Juuri Sapas is a not quite Michelin starred newbie on the Helsinki scene. Popular and recommended by some of my husband’s gourmand cousins, we were eager to try it. Sapas is like tapas, albeit slightly smaller, small plates of food.

We’re meeting my husband’s cousins whom he hasn’t seen in about 20 years. They’re Helsinki natives and love fine dining and a good drop of wine so we are eager to take advantage of their knowledge of the city. The menu is contemporary Finnish cuisine with a lot of local ingredients and native foods which makes it rather exciting. All 4 mains are savoury and sweet and have meat combined with a fruit in some way. There are some little issues, a couple of people at the table have to ask for new plates as they were given dirty ones, my husband having to ask for a new plate twice.

The Sapas are €3.50 each and we choose the Lingonberry marinated salmon on maltbread, tarragon garlic oil; raspberry marinated arctic char with radish sauce; smoked small perche from Pielinen with egg sauce; crayfish cottage cheese filled cabbage leaves with melted dill butter; fresh sausages a la Juuri with vodka mustard; terrine of reindeer liver with jelly made of berries; smoked lamb with gooseberry jam.

Array of 3 breads

Carrot butter

We’re given a large basket of 3 different breads with a carrot butter. The carrot butter is interesting, distinctly carroty in taste but with the creaminess of butter.

Lingonberry marinated salmon on maltbread, tarragon garlic oil €3.50

The salmon is gorgeous, lightly sweetened with the lingonberries and perched on top of the maltbread which soaks up the tarragon and garlic oil nicely. It’s much better than regular marinated salmon.

Raspberry marinated arctic char with radish sauce €3.50

The slender slice of arctic char resembles salmon in texture but is a whitefish. I’m not usually a fan of radishes but the sauce is creamy enough but still retains the radish flavour.

Smoked small perche from Pielinen with egg sauce €3.50

The small smoked fish are intensely flavoured whilst the egg sauce is an interesting accompaniment. The fish aren’t too dry and the sauce is delicious.

Crayfish cottage cheese filled cabbage leaves with melted dill butter €3.50

The stuffed cabbage leaves resembles a small spring roll but the taste is distinctly different. The sauce is gloriously delicious, with a honeyed tone to it. It’s one of my favourite dishes as well as my husband’s although anything with crayfish is a winner with me.

Fresh sausages a la Juuri with vodka mustard €3.50

The tiny sausages aren’t particularly distintive and the mustard isn’t particularly vodka-ey. It’s a bit of a disappointment given there are so many other delicious dishes.

Terrine of reindeer liver with jelly made of berries €3.50

The pate like reindeer liver terrine is delicious and unusual. Distinctly different from other liver terrines or pates it is enhanced by the berry jelly. If only we had some little toast points to eat it with.

Smoked lamb with gooseberry jam €3.50

The smoked lamb is very smokey in aroma and I’m not sure about the gooseberry jam with it. Although the lamb is delicious when I dip it in the other sauces.

Grilled salsify with rosehip jam €3.50

Pike quenelle in wild herb bouillion €3.50

Beetroot and nut stew with small mushrooms €3.50

Eggcheese spiced with oregano baked on top of straws €3.50

Willowherb asparagus €3.50

Roasted swede with cauliflower puree €3.50

Mains menu

The mains we choose are the Wild Boar Ribs with apple butter and vegetables cooked in beef stock, Organic Lamb Tenderloin with dark orange bolete sauce and fried organic barley porridge and Artic Char (a fish native to Finland) braised in whitecurrant wine, jeruselum artichoke puree, beetroot sauce and parsnip chips.

Wild Boar Ribs with apple butter and vegetables cooked in beef stock €22.50

My Wild boar ribs with apple puree, dutch carrots and other vegetables are absolutely divine, sticky sweet and soft they completely conquer regular pork ribs or any other ribs I’ve had. I almost sob that I know that I can’t get them in Australia and I begrudgingly give some to my sister and husband, knowing that they will love them too.

