Trip: Europe 2023
On our travel day by train, we always look for a bakery for take-outs for the train ride. We found Hisar Backhaus that had convenient opening hours and good reviews.
We ordered a couple of sandwiches and some baklava for our lunch on the train.
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| Hisar Backhaus bakery |
Recommendations: This was a good bakery for sandwiches-to-go. They open very early every morning so it's great to grab-and-go before a trip. The baklavas are very sweet (I think they are supposed to be.)
Trip: Europe 2023
"When in Hamburg, eat a hamburger," we said. We looked it up, and hamburgers did originate from Hamburg, Germany in the 1900's under the name of "Hamburg steak."
Otto's Burger was known for using fresh and handmade ingredients, and its burgers are always juicy and cheesy. We decided to see for ourselves.
Recommendations: Very juicy burger, excellent fries with garlic aoli sauce. The lemonades were super refreshing. If you are in the mood for a burger in Hamburg, stop by Otto's Burger. We could not get outdoors seating (full) but there were plenty of seating indoors.
For our vegetarian family and friends reading this, every Otto's burger comes in a vegetarian version.
Trip: Europe 2023
We went for a beer at Groeninger Brewery, the oldest brewery in Hamburg since 1722. They brew their Groeninger Pils and served from tap from old oak barrels.
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| German Groeninger Pils beer |
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| Delicious Groeninger bar food |
Trip: Europe 2023
Frau Moeller was the first restaurant we went to in Hamburg Germany.
We picked it because it was conveniently located near our hotel, and its menu had many Northern Germany specialties like fried potatoes, currywurst, labskaus, ofendkartoffel, apfelstrudel.
Trip: Europe 2023
Andersen Bakery early opening hours fit our needs as this was our last morning in Copenhagen.
They were known for their croissants (chocolate, caramel, apple croissants) and their Fastelavnsboller that we discovered was seasonal (and not in-season.)
Their various croissants were pretty good, but we were disappointed by their chocolate croissant, which we did not realize had chocolate pudding as filling.
Our hotel offered a really nice free breakfast buffet, so we brought our pastries back to the hotel and ate them along with the hotel breakfast.
Recommendations: Go if convenient. The bakery was a 15-minute walk from our hotel, so it was convenient for us. No need to go if this is out of your way.
Trip: Europe 2023
TorvehallerneKBH is the fresh food market in Copenhagen. We enjoyed the food markets in Spain last year, so we continue to seek out other food markets during our travel to Europe.
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| TorvehallerneKBH |
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| Our lunch: Smorrebrod and salmon/tuna tartare |
This was a nice light meal to recover from Geranium.
Recommendations: A nice place to walk around and window shop. Good opportunities to sample Danish food.
Trip: Europe 2023
Juno the Bakery, owned by former Noma pastry chef Emil Glaser, does not even have a store sign. And yet, you can tell something special is going on there, as the long line winds around the side of the building, and people lucky enough to have ordered their pastries and bread are shooting close-ups and selfies.
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| Juno the Bakery |
Recommendations: Get there earlier than we did (12 noon). They ran out of chocolate croissants, so I can only imagine how amazing it was based on their regular croissant that was light like air and so flaky.
One reason to return to Copenhagen for us is to make up for not getting to Juno early enough.
Trip: Europe 2023
When we booked our trip to Copenhagen based on the cheapest flight to Europe, we had no idea that Copenhagen was a top culinary destination.
During our research, we learned that Copenhagen is home to Noma, voted the best restaurant in the world for multiple years.
And that Geranium is the second Copenhagen restaurant to take home a World's Best Restaurant accolade. The restaurant is in the middle of Copenhagen, on the 8th floor of a building that houses the Danish national soccer stadium, and overlooks the beautiful gardens. It earned its three Michelin stars in 2016, and achieved its status of best restaurant in the world in 2022.
Reservations for Geranium open 90 days in advance, at 6pm local time, and reservations run out within the first 5 minutes of opening. Pre-payment is required to confirm.
We took too long deciding between lunch and dinner, and ended up on the waiting list. If you are on the waiting list, make sure to start checking your email the same day, as openings are first come first serve. We did not do so, and missed our opportunity. It took a bit of luck a few days later to grab an opening for lunch on the only day we were available.
The menu is expected to take 3-4 hours long. There were 23 courses, meat-free, focusing solely on local seafood and vegetables from organic farms in Denmark and Scandinavia.
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| Our dressed up travel clothes for Geranium |
Our meal took 4 hours long, as we added the "Fruit & Vegetables" non-alcoholic pairing.
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| Our menu |
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| Appetizers |
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| Apple and kale pairing |
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| Savoury Servings with juice pairing |
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| Tour of the kitchen |
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| Onion turned into art |
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| Savoury servings with fruit pairing |
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| Sweets |
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| Sweets |
Trip: Europe September 2023
Since Noma, the three-Michelin star restaurant run by chef Rene Redzepi, is all booked up through the end of 2024 when they will close down, we did the next best thing.
We booked a reservation at POPL Burger, serving Noma's burgers, for our first night in Copenhagen.
POPL Burger is a 15-minute walk from Noma, and their most popular order is the cheeseburger, made with a potato bun and dry-aged flank steak seasoned with beef garum before being cooked in butter and topped with organic cheedar cheese, red onion, and a burger sauce of mayo, tomato sauce and pickles. Don't ask them to add lettuce and tomato, because they won't customize it in any way for you.
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| POPL Burger behind an outdoor food court |
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| Lion's Mane (left) and cheeseburger (right) |
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| A better view of the mushroom patty in Lion's Mane |
If you are in the NJ area, please check out Valenca, an excellent Portuguese restaurant recommended by our friend Natalia.
Natalia grew up in Mozambique, and highly recommended the prawns, cooked Mozambique style.
We have been to this restaurant several times, when we used to drive to NYC for the Chinese 9-man mini-tournament. The last time we came here was in 2016.
On our road trip to Maine this year, we decided to stop here again. And the grilled prawns sauteed in garlic whine sauce were still amazing. You should definitely order this. It is served over broccoli rabe, with a spicy Mozambique sauce, and a side of seasoned rice and homemade potato chips. It is delicious.
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| Gambas à moçambique |
The second dish we ordered was the house special: filet mignon over a hot stone. If we were to do this again, we would order something different. We had to do all the work, making sure not to overcook our steak. We did slice the steak into thin slice and seared both sides, but that was a lot of hard work.
Our recommendation is to let the chef cook the meat for us, and skip the hot stone.
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| Filet mignon na pedra |
We had no room left for dessert, so no recommendation there.
Trip: Europe May 2022
On our last night in Madrid, we met up with Cat for dinner at a Taco place next to the restaurant we went to on our first night in Madrid. We came here because we heard that Mat and his family wanted to try this, and we wanted to be social and meet Mat's parents and twin sister.
We walked to the restaurant and got there around 8PM, but it was still not open. We waited a while, not knowing if they would open or not.
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| Tacos Al Pastor |
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| Nachos con Guacamole |
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| Crepe dessert |
