Food, Friends and Family, Plants
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Stockholm Mama- Part I: The Food

Yeah, I’m pretty sure my mother is gonna kill me for half of these shots!

EEEEEXCELLENT.

Ok, so way back in Summer I made a very short trip up to Stockholm, mostly because my mother was visiting the city on her way North (for a long and extravagant Arctic Expedition), and could not be bothered seeing Berlin yet again.

“Sure”, I thought. “I shall go to Stockholm, and eat me some Fish.”

And So I Did.   

Ok, so I must admit that this wasn’t my first fish-flavoured meal of the trip. In fact, I arrived, and almost immediately helped myself to an open sandwich absolutely overflowing with shrimps.

But I guess I ate it too fast.

Anyway, these sandwiches are from Nystekt Strömming, a small kiosk on the water’s edge of Gamla Stan, right opposite the Sodermalm island.

This is the Skåning: fried herring with mustard and onions on rye bread. The place, and this meal in particular were recommended to me long ago by my friend Bonnie, and I stand by her suggestion. If you go to Stockholm, get yourself some skåning!

So here’s the thing.

Although I like fish as much as the next person (or maybe more than the next person, given that the person next to me is probably in Germany and the fish here is pretty darn horrible), my true heart belongs only to Kardemummabullar.

Perfect yeasty pastries wrapped in intricate shapes to achieve a miraculous mixture of crunchy and moist.

Think you don’t like cardamon?

You’re probably wrong.

These beauties- a cardamon and a cinnamon bun- are from Bageri Petrus. If you google something like ‘best Kardemummabullar in Stockholm’ this place will come up near the top of many lists. Which is not something I would argue with.

Look. At. Them!  

As you can seed, we didn’t stop at only ordering the buns, but also hit up a croissant and an escargot. Both of which were the delightful mix of soft and crispy.

Check out how happy my mother looks at that shell situation!

To be honest, everything was so good*, that we actually tried to go back to Petrus a second time during our short stay, but alas! it was closed. (Sundays).

*I must note that to coffee was not good. Or at least we did not care for it. Save yourself some pain and go around the corner to Drop Coffeehouse or somewhere else.

Here’s a final closeup:

Aaaand, one more shot with a bun:

Honestly, this was just a standard cafe. Which is one of the ways that Stockholm is WINNING. Where there be cafes, there be cardamon buns.

It is important to me that you know, that although I was only in Stockholm for four days, I managed to have cardamon buns on at least four occasions.

I will accept your congratulations in the form of more cardamon buns. 

Check it! More Buns! This time of the ‘plain bread’ kind, but also of the ‘super fancy because they come on a stick’ kind.

On the last evening we hit up Rolfs Kök (which sounds unfortunate in English, but really just means kitchen in Swedish), as a way of celebrating Mum’s retirement (woohoo!!!).

We didn’t book, so had to wait for something like 45 minutes- but given that they were happy to take our mobile and call us when a table freed up, we pretty happily helped ourselves to g+t and wine at a (weird) bar down the road.

I’m pretty sure that the change the menu seasonally (always a good sign!) because I can’t find the exact meals we ate, but we started with a tuna tartar (above), and ended up eating our fill of Arctic char, and the most amazingly soft and delicious pork I’ve had in my life. Both with appropriate sides.

All in in, an amazing meal, which definitely left me with a feeling that I should eat fancy once in a while.

Ok, here’s the final ‘breakfast’ before I left Stockholm back to D-land.

You guessed it!

More Kardemummabullar!!

Also a bakery, this little shop has everything your little hipster heart could desire, including drinkable coffee.

This time, we took not only the cardamon and cinnamon balls, but also an apple one. All pretty great.

Also great (and a good sign of a good hipster coffeshop in my view)?

The plants.

Specifically this guy:

Oh My!

Isn’t she lovely?

I love all things plants, and I love all things spots. I also am in completely in awe of this plant, (a Begonia maculata), because I honestly do not even understand how it can possibly produce such perfect little polkas.

In any case, who wants to guess what I bought myself for my Birthday?

5 Comments

  1. Pingback: Stockholm and the road to Oslo – Fish with Whiskey

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