CJWDT: Sweden’14

9/18/14-9/27/14: Stockholm, Sweden

Metal, Meatball and Ikea! “Here I go again on my own”, CJWDT’14 “Reboot, retrieve & rebirth” European tour started off…. Stockholm, Sweden! It has been 4yrs since my last visit to Stockholm, b Sweden first thing first!! >> eating Swedish meatballs, national dish which usually serving with cornichons, gravy, goose lingonberry & mashed potato. This time I went to pelikan restaurant which is recommended by Mr.Bourdain. It was biggie, meaty tasty meatball in fact, not like “blow me away” or “best meatball EVER”, but I enjoyed my dinner. But… think bout it, actually I can’t think of any meatballs experience which is unforgettable or best ever…. Well, I can say I ate easily 20-30times on the family meal though…. Anything made with ground meat & chicken is family meal classic!!

Anyway…. this time I went to stage Gastrologik restaurant for 2 days. I could say it’s Nordic market-driven cuisine and team/kitchen/food, everything was rock solid. I have staged around 20 restaurants over Scandinavia countries, but not in winter time. Chefs always mentioned winter time is very hard to get produces and gonna use lots of pickled/cured products. It would be interesting to see, but… Scandinavia in winter? …not sure it’s good idea for tiny skinny boney Asian like me. –Anyway here I’d like to say thank you for chef Holmstrom, chef Bjuhr & the rest of the team at gastrologik. Tack!!

On my last day in Stockholm I went to the event called “taste of Stockholm”, there’s bunch of food booths, cooking class, products promotion and taste theatre which chefs demonstrate one of their signature dishes. I met chef Daniel Burns from Luksus restaurant where I staged on my last day in New York! We briefly talked when I staged, but we didn’t realize we both gonna be in Stockholm next week/laugh Chef Burns had corporate dinner event in Stockholm for 2 nights, I wish I could help him, but since I already had the flight ticket and everything set, I couldn’t make it. Next time I must homework better before I set up my plan!!