Nya Tröls Bar & Restaurang – Fish n’ Chips

I want to start by telling my peeps that had to cancel their date for this evening, don’t worry! You didn’t miss out on much, and I’m sure that it will be better next time so you might as well just come then. I was joined by Mr and Miss Married this time around, two first-timers that did a real good job I have to say. Me on the other hand, did less of a good job to check the pictures I was taking, so they are all a bit blurry, I apologize profusely for not doing the place justice.

I met the kids in Central Malmö and then we did a small hike to the restaurant, since I don’t really find my way around Malmö that well either, I had to kick in the GPS on the phone to find our way. It’s easy to spot the place once you reach it, however there were no signs on the outside stating the name good thing for them there are not that many places right there to cause confusion.

When you first walk in, it looks real cosy, a real nice little bar. It turned out that I had booked a table in their restaurant part, not as cosy and totally empty.

We gave them the benefit of a doubt, since we were early I guess six pm on a Saturday might be a tad bit early to go out and eat. As we were leaving a few hours later, there were loads more people in there.

As we all know what we are eating, the biggest task is to choose the beer and here we were informed that the amazing list of international beers that you found on their webpage was only available in the front bar. The restaurant only carried Swedish beer (strange as I ordered a Staropramen). Here comes the first main complaint; as we were finishing of our meal, people had sat down at the table next to us and the waitress all of a sudden came walking in with bottles of beer from the bar. Apparently some guests are offered the selection from out there and some, like us, are not!

 

Well, Staropramen works, and I didn’t choose the place for its beer selection, I choose it due to the fact that they had Fish n’ Chips on the menu. They also have a vegetarian option where they replace with the fish with halloumi instead of fish, as Miss Married pointed out, that’s like mozzarella sticks! None of us felt the urge to try it though so I can’t give any input on how it tastes. When the food arrived, we all looked might pleased as it was a real good serving, and looked real yum.

Boy did we get disappointed when we started to dig in! Where do I start? Maybe with the “sauce”, this clump of unidentifiable mush contained something so strange that I’m lost for words – curry! Really?!? I wonder who came up with that brilliant idea. Miss Married still wanted something to dip her chips in and we asked for some mayo, which they didn’t have (I would have guessed that there were mayo in the “sauce” which make one think that it wasn’t made on the scene) but we could have some aioli. Fine we thought, that tasted ok, it also came with an extra 15kr charge on the bill, not too fantastic.

How about the fish? you wonder. Well, it looked real yum and the batter felt real crispy on the outside, however, it was way to thick and as you bit into it you felt a distinct taste of dough. Mr Marrieds fish was one big ball of dough, pretty much, however after digging past the dough the fish inside was real good. We could all agree that it was a well cooked fish with real nice texture (a clear four from all of us). Sad that they forgot to put salt on it, and the lemon was a requirement to get the fish edible.

Then the chips, no crunch, no salt, and a bit mushy! What else can I say? Nothing, they weren’t anything special at all. Miss Marrieds favourite part of the plate was the arugula that came on the side, Mr Married was not as keen on eating his greens and I ate them even though they aren’t really a Fish n’ Chip condiment.

 

Conclusion at the end of the meal was that we rather would have been sitting in the bar, as the atmosphere out there was nicer than in the restaurant, also I think we would like to eat something else from the menu as the Fish n’ Chips wasn’t a hit! Too bad, since we want good food for first-timers. Hopefully they are brave enough to show up for more session.

The final score was 23,3 which earns them a second place in the Malmö ranking (out of two)! The hunt continues, hopefully they aren’t all that bad!

 

After rain come sunshine

The sun was shining when I woke up this morning, so I quickly chucked down two pieces of toast for breakfast in order to not miss out.

Then I finally got around to doing somethingI been wanting for days, paint!

I may or may not share the result with you guys, not sure if I like it yet.

The day continued with some errands that my hostess needed to run before sitting down for a super yum sushi lunch.

Then it was excursion tome again, we got on a local bus with a driver driving like a maniac through something called kangaroo grounds before we got of in a really quaint little village.

The village is placed right on the Yarra river and is surrounded by beautiful nature.

While Mr Three-year-old enjoyed the playground, I enjoyed a banana-blueberry muffin.

Then we walked down yo the river to feed the ducks.

On our way back to the bus, we stopped into a real proper candy store with candy from all over the world. No Swedish candy though.

We also had time to stop by an op-shop and I managed to procure the first pressie for the trip.

