Delicious Denmark and Lovely Sweden

Mid-May saw Shannon, Matt and I meet up with our dear friend Elias in lovely Denmark. We were greeted with absolutely amazing hospitality being hosted by the Pagh Senstius family, staying both in the capital, Copenhagen and in the family home in Helsingør.

Our time in Copenhagen was incredibly enjoyable, being able to experience a very liberal Northern society with tasty food and kind people. But before we get to that, I have to mention a brief and almost shameful experience we had in Neighboring Sweden...where our only meal...was at Ikea. We actually hopped over for a brief visit to Malmo in Sweden where we were attending a dress rehearsal for Eurovision. Having only one meal in Sweden and deciding to dodge expensive festival food we found a very conveniently located Ikea. I must state though, before I continue, that as I write I've noticed that I seem to paint our Ikea visit as a mere and happy coincidence, something it most certainly was not. While it was of course convenient that it was so close to the stadium, our visit was hoped for before we even knew there was one near.  It must be said that, Shannon, suffers from an addiction, an addiction to Ikea. This love affair with  has proved to bridge so much on obsession that it has even become contagious, infecting Matt and me too! With this said, checking out Ikea within it's lair became a necessary checkpoint before we headed over to the show. We were not terribly surprised to find that the whole place was almost identical to the ones back home with of course the (understandable) existence of far more Swedish on signs and menus. As with Ikea at home, our tour of the store ended with a visit to the restaurant section where palatable no-frills food filled a spot sending us off happy to Eurovision.

 

Eurovision complimentary...rhubarb water?

After the show, which featured all the tacky patriotism we'd hoped for, we returned to Denmark, visiting Copenhagen and enjoying the company of our friends. Our trip into the capital found us focusing on a culinary delight from the area we least expected, hot dogs. Of course they weren't just regular hotdogs, they were more similar to frankfurters but it was the toppings which really made them fantastic. They were topped with ristede løg which is basically just bits of delicious fried onions, kind of like slivers of cold onion ring...sounds a bit odd but was really great! Although it was the most expensive hotdog I ever scarfed down, it was worth every penny!

Yum.

A short stop in drug haven Christiania, and a walk down pusher lane also found us downing some yummy all natural fruit spritzers in intriguing surroundings. This, combined with a psychedelic rock show and some sightseeing basically ended our time in Copenhagen.

However, it must be noted that some of the best food I ate in Denmark was in Helsingør and that was provided by the aforementioned Pagh Sentius family. I've included some photos of the great food that we chowed down on there, it was a fresh tasting and memorable as it was fun, I'm still hoping to get my hands on some recipes!

Picnic!

Fantastic sauce made with hand picked mushrooms from the nearby forest!

In the actual town we did enjoy some lovely baked goods

Smothered in butter and cinnamon, I forget what it was called but so yummy!

Stuffed our faces with ice cream (topped with whipped cream and jam, apparently the norm) pictured above!

And shopped for cheese

Our last dinner before leaving the country were some delicious open-faced sandwiches which we assembled back in Copenhagen at Elias' apartment (don't have the pics!), which was drowned down with much cider and beer. Altogether good times! Denmark is an absolute must!

Also, the worst wine I've ever had, why yes that does say "moist soil", "fine bacon" and "pink" and yes, it did taste like bacon.