Organic Lamb Tenderloin with dark orange bolete sauce and fried organic barley porridge €25.50

The Lamb is soft and tenderly pink inside and the accompaniment of fried porridge is delicious. It’s similar to fried polenta but softer and stickier. Like Chinese radish cake or something similar in texture although not in taste. The dark orange bolete sauce is a midly sweet accompanying sauce.

Artic Char braised in whitecurrant wine, jeruselum artichoke puree, beetroot sauce and parsnip chips €22.50

The fantastic looking Arctic Char with a streak of fuchsia beetroot puree as mentioned before tastes like salmon whilst being a whitefish.The artichoke puree and beetroot sauce not only providing visual contrast  to the fish but also flavour that never overpowers the fish.

Fried perch fillets with Finnish original onion and tomato salad, rhubarb sauce and new potatoes €22.50

Dessert menu

Chocolate cake de capo with seabuckthorne mousse €7

Although we are full we can’t pass up on the desserts-there’s one that has caught my eye-the chocolate cake de capo with seabuckthorn mousse. My husband’s cousins tell us the seabuckthorne is actually used in a medicinal sense-whenever someone is feeling ill or coming down with something, they take some seabuckthorne juice. So not only is it tasty but good for you. The chocolate cake resembles a brownie and the mousse a sweet slightly tangy tamarillo mousse. It’s finished with a streak of thick butterscotch sauce.

Selection of Finnish cheeses and crowberry jelly €7.50

My sister orders the cheese plate and when it arrives, with 4 small cubes of cheese with crowberry jelly €7.50. I don’t have the heart to ask her to share any of her tiny 4 cubes with me and she reports back that 1 was “ok” but the rest were unmemorable. She actually wanted to spit out one of the hard cheeses. Not to mention the tiny portions. The crowberry jelly is more like a syrup than a jelly and honeyed in taste although the consistency doesn’t lend itself to all of the cheeses.

Seasonal sorbet Rhubarb €5

We sample some of the Rhubarb sorbet, intriguingly it’s a forest green shade. it tastes like a fruit and vegetable juice, almost like parsley or another herb has been added to the rhubarb.

Rosehip and white chocolate ice cream with marinated strawberries €7

Later, we head off to Mecca bar, an ultra chic and a bit posey bar populated by Helsinki’s beautiful people. We’re persuaded to try the Sweet Salty licorice drink. It’s a glisteningly black tar shot glass and even the smell at a short distance is heady with aniseed. I take a sip, after all I’m not a big licorice fan and indeed it is just like the salty sweet licorice lollies. My husband adores this and wants to buy a bottle.

We leave whilst the night is still young, after all in the Midnnight Sun season, night never falls.

Juuri Sapas

Korkeavuorenkatu 27
00130 Helsinki
Tel. +358 9 635732
www.juuri.fi
Reservation: ravintola@juuri.fi
Seats: 34+6
Open: Mon-Fri 11–24, Sat 12–24, Sun 14–20

One of the most irresistible things to do for some people in Helsinki is apparently to sun yourself outside of a cafe, Parisian style, watching the passing traffic, face upturned to the sun as if watching a giant movie screen. My husband thought that the sight of it was so hilarious that he took pictures of them. It’s where Helskinki goes to pose and posture.

Hotel Kämp is Helsinki’s premier hotel, built in 1887 by Carl Kämp and then rebuilt in 1965. It is the place for the wealthy, social elite (rooms start at €500). It is steeped in history {http://www.cosmopolis.ch/travel/helsinki/hotel_kamp_111.htm} with its rich and sumptuous surroundings, after a hard day pounding the cobblestones touristing, we enter the hotel, delighted that the serenity.

The menu is surprisingly reasonable given the surroundings. I am itching for some seafood so my husband and I share the Royal Seafood platter €39.80, the crayfish soup €9.80 and my sister has a burger craving so she orders the €21.

