#8: Lose the Baedeker! Or, food finds in Oslo

"On behalf of the kingdom, I would like to apologize for how expensive everything is in Norway."--  The bartender who sold us a small bowl of bar peanuts for an amount we'd rather not disclose.

In my all-time favourite movie, Eleanor Lavish tuts Miss Honeychurch to lose her travel guidebook: "Tut, tut! Miss Lucy! I hope we shall soon emancipate you from your Baedeker."  Reading this at an impressionable age, I've been suspicious about travel guides for most of my traveling life but over time I've come to find them quite useful. Lately, we've been buying Rick Steves' books and they've been helpful.  In Spain and Portugal, we found ourselves talking about Rick like he was a close friend: 'what did Rick say about this?' 'Oh yeah, Rick mentioned that.' These books are comforting, especially on long trips, as they help you navigate all of your infinite and overwhelming options.  There he helped us find some great places. One restaurant owner found out we'd heard about his tiny perfect wine bar through Rick Steves and he exclaimed "I love Reek-a Stee-bez!" He's been Reek-a Stee-bez in my head ever since.  Guidebooks have their place, of course, and it's easy to fall to their friendly advice, especially when they use a friendly first person.  It's no wonder we start calling him Rick (or Reek-a).

On this particular trip, Mr Stee-bez hasn't been as useful-- some of the best parts of our trip weren't mentioned in his book and we benefitted from Dale's hours, well, actually days, of top notch travel researching (thank you!).  The limitations of travel books are totally understandable: I can see the appeal of his suggested Norway in a Nutshell approach.  There's one sentence, however, in his Oslo section that we initially trusted but later rethought and I'm very glad we (well, Dale, really) Eleanor Lavished this piece of advice: "This is one city in which you might just settle for simple or ethnic meals-- you'll save a lot and miss little." In our first hours here (and seeing the prices, we started to think Reek-a might be right.  Dale, however, started doing some research on Yelp and Trip Advisor and ended up finding some of the best and most interesting food we've had in quite a while.  Here are some of the highlights:

- The Mathallen: a fantastic food hall in the site of a former factory. Bright and airy and in the middle of an interesting area of town, the Mathallen was a great find. It opened last fall and featured high quality produce stores, bakeries, fish shops, beer shops, and other little deli style counters plus a range of high end small restaurants. Throughout, the emphasis is on local items. It was busy every time we were there: lots of people stopping for lunch or walking there with their babies in what seem like sport utility strollers (starting to think Hummer makes strollers now).

- In the Mathallen was one of my favourite places of our trip-- the Hello Good Pie shop. Not only does this shop have the best name ever, it also has the best little pies I've ever had.  We ended up visiting there three days in a row and talked with both the owners (one Canadian, one American).  Apparently, pies are new to Norwegian food culture and they're doing very well and opening a second location soon.  We had two lemon meringue pies and a strawberry pie with cream and caramel.  When we came back the second day, the owner laughed to see us again and I said 'I haven't been able to get this pie out of my mind for the last 24 hours.' It was hard to say goodbye to the Hello Good Pie. 

- Also at the Mathallen was a little kiosk/ deli featuring produce and food from the Valdres region. The girl who worked there was really knowledgable about the food of the area and we learned a lot talking with her. One of the things Dale was looking for was lefse, one of his favourite family foods.   We finally found some in this little store and it was used in a wrap with some sort of fish that tasted like smoked salmon but was described in much less appetizing ways: putrified was the verb I think she used. But we had it and it was delicious. She also told us lefse was primarily a Christmas item. It was nice to see lefse and Dale's sisters seemed very pleased to see the picture I'd posted of it. We also had a tasty beer from what is apparently the smallest microbrewery in the land. And elsewhere you could get the brown cheese Dale remembered his mum buying. Very lovely. 

-At the end of every year, Dale and I discuss what the meal of the year was and so far, the meal we had at Atelier Asian Tapas is currently in first place.

Everything was interesting, beautifully presented, fresh, fantastic tasting and innovative. And it was probably one of the best values of our stay in Norway. A similar meal would have cost about the same in Toronto. 

- We took the ferry out to see the Viking Ship Museum and ended up doing a long walk around the Bygdøynes area. We happened upon the restaurant for the Maritime museum which was strangely empty and beautifully situated by the river.  We shared a lovely prawn sandwich beside the water on a really lovely day. We had a wonderful chat with the man who worked there about Norway, Sweden and Vancouver. Sometimes a perfect lunch is about more than the food.

- We found the Oslo Mikrobryggeri and had some lovely tasty beers brewed there. We'd been told by an American living in Norway that you really cannot start converting Norwegian kroner into dollars or you won't do anything. He was right and I'm glad we went here. Here is where the bartender apologized for the prices on belhalf of the kingdom.

- Bugges burgers was a little neighbourhood place with good basic food, a nice atmosphere and fair prices. It was a nice find. We'd seen it and then were able to check reviews on our phones before going in. We went and had a beer on their sidewalk tables the next day. Yelp and Trip Adviser are really fantastic resources.

I think Eleanor Lavish would be pleased with what we found. It's funny: I'm missing Oslo already. See the next entry about Oslo.