It’s a funny thing, being on vacation, how you can forget the days. I started talking about what to have for dinner and my hostess casually mentioned that we can just do fish n’ chip Friday. I was 100% sure it was Thursday!

However fish n’ chips it was.

7 Things I want to do this week

I know it’s one day late, however since Monday was a day of I say the actual week start on Tuesday and since it’s my blog I do what I want to. It has also been a long time since my last 7 Things, better late than never, right? Here goes;

1. Start back at the Fish n’ Chips Challenge – it’s is spring enough for this now I think.üAnd the FnC is back on, read all about it.
2. Keep the alcohol intake to a minimum, I will admit that the Easter Holiday wasn’t as much of a vacation as I needed it to be.ü (At least I think I did, all is relative)
3. Book a new appointment for the world-famous laser treatment, I do admit it didn’t work as good as one could have wished for. However if first it wont succeed then try again!ü Next attempt is now planned for the 23rd of April, lets hope it work better this time around.
4. Either go for a run or at least one session at the gym, I need to be in shape pretty soon.ü Well, kind of.
5. Find at least one object for my Train Chronicles.
6. Catch up on everything at work, I think I might be a tad behind one some areas. That can be rectified by working late and avoiding bars (see point 2).
7. Do one load of laundry (boring I know, but it have to be done).ü Such a grown-up!

7 thing’s that I’m going to do this week

Thus it begins!

I’m going to start out with just sharing 7 things that I have decided that I’m going to do this week.

1. Go to the Vampires and give them some of my blood so that they can test it and tell me if my blood is good enough to be a blood donor. Haven’t been able to reach them, I blame it all on the opening hours they keep and they are not open over the weekend. I will add it to next weeks list of things to do, one of these day I will get around to it.
2. Buy more yarn for my blanket project so that I can continue the work on it.!).ü
3. Not smoke in the apartment at all (looks like mother might be coming for a visit).ü
4. Go for at least one run.ü
5. Plan the next Fish n’ Chips session (that is way overdue!).ü
6. Not do any texting under the influence of alcohol. After two bottles of Tuborg Monday night, I sent mother a text thus I faild this one straight away.
7. Come up with my very own 7-things-for-a-better-life-list.ü

This weeks post on Fish n’ Chips…

…will unfortunately be a bit delayed, all due to a forgotten notebook.

Yes, the magic notebook in which the rating is noted down in was left at home when last nights session took place. Due to this, two ratings were forgotten, and the writer is thoroughly ashamed.

Now I am waiting for yesterday’s fellow judges to revert with their additional ratings, once that is done, the post will be published.

Another try at what we think might be Fish and Chix – Streckers instead Fish n’ Chips

Let me start out by saying that I am dead tired and wish I was in bed right now, but after last weeks delay by a whole day I do not dare to do it again. Da Teacher will most likely hunt me down and do evil things to me if I do, so here goes;

Todays Fellow Judges;

• The ever-present Mr Grumpy
• The for ever correcting Da Teacher
• And the lovely Miss Legal

Last week when we went to The Irish Rover for Fish n’ Chips we walked by a place that looked exactly like the Fish and Chix place that we tried to visit in Kongens Nytorv but was closed. The funny part being that the square we found this place in is called Nytorv (without the Kongens before) so we figured this might be the place. Thus we took aim for todays Fish n’ Chip session, but alas it does not seem to be meant to be. This after some confusion as there is one bar called Charlies (where me and Miss Legal conducted todays warm-up session) and one bar called Charlie Scott’s (where Mr Grumpy and Da Teacher conducted their warm-up session).

The thing was as well, that I did not expect the place to not be open, our guess is that it closed due to the heavy rainfall of today (and every other day this summer), so there was no back-up plan. And yes, one can think that a world city like Copenhagen have an abundance of Fish n’ Chip serving places, this is not true. However Mr Grumpy did save the evening by remembering this place called Streckers, and there we went. It wasn’t until I came home that I realized that a place called Streckers is on the Fish n’ Chips list, give it a couple of minutes more and I realize it is not the same place as we went to today.

The food was quickly served compared to the drinks, there was a promise from the guy behind the bar that someone would come to our table and take the drink order. This did not happen until I accidentally spoke a little bit loudly about the to be or not to be regarding the table service. It seem that the waitress heard my monologue and rushed to the table to take our order. Once that was done, it didn’t take long for the drinks to arrive either.

From the staff and the menu card, we were prepared for the fact that this was to be Danish Fish n’ Chips rather than British (also called classical) Fish n’ Chips.

