Aah, so nice to be able to have a relaxing wake up and saunter to breakfast! And what a breakfast. A basket with freshly-baked, warm bread. But which to sample? All the seedy ones? The rye? The brown? The darker brown? Definitely not white! Each is wrapped around the middle with a white napkin to prevent the spread of nasty germs and I select my first choice and smile appreciatively as the crust crackles against the sharp teeth of the bread knife. One of my favorite sounds! Nobody can eat just one, so I try a few, and move on (.org) past the carafes of water flavored with cucumber and lemon, raspberries and orange slices, or simply straight up, toward the buffet of locally smoked salmon, freshly pickled herring, some other, unidentified fish, a smoked/herbed white-fish, and then an array of shrimp salads. Not shrimp that you and I might buy in the supermarket, nor be served in a restaurant, but nonetheless prevalent here: small, slender, one inch curls of pink chewiness, a bowl of plain (with mustard vinaigrette on the side), a bowl mixed in with egg salad, a bowl with fresh, chopped basil, a bowl that’s marinated in oil and then it’s on to the platters of fresh tomatoes, peppers, sliced cucumbers, cole slaw, mini-tubes of chocolate spread, fresh fruit and dense chocolate cake. Oh, and on the side, for the Americans, are sunny-side up eggs, frittata with veggies and ham, plain scrambled eggs, sausages, bacon and potatoes (heaven forbid!).
As you might imagine, it was a field day of activity for yours truly, then back up to the room to prepare for the day’s adventure. We wander through the neighborhood, heading steadily up hill, as we prepare to climb the 418 steps up Aksla park to Fjellstua, which you can see as a white building off in the distance (looking from outside front door of our hotel):
a grand lookout over the whole town and westward to the sea. It is indeed a climb, reminiscent of Cinque Terra (or a shorter Sanitas), but up to the lookout we go, and enjoy the view and time to cool down in the shade. We then set off, because we were at the edge of the elevated city park, measuring about 4 km by 2 km and filled with forested hiking/walking/running trails. As we head down the cook trail, we stop intermittently to snap grand vistas, as you can see here:
In the lower righthand corner, you can see the curved metal rooftop of the Arena, our next destination.
The next task is to guesstimate down which spur we should head in order to make our way to the Arena, where this weekend the annual (surprise, surprise!) Alesund Food Festival (the largest in Norway is being held). Wouldn’tcha know? We make our way through alleys, past homes with steeply-pitcheds roofs, with their built in ladders (looking something like the double-hooked library ladders that can roll from side to side). Some even have “guard rails” along the bottom, just above the gutters, which may prevent accidental slippage from turning into life-threatening falls. Fascinating (and yes, I did have one eyebrow raised when I wrote that!).
We come out perfectly near the foot of a bridge that passes over the highway and lets us out right in front of the arena. After checking out the few trucks out front, selling a variety of reindeer, moose, pig and cow cured meats (reminding me of Aix-en-Provence):
and salted/smoked fish (and of course the usual Asian cuisine food trucks), we head inside to see what’s what. First we pass by a live cooking demonstration/dessert competition, with its share of well-known tv/food personalities, and enjoy a few laughs with the crowd (even though we had no idea what anyone was saying) and I got a new idea for how to use the chocolate pie meringue crust to make another, but different awesome dessert surprise. From there, it was about 5 rows of various food vendors with free and priced food tastes.
Salted cod, minke whale, smoked salmon and cured meats in every style, lots of jellies and marmalades, fresh cherries and raspberries, rhubarb soup, lefsa (thinly rolled pancake made from potatoes), chocolates (dark and milk with coffee nibs or orange peel!), teas and dried flowers for using to decorate food and other odds and ends. Lots of ooh-ing and aah-ing and sampling as we went, and a stop back at the chocolate booth (who’s surprised by that?) and we are out of there.
Oops! Sporting a museum back (the back pain produced by the peculiar but standard physical phenomenon of walking through a museum and observing), so off to a quiet area of the arena to stretch muscles and and back and much better. We head outside to try to catch a taxi or bus back. Hey! Isn’t’ there a free shuttle back to town? None of the young women working in the parking areas have any idea about the bus, nor where it might pull up when and if it is indeed running, so we walk back over the bridge with the intention of catching a bus once on the main drag. But I am busy telling stories and before too long, we are getting close to town, and my dogs are barking! We sit in a corner cafe, table outside right by the water (we’re in the cafe in the lower right, just above the canal. tomorrow in the one on the lower to mid-left side),
and order a mighty nice looking thin-crusted veggie pizza and I get a salad (way over-doing the wonderful dark bread at almost every opportunity. Taking one or two or four for Leo!). We unwind and enjoy our food and beer and then back to the hotel for some serious napping and resting. Really, from about 4:30 until 7 we nap and play Words with Friends and stretch some more.
At 7:30 we make our way down for a reservation at Maki, the highly-rated seafood restaurant in our hotel that has a special menu for the food festival weekend. Beautiful ambience, candles everywhere and we select the 6-course menu (our only choice is 5, 6, or 7 – they don’t divulge what the courses are, and each is really a very small serving of 3 – 5 small bites) and once again, we split 1 wine pairing between the two of us.
First course is a lovely salad with wild greens, 3 slices of smoked salmon (a real staple here – you’d LOVE it Amir and Michael!!!!), a boiled split quail egg and a very light mustard vinaigrette (another staple). Good, but not a revelation. Second, a very light cream-based seafood soup, the surface foamed up nice and bubbly, with small nibbles of monkfish, one of the petite shrimp I described at breakfast, and sitting in the middle, one plump, perfectly (not over-) done mussel, still in its shell, all set off with a couple of tarragon leaves and small bits of minced chives. Mmmm, good. Especially the foam!
Finally, a game changer. Third course was a 1/2 by 1 inch piece of skate wing that was atop mushy peas (with a pea shoot stalk stuck in for effect) and a tiny bit of mango chutney
And they step it up a notch for number 4 – a 1 x 2 inch piece of a meaty white fish (ling?) that was atop of soy-sesame oil light sauce, with shredded fresh veggies atop the presentation and a small dollop of apple puree to contrast with the saltiness of the soy. Exclamations and eyes closing to savor the few bites of this one.
Then the main course: Monkfish on a small mound of ratatouille, topped with pickled red onion, a piece of asparagus on the side, with a thin shaving of flash-friend aubergine set up like a sail, with an oven crisped single strand of raw spaghetti as the mast. Standing off to the side was a small, oblong potato that had been cored, core laying adrift in the sauce and the potato having whipped itself into a frenzy over the whole episode and so now sporting a creamy center. So creative! And no, I didn’t lick the plate (nor wipe it with bread), but cleaned my plate for sure.
Last course was chocolate fondant cake (yummy, and seems pretty popular around here), with sliced, fresh cherries, and best of all, homemade vanilla ice cream made from some kind of slightly sour something (not yogurt, maybe goat milk?). This was served with a delicious port that proved to be the best pairing of the whole process. Really set off the fruit and chocolate. I am very proud of the fact that I left a bite!
Ohhh, so full. We head out after the 2 1/2 hour meal at a bit after 10, and walk through the streets to see if there’s any live music or interesting nightlife. Did find a guitarist at an outdoor cafe singing Norwegian traditional folk songs. We stand in the street and listen for a bit, and continue wandering. End up on one of the cocktail sofas in the area between the hotel bar and lobby to chat and have some mineral water. Then up to end the evening with a good night sleep.