The soup arrives first and is spooned from a small silver tureen into a chic patterned rim bowl. The soup is richly and deeply flavoured, an ode to the crayfish. A definite winner.

It takes a while before the seafood platter and burger arrives, we’re not sure why as we are eating early and it’s relatively empty. We take some time to peruse our opulent surroundings, oddly there are huge shag pile rugs under the tables, we can only think what kind of cleaning nightmare they would be should a diner spill something on them or drop crumbs.

The bread given to us is lovely and fresh, the butter simply gorgeous as Finnish butter is uniformly.

Our platter and burger finally arrives, the platter piled high with prawns (smoked and unsmoked), oysters, 1/2 a small lobster (and we mean small) and mussels. We dig into the platter, the 2 precious oysters are large and creamy, the mussels sweet albeit small, the lobster doesn’t have a great deal of lobster meat so we savour what is there and the prawns are unusual-the smoked version being extremely smoked (we find that Finnish smoked items are very smokey in flavour) and the natural prawns sweet with soft shells.

What is interesting is the amount of tiny sweet roe clinging to each prawn, it’s very sweet and delicious. The 4 sauces are: Aioli, a runny thousand island, a red onion vinaigrette and a blood orange sauce. The aioli is my favourite although the red onion vinaigrette is a natural for the oysters.

The burger is actually not made up with a burger patty, it’s thin slices of rareish beef. Blythe finds it strange and not quite burger like enough. Also the chips are very dry and usually a chip lover, she leaves most behind.

The restaurant starts to fill, with elegantly dressed people seeking a drink or a meal outside of the brief rain shower outside. And of coursethere are still people outside watching the crowd scuttle past with umbrellas, like watching a movie.

Kämp Café & Bar

OPENING HOURS

Mon - Fri 11.30 - 24.00 a la carte menu
Sat - Sun 12.00 - 24.00 a la carte menu

BAR OPENING HOURS

Mon-Wed 10.00-01.00
Thu-Fri 10.00-02.00
Sat 11.00-02.00
Sun 11.00-01.00

HOTEL KÄMP
Kämp Café & Bar
Pohjoisesplanadi 29
00100 Helsinki, Finland
Tel. +358 9 5840 9530
Fax. +358 9 5761 1925
e-mail: sales@hotelkamp.fi

After trying MOS burger, of course for comparison sake, I needed to try Lotteria, the omnipresent burger chain all over Tokyo. I had memories of a MOS burger in Harajuku but this has since closed down so on our visit we tried Lotteria. There are actually two branches within Takeshita Dori in Harajuku-if anyone would like burgers, it’s the teenagers of Tokyo. We were lured by their burger with it’s option of 1 or 2 patties with melted cheese. Of course I choose two patties Y490 as well as a prawn burger Y280 and a rib sandwich Y320, and some Y100 chicken bites.

Mango Frappe Y160

It’s warm so the Mango frappe, although not as fancy as a frappe you’d get back home, is well received. It’s more like milk with some flavour to it and mango flavoured shaved ice on top.

Double Burger Y490

I bite into the double burger (which looks nothing like the mouthwatering picture) and the beef is very juicy, in fact the juice (or grease but it is more like juice) almost drips out. The bun itself is smaller than we are used to but the double patties provide a good protein to starch ratio.

Ebi Prawn burger Y280

The burger that I like the best of the Ebi burger (prawn burger). I didn’t expect there to be whole of half prawns in the patty (I expected “seafood” minced up) but that’s exactly what we get. The patty is piping hot as it’s freshly cooked and the sauce goes nicely with it and at Y280 it’s a steal.

Pork Rib Sandwich Y320

The last item is a Pork Rib sandwich, smothered with BBQ sauce. I can’t really tell if the pork rib itself is pork rib with the bones removed although it looks like it, it’s a bit too soft and manufacture meat in texture to be real pork rib but you never know with Japan as they often use better quality ingredients. I prefer my pork ribs to have a bit of chewiness to them and this is too soft for me, much like manufactured meat (and I was already full) so I leave this to my husband.