One example being that it is clearly stated that the sauce is Remoulade rather than Tartare sauce, for this reason the sauce has been graded as sauce. Honesty always work in the end!

The food arrive, and the first comment was “What is that green stuff?”, yes there was salad on the plate, and this is noticed before the thin little chips that very closely resembled McDonald’s fries rather than chips. The lemon that was served on the plate was deemed more likely being the left-over from someones G&T rather than a squeezable lemon that would spread some lemony taste over the fish.

There was no vinegar or ketchup served or offered with the food. We did receive salt and pepper though, very lucky indeed as I, who never puts extra salt on the food, had to salt both the fish and the chips to get some taste.

But in the long run, I should be happy, at least my batter contained some fish! Da Teacher was unlucky enough to receive a plate with a nice chunk of batter, not to bad tasting, but not much fish in it.

The food in it self scored high points today, this might be due to the disappointment of one closed place, the expectation of not being able to eat this weeks ration of F&C and then the excitement of finding a place that serves the same. This combined with the fact that we ate much later today than usually, might have contributed to the upper level scoring of something that is not really F&C. Or we have just lowered our standards since we started this mission.

It might also be that we did not deduct enough points for the blocked ladies toilets that made a trip into the mens room required. There was also the candles that Da Teacher claim being mosquito repellents, I have a cold so I can’t say, Miss Legal tought that they are more like grave candles.

Either way, we have a new second placer on both lists! The magical lists and all other information is just one click away (hint, click on the rating below).

The Irish Rover – Fish n’ Chips

Yesterday it was finally time for Fish n’ Chips again, it’s been way to long but apparently my life came in the way. I should have made this update last night when arriving home, this unfortunately happened to be a little bit late and I was way to “tired” to feel that I could write anything that would make any sense today, so here it is with one days delay (lets just hope that I remember all the important bits);

This week the hunt for the best Fish n’ Chips that Copenhagen has to offer took us to the Irish Pub very suitably called The Irish Rover. Fellow judges this week were the always present Mr Grumpy as well as Da Teacher, the rest of the semi-regulars seemed to be busy with things like vacation and being home sick.

The one thing that happens when you hang out with a teacher, is that, well she is a teacher, spelling mistakes are quickly discovered and pointed out. I do not think that she deducted any points from the food even though the word for fries is misspelled in the Danish menu. Not to worry, for all you non-danish speakers, this Irish Pub do have their menu in english as well, and in that one the word chips is correctly spelled.

Mr Grumpy was of course late as usual, the first thing he does when he finally arrives is to walk inside (yes, these Vikings were sitting outside eating yesterday) buy a beer, come back out sit down and say;

“The beer is bloody expensive!”

After that he says hi, and urges us to order the food even if he is not hungry, since he will not purchase another beer at this bar (for you who wonder, a pint is 50 Danish money). To make him happy, which me and Da Teacher always aim to, we order the food, babble away having a nice time and then got out food. To be honest I do not remember if the food took so long that I wondered if the food would be coming soon. If I didn’t then the food didn’t take to long, if I did, then order before you are hungry enough to want your food straight away.

The fish was today served with chips (not wedges), tartar sauce (or something pretending to be) and peas (de-frosted rather than fresh), and a chunk of lemon. Since the menu didn’t contain this information, Mr Grumpy was kind enough to as, and the fish today was Haddock. He also thought that the biggest chunk of fish should be served to the man, but we all know that in the end it doesn’t matter, since he can eat what we little women do not finish.

Not sure it is a very suitable fish n’ chip fish, since it pretty much crumbled when you started to cut into it. We were lucky that it wasn’t take-away fish as that would have been impossible to eat. The batter was also a sad sight this time, a very thin layer, crunchy but to thin. It also seemed like they forgot to put one part of the fish into the fryer, since the tails had a slightly different color than the rest of the fish.

Mr Grumpy was happy though (guess that is what you call an oxymoron) when identifying vinegar on the table, points of for not being served in a bottle. Who can resist pink little plastic packages of vinegar though? There were also the Tartar sauce, I was under the impression that Tartar sauce was not supposed to be that sour but it was better than no tartare sauce at all.

The chips were not very crispy, and could have done with some more time in the fryer. Not sure this would have helped them as according to Da Teacher, the fryer needed to be changed as the chips got their color from the fryer rather than being fried. Think that she might have to elaborate on that story herself as I did not take notes when she explained how this worked.

