American Diner

You know that sometimes it's very refreshing to have a hamburger meal. I am not thinking of any McDonald nor Hesburger meals, but a real restaurant hamburger with homemade chips. I was visiting my sister sometime ago in Tampere. There is a restaurant, where we end up, when we're graving for junk food. This place is American Diner. Its decoration seems to be pretty authentic American diner, at least it feels authentic for me, who's never been in U.S.

And the food. I had a spicy vegetarian cheese burger with chips and my sister got a meat hamburger with bacon and garlic. She loved her burger (it did the work) and mine vegetarian version was fine as well. Maybe the totally white wheat bread is a bit too white for my taste and I found the chips better than the burger itself.

This time we didn't have any desert there, because we had planned to taste some real ice-cream made by a local ice-cream factory. But if you have space in your tummy, try their tasty milkshakes or pancakes. Yummy!

American Diner


(unfortunatelly we were so happy to eat that we forgot to take any pictures).

2h+k, Tampere

2h+k in Tampere is an interesting restaurant. It's good, it could be very good, but there few minor (but extremely important) things, which could be done better. 

First of all let's talk about the place. Nice and cosy, it kind of feel like in a 2 rooms +kitchen appartment (except that we would love to be able to fit that many people in our flat); Anyway good points for the general atmosphere. The staff is very friendly and concerned about your confort (maybe a bit too much...).

The card itself is simple but with some very tempting choices. Here was our table choice:

Entrée: Escargots à l'ail

Well well well, our 3 pairs of eyes were first excited about the dishe. Excitement was short time feeling. First of of the snails were served (and most probably cooked) without the shell resulting a very mild taste of garlic. Then the plate was covered by a cheesy crust, not bad at all but a bit surprising. anyway that was a good way to start the diner.

Plats de resistance:

_Chanterelles Risotto

_Roquefort Pasta

_Shrimp lobster tagliatelles

Here things started to be a bit funky. First of all, there has been hardly 3 minutes from the time our starter plate disappeared until the meal were served...a bit too fast for the full enjoyment of the meal and maybe also a bit too fast for fresh cooking...unless the meal are prepared way ahead and simply warmed up...

Anyway risotto was quite good! Not the best ever but definitly on the top of the basket. 

Roquefort Pasta were tasty even if it felt a bit like home made food; but home made food can be so good! The problem started realy with the shrimp&lobster tagliatelles. The Tagliatelles happened to be...fusillis and thus without any explanation from the kitchen. The meal was good but, something was missing.

After all this we still had a small hunger, and also some wine to finish so we went for a 3 cheeses plate. The selection of cheeses is short but interesting. The only thing is that it is served to you without any explanation from the waiter which cheese is what!? So read carefully your cheese encyclopedia before you book a table;)

But the most shocking thing was probably the absence of bread with the cheese, which was served with...crackers! Come on, do we look like Wallace and Gromit?! Only Brits can eat cheese with crackers, civilized people eat cheese with a good slice of bread!

As a conclusion, and despite few bad points, 2h+k is a very good value, probably one restaurant I would recommand in Tampere.

7/10

Pizzeria Napoli, Tampere

Once we've driven 400 km to eat these pizzas - Pizzeria Napoli in Tampere is famous for their pizzas, at least among the Tampere citizens. This restaurant has slightly kitsch decorations, their pizza list is the longest in Finland (100 different pizzas) and their pizzas are good - some versions excellent. For example a pizza with artichokes, forest mushrooms, asparagus and rucola is very tasty, though the pizza with cold smoked salmon tend to become a bit too fat and boring.

Lovely place to enjoy pizza!

Pyynikin Näkötornin Kahvila, Tampere

You would like to walk a bit in the fresh air, enjoy the forest, ridge landscape and some beautiful old wooden houses in Tampere? You wouldn't mind, if you got a cup of coffee and a pastry after your hike?

Well, go to Tampere, look for Pyynikki and a tower there. From that small cafe downstairs of the observation tower you will get the best coffee with munkki (Finnish doughnut) in Tampere. The munkki is maybe the best in the whole Finland. 

Pyynikki Observation tower cafe

Maruseki

Japanese restaurant Maruseki in Tampere had disappointed us some years ago with unfresh fish or the feeling that you might be eating fish, which is not fresh anymore. Now we wanted to give a second chance for this restaurant, which had moved to a new, bigger (!!) place in Tampere. I was pretty sceptical   beforehand - why restaurant moves to a bigger place, if they can't make good and fresh food in the small place, how they could do it in a big place?

Well, First May we went to give it a try.

For a starter we all took misoshiru, a miso soup. Nice and tasty soup for a starter or along your nigiris and makis. For the main course we had different kind of sushi sets plus some extra favourites like avocado makirolls, roe nigiris etc. As a drinks we had different kind of Japanese beers and ginger tea.

So what is the verdict? We took different kind of sushi set. One went for a fish free set, the other for a fish set.
The sushis were huge, maybe too big actually (needed 3 bites to be abbe to swallow a Inari sushi!) and the rice spent maybe too much time in the vinegar. But then the vegetarian sushi set (with some maki, avocado sushis, Inari, tamagoyaki...). Despite of their huge size most of them were pretty good. Only the tamagoyaki got a red card as the omelette definitly seemed to be escape form egg powder bag and not made out of real eggs.

But then, when it is about the usual essence of sushi, fish, things turned bad. Salmon sushi were ok, but not the best ever. then the ebi or the shiromis definitly did not look or taste fresh. And that's the sad thing. Maruseki has kind of monopoly in the centre of Tampere and does not make the needed effort to propose the best sushis in town to its customers. Moreover, the restaurant decoration itself give the same feeling: at first it look nice with all the separate rooms, but then when you look closer it looks that it is not finished or that it has been made in a very cheap way. The service though is very friendly and professional.

Tampere definitly deserve a better sushi place, so if you know one feel free to tell us which one! We love Tampere and we love sushi, would be great to love them at the same time!