Reindeer burger. I was disappointed by this - you'd never know it was reindeer. The worst offender - langoustine pasta in some kind of watery cream sauce. The pasta was overcooked and mushy... the langoustine were the same - overcooked and mushy. such a shame. Serves us right for ordering pasta in Iceland!!!

no. Everywhere we went was packed with tourists. Then again, it's peak season after a pandemic when no one could travel, and Iceland opened up to quarantine free travel sooner than most other countries.

I like small horses too... I can't compare the horse with the donkey I had in Beijing since the donkey was thinly sliced and the horse was a large chunk. To tell the truth, if I didn't know previously, you could have told me that the horse was beef tenderloin and I would have believed you.

Hofn is a small seaside fishing town on the eastern part of southern Iceland. It is very close to Vatnajokull National Park - Vatnajokull is Iceland's largest glacier (there are 3 or 4 of them on the island) and is Europe's largest ice cap. You never really get to see the glacier itself as it's really high up (hundreds of meters thick ice) but there are many "ice falls" that are visible all over, and you can take excursions onto. The ice fall is like a frozen waterfall. As snow falls on the glacier and is compacted into ice, it is constantly pushing out the fringe ice - like a waterfall from a stream fed lake. Just in slow motion. The ice is constantly moving, slowly, so if I were to go back a month from now, it might look a little different. Because of this, the tour companies who take you on excursions there are constantly monitoring the sites, changing the areas they go to as needed. But more on this later... One of the things Hofn is most known for is langoustine (what they call lobster) - it is the langoustine capital of Iceland. Most restaurants offer it - from pan fried, to tempura, to sandwiches, to pizza of all things. Personally, you couldn't get me to spend money (a lot of it) on a langoustine pizza, but I definitely saw a lot of other tourists doing so. We were actually just a few days late for their annual Lobster Festival which is usually held at teh end of June. Most of the langoustine you see in restaurants was supposedly caught either that morning or teh day before and most restaurants purchase them directly from fishing boats. But I'm getting ahead of myself... first we have another couple hours drive from Vik to Hofn, which, predictably, was beautiful. In some sections, there were tons of these purple wildflowers. About mid-way between Vik and Hofn is Skaftafell National park. This is where you go to do the glacier walks, and there is a very famous jokulsarlon - glacier lagoon. We took pictures of it from the road, but as you'll see, it became quite overcast by that time. Several days later we went again when the weather was gorgeous. A jokulsarlon is when the ice fall breaks off at the edge and icebergs melt into a glacial lagoon fed by glacial melt water. The lagoon typically feeds a stream or river which outlets to the ocean. Iceland has a lot of glacial lagoons because most of the glaciers are situated on top of volcanoes and the geothermal activity melts the glacier from below. You can also see several other ice falls from teh road Once we got to the Hofn area and settled into our hotel, we went out to dinner to get some langoustine! The first restaurant I wanted to try is Pakkhus who supposedly specializes in langoustine and is very popular with locals. It is across the street from the water. This is supposedly the fishing boat they get their langoustine from (it's directly across from teh restaurant): We got there probably around 7:30 or so and hit a long line of people waiting. When we got to the desk, the host gave what seemed to be a speech he gives 300 times a day, that they were completely full, don't take reservations, and that they typically get space around 9PM. Also, this is a daily occurrence and he guaranteed the exact same situation for tomorrow or the next day or the day after that. So we left and went back to the hotel to relax for a bit. We returned around 8:30 (we figured we'd just wait around outside) but they had gotten some space in their bar area downstairs for us to wait so he gave us a beeper. We wound up being seated about 15 minutes after that - slightly ahead of schedule. The space is an old warehouse space, converted to a restaurant. It's a factory - a big space with lots of tables (the host originally told us they do over 300 covers per night) with prices to match... some menu photos: Keep in mind that it's about 135 Krona per US$, so each dish of langoustine costs about $60!!! After collecting our breath getting over the sticker shock, we got: Smoked lamb carpaccio and cured beef served over some smoking hickory wood. More chillies! Very tasty. Cold smoked rainbow trout (do they mean char?) and hot smoked mackerel. Also very tasty. Langoustine pan. This is where the meal goes south. These were probably the most overcooked langoustine I've ever had. So sad, and at that cost, rather infuriating. They were so poorly cooked that you almost lost the delicate sweetness that langoustines are prized for. Horse tenderloin with bernaise sauce (bernaise seems to be very popular in Iceland - it was everywhere). I think my wife stopped laughing at my "don't get saucy with me Bernaise" joke around the third time. It was sitting in a pool of demi-glace which made me wonder about the need for the bernaise. This was my first horse experience (on a plate) - I enjoyed it - very lean and tender, although we had it a few days later and I thought that one had better flavor.

