So last we left off, Adam and I were being screamed at to not use camera flashes. We got back to the hotel about 12:30, and after a leisurely lie-in, we went back out and explored Reykjavik some more. This was actually a repeat of Tuesday, and we repeated it again on Friday. The highlight of the exploring at this point (though it was a web exploration before we left) was supper that night. We planned on one really nice meal for the trip (we actually ended up with two, which was my fault), and Wednesday's meal was scheduled for Lækjarbrekka--pronunciation is on you to figure out. The website is
here, and we decided to go with the prix fixé menu. These were three course feasts, and while expensive, a good deal, although wine was not included. Which, by the way, the house red is quite nice--this was good, because none of the wine was cheap (including the house red), and the price made us both cringe.
I had the Icelandic Langustine Feast which was slightly different than the website's menu. The first course was creamy langustine soup with a taste of cognac and whipping cream, and it was absolutely divine. Perfectly smooth, with the lovely sweetness of langustines, the warmth from the cognac, and the coolness from the cream. Think of the best lobster bisque you've ever had, and this was probably better. My second course was langustine three ways: grilled in garlic butter (4 tails), which were beautifully flavoured, slightly crispy where they were grilled, and smooth and sweet and moist on the inside; tempura fried langustine chucks, which were delicious, but probably the weakest part of the meal; and chunks of langustine in saffron sauce. I'm not a big fan of saffron usually; I don't know why, but I don't like the flavour. This sauce, however, could make me change my mind. And there was a load of it, so I was able to dunk my tempura langustine in it as well. Third course was dessert, and that was an interesting concoction. I adored the creativity, if I wasn't a big fan of the flavours. Essentially, it was an ice cream torte: the bottom layer was solid dark chocolate, the middle layer was a blueberry sorbet (I don't really like blueberries), and the top layer was an anise ice cream (also don't really like anise). The flavours all combined beautifully, however, and went very well with the strawberry coulis that was on the plate. All in all, totally delish.
Adam had the Lamb Feast, which was also totally fabulous. His first course was lamb carpaccio and smoked lamb with a crisp salad. Choosing the better of the two lambs (smoked or carpaccio) was not possible--they were both excellent in their own ways. His second course was roasted lamb with crispy roasted potatoes and a thyme sauce; simple, traditional preparation, and oh so tasty. It was probably the best of everything we ate, and that's really saying something. But his dessert was also to die for. He had the chocolate special of the house, and it was three small chocolate dishes. The first was a small ball of chocolate sorbet. Again, simple, but the sweet and the chocolate were perfectly balanced, making for a rich, flavourful, but not heavy sorbet. The second one was a tiny chocolate soufflé. Again, simple and traditional, but soufflés do require some mastery, and this one was light and airy and moist, and rich, but not overpoweringly sweet. The last of the three was the true masterpiece, however. It was a white chocolate mousse. I'm not a mousse fan, really, nor do I particularly like white chocolate. I would have cheerfully beaten Adam to death for it all, however. Perfectly smooth, a bit thin (which is probably what I liked it, but it also worked well to put a bit on the soufflé), and all the nice flavours that exist in white chocolate without the flavours that I associate with cheap tasting chocolate (as white chocolate so often does to me, even not-cheap white chocolate).
It was a delicious evening, even if I almost died in the restaurant; we (well, I) were somewhat overdressed, as I was wearing my little black dress and strappy heels. The problem was the the snow had frozen into ice soles on my shoes, so I had no traction on the highly polished wood floor (until it all melted, probably leaving a large couple of puddles). And we had problems getting the check, but we seemed to run into that elsewhere--though others didn't--so I'm not sure what the deal on that was.
On Thursday, we went out to the Blue Lagoon for the day. It's a tourist spa, but it's very pretty and well worth a visit (but only once, I think). Unless it's jammed packed with people, then it probably blows. But we were there with maybe 200 other guests total, and not all of them were in the water at any given time. It's also--at least when it's not busy--a very romantic locale. Everyone spread out in the water, and though we were all pretty much in site of each other, we were more or less private, so there was lots of carrying each other and kissing and the like. And then playing with the mud. Then the in-pool bar opened...and Adam and I decided to leave (this was like 3 hours after we climbed in the water, however). You could only drink around the bar, supposedly, though I stepped on plastic cups more than once in other areas. We both kinda wanted the luxury of having a drink in the water, but a large, very loud contingent of older, hairy men--I think they might have been Greek, but I don't know; they were mostly speaking accented English--was gathered around the bar, and I didn't feel like dealing with their drunken behaviour (don't think they were actually drunk, however). Other than that though, we had a good time playing with the muck at the bottom of the pool (equal parts gross and fun), smearing mud all over our faces (not the stuff from the bottom of the pool, though the idiot drunk guys used it--gross!), standing under the waterfall (not as awesome as claimed), and hanging out in the grotto steam room (fun cave, until the lifeguard stuck his head in. Thankfully, we were not doing anything). The naked showers here were overrated, and yet people still freaked out. As an FYI, all public bathing in Iceland must be preceded by a naked shower. Why? Because they don't put chemicals in their pools, so they want you clean. Freshly clean. The locals will get pissed off if you don't do this. And though there are no locals at the Blue Lagoon, the policy holds. But all the showers practically were private cubicles. Both Adam and I had a hard time finding open showers, and even those were semi-private. And yet I still heard one girl (American/Canadian) bitch "Why? I just showered this morning!" My reason for showering first? Slather their conditioner all over your hair and leave it in (yes, this probably violates the "clean rule" but is suggested to do): the water is super salty and will fry your hair. Every time we went in to wee, I hit the showers and threw more conditioner in.
