"Streetfood" to share - lunch at Foodloose

This is another restaurant that has opened up recently in Stavanger. It opened in February and the full name is “Foodloose by House of Fingerfood”. In the past they have been focused on catering and special events but now they have opened up a restaurant that focus on tapas and streetfood. We went there on a cold March Saturday for lunch and the entrance is quite anonymous in Kirkegata. The interior on the other hand is far from anonymous with birdcages with lights, lit signs, slogans like “It may look like hell but it tastes like heaven”, mirrors and flowers in the ceiling! 

We decided to order some dishes to share and went for buffalo wings, crispy chicken balls from Vietnam, soft steamed bun (bao) and thai inspired spring rolls. The food was served fast which was a bonus for us as we were hungry after a morning workout. I can’t say that I have come across crispy chicken balls in Vietnam, but they were tasty and it was a combination of chicken meat and a dough that they were baked/fried in. The Thai inspired spring rolls were good with a spicy sweet chili sauce and the steamed but was also good. The buffalo wings was good even if the blue cheese sauce on the side did not have much blue cheese taste if you ask me. The wings were a bit under-cooked if you ask me as they were quite red near the bone. I told this to the waiter and agreed that it was a bit under-cooked, but they wanted to avoid completely dry wings. I can understand that, but it is not that appealing to eat chicken wings that are completely red in the center. All in all, the food was very good and it would be great to go there as a big group! So gather your friends and go there to order a lot of what they have on the menu and share it!

Read more about the restaurant and see the menu on their homepage http://foodloose.no/

New restaurant in town - California Republic(Restaurant is permanently closed)

Note that this restaurant is permanently closed!

It is great to see that new places are opening in town. California Republic opened last week and hopefully this will be a good addition to the restaurant scene in Stavanger. It has a lovely backyard that should be great once the weather starts to improve and I think it might be a favorite for many people in the summer time. I do however think the menu looks a bit boring but I look forward to testing the restaurant later on! Read more about the restaurant on their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Californiastavanger/

Frøken Phil - a good option for lunch with friends!

I was afraid that Frøken Phil would be just another cafe that would only serve some dry sandwiches and coffee - but it turns out that Frøken Phil has more to offer. By the way, the name has a reference to the days when the building was used as a girl school. But back to the visit! First of all the atmosphere was very good when I visited on a Saturday for lunch. The places was packed, so it seems like the people have embraced the concept, and the sound level was high on people chatting away. The interior is old school (which is again a link to the old times when it was used as a school). The menu is not extensive but they had soup, ramen, chili con carne and fish on the menu. My ramen was very good but Nikki had the chili con carne and that was a bit on the salty side in my opinion. But all in all a good place to visit - at least for a lunch with friends!

nOi - good food but a few distractions

We have been to Charles & De a few times over the years and we have enjoyed it. In the last few years chef Charles Tjessem has sold his shares and left the restaurant and in the beginning of 2018 the places re-opened as nOi. We decided to check it out on a Saturday night in March 2018 and booked a table online on https://noi.as/ . The places still seem to be popular as it was pretty much full when we got there. One of the major changes that is visible in the interior of the restaurant is the new pizza oven. 

We got the menu fast and it is a limited menu, but it includes the basics such as pasta, risotto and pizza. We decided to have bruschetta and crostini to start with and pasta/risotto as our main meals. The wine menu is pretty good but when I asked to get some more information about one of the wines the waitress admitted that she had no knowledge about the wine. But she said that she could get the sommelier to come to our table if he had time. I found this statement a bit strange, but I guess the sommelier was also the bartender. When the same waitress brought the wine bottle she announced that she had found out more about the wine and it was made with Nebbiolo grapes in the heart of Tuscany. That didn’t sound quite right and later on when we looked at the bottle there were no traces of Nebbiolo grapes in the wines. But let's get back to the food! 

The bruschetta was a bread with a generous portion of buffalo mozzarella (maybe even burrata) with a mix of tomatoes and basil. The bread could have been toasted a bit more as it got a bit soggy and some of the tomatoes were a bit tasteless – but that is a general problem with tomatoes in Norway. The crostini were good, and the favorite was probably the grilled pepper crostini and the red wine beef cheeks crostini.

The main dish was served after a short break and the same beef cheeks that I had on the crostini, was served on top of pappardelle pasta. Again, the beef cheeks had a wonderful taste and it was great the citrus flavors from the gremolata topping. I love my risotto, so I had to taste the nOi risotto of course. It was served fairly plain with just some lemon, tomatoes and parmesan. I’m not sure I would have served it on a big plate like this, but the risotto was very good even if it was a bit simple. To me that few cherry tomatoes that was in the risotto was just a distraction that didn’t fit in at all.

 

To round it of I had the tiramisu. I enjoy this dessert and I have had it many times in Italy and around the world. The mascarpone cream was just right and had a great taste but for some reason the savoiardi biscuits (lady fingers) were dry and hard. Usually when you make tiramisu, the savoiardi biscuits is dipped in the espresso mix so that they become soft in the tiramisu.

All in all: the food at nOi was not bad at all and there were other items on the menu that I would love to taste. There were some elements that was distracting (like tomatoes in the risotto and the hard biscuits in the tiramisu) but maybe this is just my preference. It is also a bit of a shame that the sommelier didn’t have time to help with the wine option when they actually had a pretty good wine list. Please read more about nOi on their web page https://noi.as/

Let me know if you have any questions or comments.