Once you cook from it a bit, can you please let us know your thoughts about how the recipes come out?

The next day was the day to check out of this hotel and drive to the Hofn area, about 4 hours to the east. Since it was a driving day, we weren't in a hurry so I was able to get a full photo shoot of the full breakfast spread. 3 different varieties of skyr. Cod liver oil - this was available at every hotel we stayed in! Chia seed porridge - my wife became addicted to this and had this just about every day. I also had more bacon, Icelandic pancakes etc. like the day before. Some shots from the road: We even saw some wild horses running along the road... we just barely caught it on video: After a couple hours of driving, we stopped in the small town of Vik for some lunch. We stopped at a cafe called Halldorskaffi: The menu... it was an expensive lunch - the current rate of exchange is about 130 kr per US$. When they say trout, it's what we in the US would call arctic char. It was perfectly cooked and delicious - the char we had on this trip was easily the best I've had, probably because this fish was probably caught either the day before or that morning. Icelandic lamb fillet The interior. The lamb was really tender and flavorful - very lean. The root vegetables had a strong flavor of black pepper.

Yes, the flights were cheap, but I don't really remember how much since I bought them around January of 2020 - the trip originally scheduled for mid-July 2020.

Supposedly, they're really gentle as well. We saw a lot of them just lying down in the grass! Ha! We're a couple of nerds - luckily, you can get good practice walking around in NYC - helps to build endurance, as does walking up 6 flights of stairs every day! Snorkeling in general is pretty low impact. My scuba diving instructor in college was proudly overweight and out of shape. He used to say that diving is definitely not a high impact sport! What's also funny is that we both have a pretty irrational fear of heights but are suckers for really good views. Usually it's fine, but sometimes the trail goes by a steep drop off and and we basically just keep saying "don't look down; don't look down; don't look down!!!!" Also, the hiking poles were TOTALLY worth it - they give you a lot more stability and were pretty critical on this hike - especially when going up and down steep sections that were covered in snow. All of the rooms (4 different hotels) had blackout curtains which worked for better or for worse. Some of them were more effective than others. My wife always sleeps with a sleep mask, so she never had any issues, but I'm not a fan of them - but usually we were so tired, I fell asleep instantly anyway whether there was light in the room or not.

Yes, lots of free roaming sheep everywhere. And for some reason, they loved the grass right next to the road, even when there's acres and acres of untouched grass all around!!!