Fries Y330

The fries are fresh-ish, although they’re not that different to fries that you get anywhere else.

Chicken Bites Y100

The chicken bites are a little dry but they’re actually made of real chicken breast (not that horrible stuff that nuggets are made from) so whilst this is pleasing, they need a dipping sauce.

We leave Lotteria, full to the brim of Japan’s take on American cuisine and dive into the crowds ambling up and down Takeshita Dori in their platform shoes.

Lotteria Burger

Takeshita Dori Harajuku, Tokyo. There are two branches at Takeshita Dori, one at the top and one at the bottom.
Exit JR Harajuku station or Subway Meiji Jingumae station and turn left, continue down street until you reach opening of Takeshita Dori.
Plus branches all over Japan.
http://lotteria.jp/index.html

A knowledgable friend of mine, Kathy from Brisbane recommended that I try Christon Cafe after I canvassed friends for unique Tokyo experiences. Started in Osaka in 2000, there are now 8 Christon cafes around Japan, each boasting incredibly detailed interiors decorated in  a religious gothic theme. It speaks to the strong Lolita goth culture that exists in Tokyo. In the lobby there is a glass display of the Virgin Mary. Upstairs, Cafe Christon doesn’t disappoint. On the 8th and 9th floor of the Oriental Wave building, you’re struck by the fantastic interior decor the minute you step off the elevator.

We were greeted with 3 leather chairs with naked iron maidens on them the arms well worn and loved. We were then led into the inner sanctum which was awash with wrought iron, gothic and catholic imagery.

To our delight, we’re led towards a blood red curtained booth, private and completely gothic. I’m not a Catholic so the imagery doesn’t strike fear into my heart although I have heard that it can make anyone raised Catholic slightly uneasy. Indeed, there is an altar in the restaurant which we’re told is an authentic altar that was used in a European church.

The details are numerous and quite astounding including the painting on the ceiling.

Gargoyles

Gigantic chandelier

We’re shown the menu, an assortment of ikzaya dishes (small dishes typically served with beer). We choose a Japanese beef carpaccio Y1380, Foie Gras sreak with baked risotto Y1800 and grilled salmon steak with mushroom cream sauce Y880.

Amuse Bouche Y300

We’re given an amuse bouche or a spinach tortilla and some sort of pressed meat like a mortadella (we learn we are later charged for this although we may have agreed to it, we just kept nodding yes). The spinach tortilla is delicious and full of spinach and cheese and the luncheon meat is actually delicious, much better than a mortadella.

Japanese beef carpaccio Y1380

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It’s a cold, wintry night that brings us to Bite Me Burger Company, and one in which we’re pressed for time having spent the half half hour looking for a park in Paddington. Ever since the Wagyu burger at Plan B, I’ve been trying to find other Wagyu burgers to try. Call it my latest obsession. So with only 45 minutes to order, eat and go, we enter Bite Me Burger, a small, red lit small Burger place on Oxford Street in Paddington with a neon red Coca Cola type sign. It’s bustlingly full, there is a football game on at the stadium nearby and we explain our impending movie dilemma to the staff. They suggest that we pre-order our meals as it can sometimes take up to 20 minutes for the burgers during a busy period and by then a table should be free.

Sure enough, we’re seated within about 5 minutes and help ourselves to water. There is a large communal table as well as two high tables at the front. We’re seated at one of the front tables but not the very front. Once when we sat there everyone stopped and watched what we ate which made us feel like monkeys in a zoo exhibit.

Everything is visual merchanised to within an inch of itself, the fork and knife come in a sleeve that says “Hold Me”. The ketchup is in a tomato squeezy and of course the salt and pepper co-ordinate.

Onion Rings $4.50

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