03 Apr 2009, Posted by Nora Pouillon in Guests from Washington D.C., 0 Comments

Friday, April 3, 2009

Aki picked me up early in the morning and we visited a small family owned bakery where they make the famous dark rye bread as well as pastries. When I was there the mother was kneading the dough and the daughter decorated the Easter sweet breads. Their assistant stuffed breads and made rolls etc. The son does the deliveries. At 9 am the mother put on a clean apron and went to the front of the building where their store is located and where she sells her freshly baked goods. The mother is in her 80s. The young student photographer was there to take pictures of us with the family.

Afterwards Aki and I went to the old marketplace to check out the stands. The vegetable stands had mostly imported goods but also some local cold storage vegetables such as onions and all types of potatoes. The potato, especially the Lapland potato plays a big role in Finnish cooking. There were also women who sold their knitted goods – socks, hats and gloves. There was a fur trader who had reindeer, all colors of sheep wool, foxes, rabbits and several other furs. Lastly there was a big tent in the market, which is a famous gathering place for locals where they drink freshly brewed coffee and eat a special meat pie. Even the mayor of Helsinki goes there.

Aki told me that Eat & Joy acquired a location for a farmers market and a store, rent-free for the first 6-months. They are very excited about this and want to open the market this summer. I had a planning session with Aki to talk about farmers markets and of their importance. I gave him some suggestions and ideas on how we run the Freshfarm Markets in Washington, D.C. Aki showed me the location of their market. It will be a perfect spot, on a beautiful square. I think a mid-week market would be perfect for this location.

We met up with Jari and we walked around downtown Helsinki, checking out some stores such as Marimekko. Then we had lunch at a traditional Finnish restaurant called Aino. It is named after the main figure of the Kalebala, a saga of Finland. The chef showed me around his kitchen, which is smaller then Restaurant Nora’s kitchen. I was very impressed because he had a lot of seats plus an outdoor seating area. The restaurant specializes in traditional Finnish food and beers from microbreweries. The chef prepared assorted dishes for us. Everything tasted delicious. We had smoked fresh-water vendace, a pike timbale and moonshine marinated arctic char, a Finnish goose-liver, which is not force-fed and delicious cumin spiced rye crackers from Aby Mansion, which is where they make the bread. A salmon seviche marinated for five minutes with ginger, salt, sugar, chili pepper, limejuice, and walnut oil, absolutely delicious. For dessert we had a cranberry almond clafouti flavored with cardamom again delicious.

After lunch we walked around in the design district of Helsinki checking out designers and shops. Then we went straight to City Hall to meet with the deputy mayors, one of them was a woman. We had a buffet reception. At the same time I was able to meet the other guest from D.C. who were in Helsinki at the same time as I. Everyone mentioned what a great time they were having and commented on the friendliness of the people. They remarked on the many similarities between D.C. and Helsinki – parks, trees, bicycles, design, architecture, high tech, schools and music.

After the reception we did a big tour of restaurants in Helsinki with the mayor and his wife who are wonderful people. The mayor’s wife is a child-psychotherapist and their daughter works at the World Bank.

The first restaurant we went to was Nokka, which serves local Finnish food, and was very innovative. We just had appetizers. It is a beautiful place on the water in a stone/brick building with high ceilings. It had a nautical motif. I toured the private dining room and their demonstration kitchen. The private room was also the wine cellar. We had great aperitifs and an interesting dessert wine.

Next restaurant was Kolme Kruunua, a traditional Finnish tavern or brasserie that served great beer, fried fish, meatballs, and potato salad. The food was very earthy and straightforward.

Then we went to Lasipalatsi Restaurant, a country-style restaurant. It’s located in the same place where Eat & Joy will have their farmers market. The building is very impressive and was constructed in the 1930s for the Olympics. We had reindeer neck and carrot puree with a very good red wine.

Afterwards we went to Juuri, a Finnish tapas concept restaurant based on root-vegetables. Markus’ daughter is the chef there and she graciously served us the entire menu. We had pike perch tartar with spinach on crisp bread, fresh sausage with vodka mustard, smoked reindeer hearts, beetroots and nut stew with mushrooms, grilled salsify with rose hip jam. Markus introduced us to different berry wines and even a sparkling berry wine.

Next stop was Olo, which is famous for its new Nordic cuisine. The restaurant is very nouveau with minimum décor and elegant plate presentation. For the main course we had a delicious piece of halibut cooked to perfection. The chef gave us a tour of his restaurant. He had an outdoor courtyard, private dining rooms and a demonstration kitchen. I also saw his kitchen, which was very modern with steam ovens and induction stoves. He worked with foams and gels. The food looked great and was very imaginative.

Loft ?

The last stop was the A21 Cocktail Lounge, famous for its Finnish berry cocktails. The cocktails were very good with great diversity, made out of many different kinds of berries. They even had a berry eau de vie. We had all collapsed on their comfortable sofa and were sipping the delicious cocktails, saturated and ready to call it a night.