Great Scott's take on the best places to eat in Helsinki

[jounip]

Or am I just mixing in the wrong circles?

Try the Dutch!

When you are invited for coffee - the hostess will go to the big cabinet in the corner with the 'show glasses' etc - and on the top of that cabinet will be a tin box of cookies - she will take it down and then go around to all the guests and offer - you are to take ONE - after she has gone around she will put the cover on and put the box back on top of the cabinet.

This scene was repeated in probably a dozen different homes,

Or try the Germans!

I stayed with a young Berlin couple once and they banged on my door the first morning at 6 AM! to ask how many brötchen/semmel/sämpylät I wanted for breakfast - they were going downstairs to the bakery to buy them - price about 10-15 pfennig each.

[ajdias]

The bottom line of my comments (pun intended) is mid-priced rstaurants can make good or bad food - as they like or know how - quite regardless of the ingredient prices - and so can give you a bit larger portion if that would be one's wish

I won't be the one saying that restaurants regard their clients health highly but this is an interesting side effect: changing the size of a serving container for food increases consumption as much as 74 percent. A bigger bowl of stale popcorn: 53%."
We will be seing a lot more of smaller portions around in restaurants and supermarkets

[sammy]

We will be seing a lot more of smaller portions around in restaurants and supermarkets

... but when will we see some bacalhau in the local shops?

[ajdias]

We will be seing a lot more of smaller portions around in restaurants and supermarkets

... but when will we see some bacalhau in the local shops?

Head to hakaniemi oriental shops, Maharaja (?) in hämentie has cod - although thin as I have never seen before. And although technically a subsistute they also have saithe that looks more like the real thing - and bellow 8 euros a kilo. Gotta love those oriental shops.

[sammy]

We will be seing a lot more of smaller portions around in restaurants and supermarkets

... but when will we see some bacalhau in the local shops?

Head to hakaniemi oriental shops, Maharaja (?) in hämentie has cod - although thin as I have never seen before. And although technically a subsistute they also have saithe that looks more like the real thing - and bellow 8 euros a kilo. Gotta love those oriental shops.

Hmm, maybe I'll try it out (have never, ever prepared any myself - but there was bacalhau galore in the Bergen fish market, so maybe a move to Norway would be advisable? )

Here's one of the 1000 ways to prepare bacalhau, if anyone is wondering what it is... courtesy of Via Graca, Lisboa! *yum yum*

[jounip]

Since even FRESH cod has even a minimum of taste - that dried, soaked, etc. - must have even less.

Ergo - it is - in these Iberian/Italian cod dishes just a medium to carry the other flavors of vegetables, spices and herbs - so I've been told.

Thus - could one also possibly use pike - which has to place very high on the list of flavorless fishes? I'm wondering about the texture - I don't think cod has any more firmness or chewiness than pike.

BTW - have you caught the latest Lidl import - herring roll-mops? Quite different from the usual Scandinavian maustesilli etc. - in taste and texture - but you had better like vinegar!

[Hank W.]

Head to hakaniemi oriental shops, Maharaja (?) in hämentie has cod - although thin as I have never seen before. And although technically a subsistute they also have saithe that looks more like the real thing - and bellow 8 euros a kilo. Gotta love those oriental shops.

Dang. Now my only excuse of not making a few stinky recipes out of my cookbook have gone.

[sammy]

Since even FRESH cod has even a minimum of taste - that dried, soaked, etc. - must have even less.

Ergo - it is - in these Iberian/Italian cod dishes just a medium to carry the other flavors of vegetables, spices and herbs - so I've been told.

Well, the few times I did taste bacalhau in Portugal, the cod itself was not, as you said, of a very strong taste (but this is not to say it was tasteless!)

But I can tell you that when dried, it seems to have maximum stink

[jounip]

tasteless

You mean you could actually notice a distinct taste of cod - just as one can 'taste' salmon, trout, mackeral, whitefish, etc.?

[sammy]

You mean you could actually notice a distinct taste of cod - just as one can 'taste' salmon, trout, mackeral, whitefish, etc.?

Nah, not in that sense, of course - but it did taste somewhat... fishy

I wouldn't really be able to say, as I haven't tasted it without any added spices etc. The portion in Via Graca was delicious, though. Garlic galore!

[jounip]

So you are saying what I have heard - the cod is a 'vehicle' to carry all the other goodies --

So it is with pike - all the baked pike dishes I've seen in Finland are really 'selling' the stuff added

So one might try to use pike in dishes that are otherwise calling for cod

Chicken is sometimes 'accused' of that too - but I seem to have noted that there are chickens (were they free range?) that jad their own taste.

[Hank W.]

Yeah, people always complaining of pike being "wood plank" it is one fish you need to make with butter and cream and throw away all the anorexia diet cookbooks forbidding this and that.

[jounip]

But would you say that one actually doesn't taste the PIKE - but rather the butter, cream, thyme, garlic etc?

[larsonmikael]

Ravintola Paaposti in Posti building.

Perhaps lunch only.

Finnish, affordable, great taste! Recommended!

[carolinemaher]

I notice a few people have listed Namaskar on Bulevardi as best place in Helsinki for a curry, it may be that I come from an area in east London renowned for its Indian restaurants so was spoilt for choice, but the meal I ate in Namaskar was a joke, I don't know, maybe they had dragged someone in off the street to cook that night as the chefs hadn't turned up for work, but the food we had was absolutely revolting, I wouldn't serve it to a dog!! Any other suggestions where you can get decent Indian food in Helsinki?