Steamy.
Could it be any more picturesque?
The not open pool bar (it opened later).
More picturesqueness, this time with added bridge over the pools.
More of the pools.
Still more pools (and now I'm getting really flippin' cold out of the water, so Adam's taking pics).
Outside the actual spa area.
And again.
Thursday night's supper was fish and chips. Why? Because while we may get fish and chips here in England, Iceland is well known for it's fish, and we wanted to try some there. It was our weakest meal, probably, and was still tasty. It was also super-organic. We went to
Icelandic Fish and Chips, where I had wolf fish (turns out it's on the edge of being endangered, so now I feel bad, but it was delicious--since it's eel, I'm not surprised I liked it--kinda like a combination of unagi and catfish. Adam had cod, and garlic oven chips (they don't fry the potatoes there). My chips were plain. And actually, they were all more potato wedges, but it didn't really matter, because we got the skyronnaise sampler platter to dunk everything in. Skyr is a traditional Icelandic cultured dairy product, similar to very thick yogurt. They used skyr as the base to make a variety of sauces, including tartare, honey-mustard, mango, and five others. Not all of the sauces were fabulous, but that was a taste preference thing, because Adam loved a couple I didn't, and vice versa. But as good as everything was, it really was the weakest meal. And it was tasty!
Afterwards, we stopped by the Ice Bar. One of the other Girl Museum interns suggested it, and well, yeah. It's a schtick. But Adam and I spent some time chatting with a very nice bartender, and got these pictures. Dad would be upset for the bottle of Jaeger.
At least it's cold enough.
The only photo of Adam and I.
Friday was, as I mentioned, another day of wandering around Reykjavik. We hit another couple of museums--the first was the (free) photography museum on the top floor of the library. Nothing exceptional, but great to kill some time. Also, the exhibition on was of abandoned farmhouses and such, all taken fairly recently, which was a nice contrast to the turn-of-the-century farm photographs we saw at the National Museum of Iceland on Tuesday. We also went to 871 +/- 2 Settlement Museum, which was really neat. In the middle of Reykjavik a few years ago, construction began on a building and they found a Viking Longhouse, so they excavated it and turned it into a museum. For something as small as it is (one room that surrounded the longhouse), we were there for nearly 2 hours. It was really fascinating. From there, we decided on an early meal, as we had to be up at the ass-crack of dawn (ok, about 5.5 hours before dawn) to catch our flight back home. Sadly, our early meal plan didn't work out quite as planned, but we did eat at
The Fish Company, which turned out to be even more money than Lækjarbrekka (which only cost us more because of the wine). The Fish Company has received the "Best Restaurant in Reykjavik" award (or whatever), and the food was absolutely inspired. A few reviews have claimed that it's too complicated or over the top, but I disagree. It was complicated, but I thought it added layers and depth, as did Adam (and he's simple--take that how you will). The premise is that each dish is inspired by a country and flavour from the region. So for my starter I went to Norway and had (I've copy/pasted here) GREEN LIME rosmarin marinated BEEF & crispy GOAT ROLL with goat cheese snow, smoked tomato, raspberry jelly, cashew nut & mushroom foam. Complicated sounding? Absolutely, but the variety of flavours
all worked wonderfully together, whichever mouthful you got. It was amazing working my way through the dish. Adam's wasn't quite as many flavours, but he went to Spain and had SERRANO mustard glazed PORK BELLY & GNOCCHIPASTA in creamy TIO PEPE sauce, black olive sand & rosemary marinated tomato. Mostly he saw the words pork belly and spooged a little (Dad got him hooked on pork belly in Eugene).
For our mains Adam went to Madagascar for CACO BEAN fried MONKFISH & CHEEK with butterfried asparagus, smoked parsnip, parsnip milk, oregano polenta & chocolate cinnamon sauce. I had the Iceland selection (aka fresh fish of the day) which included salmon and the same chocolate cinnamon sauce (reminiscent of a mole) that Adam had. Amongst other flavours. Mine also had langustine (I just realized that I think I'm using the Icelandic spelling). It seemed to have elements from a variety of other plates, which suited me fine, because the flavours still all blended beautifully.
After having gorged ourselves on all that, we decided to split a dessert, and went to Italy for NUTELLA real TIRAMISU with nutella chocolate cream, coffee toffee sauce & STRACCIATELLA ice cream. Which was super-rich, especially after all the rich food we'd already had. It was tasty, but the weakest part of the meal. It also went to prove that when presented with 500 different people, you'll be presented with 500 different, all authentic, tiramisu recipes. For all the claims of nutella flavouring in the tiramisu, it was not overpowering, so I think Dad (who thinks tiramisu should be basic and not flavoured with orange or other crap, just coffee) might have even approved.
After that incredibly tasty, expensive meal, Adam and I decided to stagger back to the hotel, so we could pack our crap up, shower, and go to bed early (hahaha) so we could catch our early flight back to reality. Given that reality was cold, windy, and rainy, we would have preferred to stay in Iceland, where it may have been cold and windy, but it was snowing and pretty, so that was ok.
In all seriousness though, you should go to Iceland. I know Katie and Doug are going over spring break, but you should go too. It was beautiful, tasty, filled with fabulous people, and quite possibly is the ideal place to live, provided you can handle very very short days contrasted with 24 hours of sun.
