Aed - The Embassy of Pure Food

Aed is a wonderful place to have a dinner, if your wallet is not the thickets, but you want to eat well. They are serving great, simple food there and the prices are very reasonable. 

Try their cheese plate and risotto with the glass of wine. Don't forget the deserts..  

Great staff. 

Taste of Helsinki

Taste of ... is a food event which already took place in London, Sydney or Amsterdam and which now was in Helsinki for four days.

The idea is simple: 10 of the best (or famous) chef of Finland offer on the same site small bites of their best dishes. The 10 places which were there to feed us were Muru, Farang, Demo, Juuri, Smör (from Turku), Bistro O Mat (Kirkkonummi), Carelia, C (Tampere), Toscanini and Aito.

Some of these places we went already (not necessarily with a happy outcome), some we were planning to go to visit since a long time. So this event was perfect on the paper to allow us to try for cheap price what would cost us at least one to two days of salary for a dinner for two. Was it a success? We'll tell you soon.

First few words about the organization. We were extremely lucky to decide to go there on Saturday at the lunch session, the weather was amazing, it help a lot to spend a great time. The event was taking place in the park next to Musikkitalo, close to the very centre of Helsinki. Despite the small size of the area we did not feel too packed. The organizer were asking for a 25€ fee to get in (18€ if you booked your ticket in advance, and free for children under 12), which is a bit pricy but well what is not expansive in Helsinki?! To avoid any money flow within the festival area you had to change your euros against tokens (Mk, 1 Mk being 1 €). Not a bad system, but it was impossible to get your tokens changed back into euros, so a little bit of mathematic to be sure you don't have a couple of Mk left at the end was necessary (the cheapest meal was 4mk).

The very negative point about the organization was regarding the drinks. If you wished to taste some wine, cider or beer, you were required to rent a glass on site for the price of 7€. When you returned the glass, you got 5€. It was said that you could also take your glass home if you wanted. It was advertised as a very good deal as a glass costs nearly 15€/piece. But honestly, as selling with a loss in prohibited in the EU, it meant that the brand makes at least 10€ of margin every time they sell a glass...let's not tell the name of this brand, but the whole drink system was robbery, a sad point.

But enough about the money, let's talk about the food! We started with these green shell mussels served in a spicy coriander sauce from Farang. Farang is known from its Asian fusion kitchen, and as for when we visited them, it was very nicely done, tasting spicy and fresh enough (probably prepared well in advance and stored in the fridge waiting for hungry clients). A good choice for a happy start.

Even our little guest enjoyed Farang's mussels. 

Bistro O Mat offered us some fresh and tasty grilled prawn salad with a goat cheese. Fresh, tasty and simple. All of us loved it. This costed us 5mk.

This was a portion our little friend wasn't willing to share with her mother, she really liked it. This salmon pastrami from Aito was very clear and tasty. It tasted like the Spring or the beginning of Summer. The price was 5mk. 

Then we went to spend 5Mk in Carelia for some scallops cooked in hazelnuts butter. I personally found the scallops a little bit too cooked, but to be honest the hazelnuts butter simply blew my mouth. Very tasty, very well done, it surely give us more reason to go to visit Carelia for dinner. Our little guest loved this dish and chose it the best dish of the whole Taste of Helsinki. 

The passive vegetarian of us was still hungry before getting some dessert. So I let myself tempted by the piece of organic beef prepared by Bistro O Mat. The meat was prepared as a 'Boeuf mode' but slightly braised afterward with little bit sweet sauce. Simply delicious, make me rethink a lot of my bad thoughts about Finnish meat business (this is the part where I complain that it is almost impossible to get meat not already marinated in some weird liquid...but this is another topic). Again a place we might visit this summer.

One of our guest got also Toscanini's asparagus raviolis. Unfortunately, the photographer wasn't fast enough to take a picture of that meal. It was pretty basic, but tasty - though not a mind blower. 

And then came the time for some sweet threads. Unfortunately for the few readers of this blog, the best dessert disappeared from its plate before a camera could immortalized it. It was a Thai style marinated fruits served with a vanilla/coco cream dressing and some chef surprise sorbet. This dessert was prepared and served for you by Farang's chef himself Tomi Björck.

But you can also get hungry while looking at this very tasty milk-chocolate mousse spiced with black currant tea and served with a little bit of rhubarb.

Finally, to get rid of our four last tokens, we opted for the simple but delicious strawberry and meringue plate from Bistro O Mat. 

Unfortunately we did not visit all the place. All menus were not interesting us at the same level, some places did not leave us a good first impression in the past, and all together this one afternoon tasting event costed us almost the same as if we had go for a dinner at one of them!

But again the afternoon was surely a success; good food, amazing friends and the great weather are always a winning team.

Of course I could complain here again about the overpriced drink system or the fact that organizer should have encouraged people to reuse their knives and forks (even if they were 100% degradable it still creates a massive amount of waste).

