Saturday, June 23, 2018

Powders, Trees, Ramsoms, and Salty Licorice

Let's start with beet powder: whenever you food needs a smackdown of class, sprinkle elegantly and damn - elk tartare beauty!
A big reason we went to Finland and Estonia was because they are food havens. Above, local mushroom soup, which looks like dirty water. Below - so much salmon!
We got to try local flavors, like spruce. I'm concerned that Canadians are missing a huge evergreen culinary opportunity, having now learnt you can eat trees. We also learned about ramsoms, shown below with scallop and celery, which are fun to say and eat.
Here, steaming spruce flavours to excite Barry's palate.
Despite Barry's glee, we did not eat here, so we still don't know what Estonian Eurasian cuisine is.
I like to try dishes that I could never ever make at home. This one is called: Tomato.
While we add maple syrup to our cocktails at home, naturally, the Finns and Estonians use salmiaki, so salty licorice, a taste I finally developed once finding it in booze.
We were less sure about the naming convention of the local chocolate bar and its connotations.
At Noa, in Tallinn, we had one of the top 5 meals of our lives. They invite you to meet the chefs and see the confusing preparation of this fire-oil cooked beef bundle.
In Finland, the default assumption is that the bill will be split, because their society is more advanced. In respect for this, we took a "Man behind the Woman" shot.