The next day we planned on a big hike in Landmannalager, inside the Fjallabak Nature Preserve. This is on the Laugavegur trail which is a multi-day trek. It's over a 2 hours drive from our hotel so we got up early - but we were still late enough to make the beginning of the hotel breakfast. It's a small hotel but they had a pretty good buffet with some Icelandic specialties as well as the usual standards - scrambled eggs, etc. I'm not usually a breakfast person (I never eat it usually) but since we're doing so much activity, I thought it was wise to stock up on calories. At the top left is the same tart that we had for lunch the previous day - it's got a short, crumbly texture with some kind of fruit jam. It wasn't too sweet but it was really tasty - I had it every day. Next to that is cured salmon with mustard sauce (I got a lot more salmon later on) some cured meats - ham, something resembling salami and something resembling Canadian bacon, then two Icelandic cheeses - a fantastic bleu - not too salty and really tangy, and an Icelandic camembert. At first, I thought the cheeses were imported from France, but then I saw these same cheeses in the supermarket and found them locally made. I guess the authorities in France haven't caught on to them using the term "Camembert"!!!! Also, some green tea. Our companion for breakfast - the hotel had two Icelandic sheepdogs (one the grandmother of the other). They had a great temperament and were very friendly. They were the welcoming committee when we first arrived. I don't know how, but they were somehow trained not to beg at the table or look at the food in any way. Second round of breakfast: Icelandic pancakes (like a crepe) with some really meaty local bacon, Icelandic butter and maple syrup. Obviously, the maple syrup was imported (from Canada I think) as Iceland doesn't have any maple trees. In fact we saw very few trees at all other than birch trees and some conifers - but a lot of low scrub type bushes and moss. Lots and lots of moss. Anyway, the pancakes were great and I had them every day in that hotel and missed them when I found the other hotels didn't have them. After breakfast, we got into our hiking gear and stopped at the supermarket to pick up snacks for lunch as we didn't know what we'd find when we got to Landmannalager. Unfortunately, I didn't think to take any photos of teh supermarket - we were kind of in a hurry to get going on the road. Once on the road, the scenery was very nice and changed constantly. Here's a hay field recently baled waiting for pickup: This area of Iceland has a lot of single lane bridges on the main highway... some more remote ones have a wood deck. Once you get about halfway to Landmannalager, you pull off the main paved highway onto what they call an F road. F roads are unpaved roads that have minimal care and are closed seasonally during winter. They typically go into the interior highlands. In order to drive on them, you need a 4-wheel drive car for sure, and many F roads have some unbridged river crossings as well. I wound up renting our car from a local Icelandic rental company since the international chains wouldn't allow driving on these roads, even if you purchase the full insurance and rent a 4x4 vehicle. The local company I used had several types of insurance - the one I got basically covered everything - even if we completely flooded the engine in a river crossing. It also gave us Wifi which had great coverage practically everywhere we went. Driving on the F roads were a lot of fun - you drive on them for about an hour or so on the way to Landmannalager... a little taste driving through the lava fields: Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads! Here's us pulling into the Landmannalager area: Once we got to the area, there's a parking lot and then 2 river crossing. Normally, considering our insurance, I would have attempted the river crossings but it seemed to be a little early in the season and there was still a ton of snow still melting making the water level pretty high. I watched a "super jeep" - like a Jeep Wrangler on steroids cross and the water got halfway up the door - and those tires were huge! So, we decided to park in the parking lot (we got the 2nd to last space there!) and walk the rest of the way - the rivers had small foot bridges. Before getting going, we decided to have "lunch" in the car as it was already past 12PM. A nice loaf - it was still warm when we picked it up at the supermarket! Amazing strawberries (from the Netherlands). They put our US strawberries to shame (except for home grown ones) Lamb sticks - these were fantastic. A dried, cured lamb sausage. We were looking for these the rest of the trip! The view for our picnic: There are a few possible hikes in Landmannalager - we were planning to do the Brennisteinsalda-Blahnukur loop, but because of the conditions, it made for slow going, so we only wound up going to the summit of Brennisteinsalda, a dormant volcano. It has great views of some of the rhyolite mountains around it and the hike goes through several different terrains. Because it was so early in the season (the F road to reach the area just opened a week or two before) there was still a lot of snow on the trail, some of which we definitely needed hiking poles to help us since it was pretty steep and slippery. Also, as it does in Iceland, it rained on and off, even though the above photo makes that kind of hard to believe. The weather changes really fast there! First on the trail is crossing a lava field: Some gorgeous views all along the way: We finally got to the summit, very happy to have made it as we're not very athletic and parts were quite challenging due to the conditions and the weather. And it finally stopped raining just as we got to the last stretch to the summit! When getting through the challenging sections, we told ourselves that if we made the summit, we'd get a reward.... here it is: This was maybe the toughest beef jerky I'd ever had in my life. Trying to rip it into pieces with your teeth is seemingly impossible for all but wolves and raptors. I found the best way to eat it was to put a small piece in my mouth and allow it to rehydrate a bit before trying to chew it. However, what it lacked in tenderness, it made up for it with the flavor which was very good. On the way back down, I got a good shot of some of the geothermal vents we passed along the way: By the time we made it back down to base camp, it was pretty late - although you couldn't tell by looking around. We realized that we probably wouldn't make it back to Selfoss, even to make the 11PM closing of the shawarma place in time, but luckily, the base camp had a small store with snacks so we decided to eat while driving back. This lamb jerky was just as tough as its beef counterpart, but had awesome flavor of thyme and other herbs. Who doesn't love fake potato chips? We had exhausted the drinks we had brought with us (about 1.5 liters each) so we got this - a local orange soda. It's actually quite refreshing and helped to keep me awake on the long drive back! This with the leftover lamb sticks and leftover bread became dinner.... We made it back to the hotel right around sundown - around 11:40PM!!! It never really got much darker than this the whole time we were there.

Not knowing what your other Scandinavian experiences have been, I would heartily recommend it. Our trip through southern Iceland was beautiful - and we had a lot of quite unique experiences. Some require a good level of activity (like hiking on an icefall (like a waterfall but ice) of Europe's largest ice cap but many can be viewed basically just off the main road.