To end our story let's mentioned that there was more than these 10 restaurants on the site- There were some stores/companies from where to buy drinks and delicates, not only as you could buy kitchenware or seasonal ice cream from a small vendor. I also want to mention that GoodPie Bakery was selling their bread there. This is another place, which we will talk more about in a next post as Helsinki bakery desertification seems to arrive to an end.

If Taste of Helsinki comes back next year, and if the weather is as splendid as last Saturday, go for it, it is worth it.

Café Cardemumma

It was a Saturday or a Sunday morning, when we were thinking to get some early breakfast. Just a cup of coffee and croissant would have been enough, but unfortunately it's not easy to find such a thing like that on the weekend before ten o'clock. We ended up walking up and down in Kallio and Hakaniemi and finally we found our saviour: Café Cardemumma. Of course it was already ten by the time we found what we wanted. 

You can find this cafe is on Kaarlenkatu, almost at the crossroad of Helsinginkatu. They serve the breakfast (and brunch) starting in the weekend morning already at ten. Though the lovely workers/ owners told us that they come to the cafe already at last at seven in the morning to bake, so if one is very, very hungry and craving for a cup of coffee, it might be possible to have something even then. 

Anyway, our a cup of coffee + croissant changed quickly to the brunch. A plate with meat (13,50 euros) and a plate without meat (10,50 euros). There are also a bit some nicely done rice porridge, smoothies, fruit salad and croissants. You will fill up yourself easily with these and you won't be hungry at the lunch time. 

We also recommend their lunch salads (one of the best in the town) and their home made pies and pastries. 

Patrona

Spring is final here, you are dreaming of sun, and if you think about the sun you are thinking nice beach, hot weather and why not a magarita and some spicy food...mexican food!

the problem always been that so called mexican food in Helsinki was trusted by bad and expensive chains, not really an intersting option. Luckily since few months, a group a South American migrant had the good idea to open a new and real mexican restaurant 'Patrona'!

Well located on Annankatu, right ín the centre of Helsinki the place is pretty well decorated in a traditional mexican style (or cliché) with the tradtional skeleton painting on the wall and lively colours.

And as we already mentioned, good mexican food in Helsinki was a non existing thing before this place, which creates a problem here. On top of the buzz made by such a place, it becomes almost impossible to pop in the place and get a table. Reservation are almost al week long the only way to get a table. This is very good to hear for the people running the place, they are succefull, but personnaly when I think Mexico or even just 'latino' I have a more spontaneous idea in mind. It is perfectly fine to have the opportunity to book a table in a restaurant, it is even an asset, but perhaps the place is missing something if they don't pay attention to passing by customers who just would like a table now, if there is room. Well maybe this will be improved in the future, the place is still pretty new.

The owners are Finnish-Mexican couple. The staff is mostly south american (Mexican, Chilean...) and a bit Finnish. Appart from this detail the staff is extremly friendly and helpfull explaining you about every dishes, giving you advices on which wine to choose with your meal, which is really nice plus.

But let's talk about the food!

The place is perfect for a nice dinner so why not starting with a cocktail, like a nice margarita. Probably some of the best in town.

The starters are very tasty and served in a perfect size. We went fro guacamole and nachos on one side and a metled cheese and mushroom place on the other. Nothing to say here except 'yummy'!

Then went the main course. As one of us is vegetarian, the basic 'Enchiladas de Pollo' (chicken) meal was changed to Enchiladas de Queso' (cheese) meal, if you can say so. It was pretty good, even if perhaps a bit too cheesy. On my side I was curious about one specialty the 'Enchiladas de Pollo al Mole', a chocolate sauce based dish with chicken.

Well I have to say that after the fireworks that were the margarita and the starters both these main courses tasted a bit like a disappointment. But still don't get me wrong, the place is probably the best mexican option the Helsinki.

One last thing, the wine list. We tried a Californian red and a Italian one. Both were pretty good and suiting pretty well our dishes. Nevertheless, in a environment friendly mind, it feels a bit bad to see a wine list which only had 1 European choice (this Italian). It is understandable that as a South american you wish to propose wine from your home, as most likely French or Italian restaurants in America might propose a large list of European wine. But still, there are good and bad wines a bit everywhere nowadays and perhaps we should all go for the most local production.

Anyway as a conclusion we definitely recommend you to book a table in Patrona, you will spend a very nice evening!

Yobot

Frozen yogurt! It's good, healthy (?) and cold. In Helsinki there has been already one frozen yogurt place called Kippo, but it didn't impress us - we should pay another visit there. Now there has been opened a new small frozen yogurt place in Töölö, very close to the Helsinki's Opera. This small place is called Yobot and it works a bit differently compared to the places in Berlin for example. Yobot counts on self service: you take a cup, get some frozen yogurt (the machine is one of these soft ice machines) and choose the fillings you wish to have. Last Sunday there wasn't that many fresh berries and fruits, but candies, chocolate, mueslis, defrost berries, nuts, dried fruits etc. After this you go to the cashier, your cup will be weighted and you pay. At the moment a 100 grams costs 3 euros. 

I hope that there will be soon fresh fruits and berries (especially during the summer), because this place makes happy people. Yobot is open everyday until 7pm.