All in all, we can determine that this is not the best fish n’ chips in Copenhagen. But it was a nice evening, probably one of the last where the meal can take place outdoors. And the service was good, especially if you compare with a few of the previous places we have been to. For you who missed out on those stories you can find them here and of course  there is The Ranking.

Bishop Arms, no Fish and Chix, no Bishop Arms – Fish n’ Chips

There was some confusion today. The original plan was to check out the Bishop Arms but as the weather was so great, and you never know how long that will last for in Copenhagen, we decided to change the venue to Fish and Chix as this is an outdoor eating location. Or I should say, was and outdoor eating location, since when we got there it was very much closed.

As we walked over to the closest venue for some warm-up beers and to wait for the rest of the fellow judges to join us (two expected and three maybe’s that no one was expecting) we found out that the place had been closed for some time now. As this is one of the places that comes up on top of most the searches when looking for Fish n’ Chip places in Copenhagen, I will do my best to spread the word.

Well, as you can understand we went back to the original plan of Bishop Arms. And we tonight were of course me, the writer, Mr Grumpy (the only fellow judge that has attended all three sessions), Da Teacher, The Tourist and finally the return of Miss Legal.

The first thing we realized as we sat down at our table, was the free dinner available underneath it. Since the weather is absolutely amazing, you can imagine how empty a dark and gloomy pub like this would be, and one would expect the staff to have time to properly clean up the messes that previous guests make on and around the tables, but apparently not. There was a nice big chunk of chicken some bread and a chip. At least we now know that there are chips and not potato wedges available and that would be a first.

This is one of those places that you want to go to and order your food a little bit before you are actually hungry, again the place was almost empty and it still took almost 30 mins before we got our food. But once we got it, it was worth the wait. Finally! The fish n’ chips that was put in front of us actually looked like fish n’ chips should, including proper chips.

There where two pieces of fish, one big chunk and then a small kids version, with proper batter, crunchy batter. I have to admit that I forgot to check the menu for the type of fish, so we just assume that it was cod. And as mentioned the chips looked like real chips. The only problem being the crispness, they should have just thrown them in to the deep fryer together with the fish as they where a bit soft and soggy.

With the fish there where two little bowls, one containing the Tartar sauce, that was properly approved of. The other one was pea humus (according to the waitress) which was just cold mushed green peas, nothing else, strange. There was also vinegar on the table which the two brits approved of, no onelse really cares.

Unfortunately today the food was not the main focus. After the dinner found under the table the non-cleaning continued to the bathrooms. Again one would think that with so little to do, the staff would have time to clean the ladies rooms, but apparently not. It was not a fun trip, which all three women of today agreed on. Fortunately for Bishop Arms, the toilets are not a part of the grading.

The cost of  todays Fish n’ Chips were a whopping 149dkk, but at the same time, it was the best we’ve had  this far. But it would probably be better to eat them as take-away rather than eating in.

To see the full list and scoring of Fish n’ Chip places that we have visited, just click here. And if you have suggestions for places that serve Fish n’ Chips, please let me know and I will add them to the list.

Kødbyens Deli – Fish n’ Chips

The expectations on the second round of Fish n’ Chips in Copenhagen were high, mostly due to reviews read on the good old internet, forwarded to me by one of todays fellow judges, Mr Grumpy Jr. It turned out that our expectations were way to high which pleased the other fellow judge of the evening, Mr Grumpy himself, that still claim that The Globe has some of the best Fish n’ Chips in town, and at the moment he is right.

But I guess I am getting ahead of myself now. The target for tonight was a place called Kødbyens Deli, that is located in Copenhagen’s meatpacking district. Just to make sure that we got into the right mindset for a take-away hangout, we stopped by Jernbanecafeen for a beer since everyone knows that Fish n’ Chips is best after a bruski or two.

It turned out that neither of the Mr Grumpies had attended before, and now they finally got to appreciate a small pub with trains everywhere, and their very own beer. With this start of the evening, it almost turned out to a;

Let us judge the sunky Bodegas of Copenhagen!

Rather than a Fish n’ Chips review. But we did manage to get our butts of the couch and onwards and towards food.

The Deli has two versions of their Fish n’ Chips, one for guys and one for girls. The girly version doesn’t include any chips at all but instead you are getting a salad with some cucumber sauce. Needless to say, we all chose the male version.

It also turned out that this cute little take-away place sold wine with the fish, they even had a house wine. We weren’t brave enough to try it, Mr Grumpy Jr quickly settled for the Chardonnay, that he even was kind enough to share.

Getting the food didn’t take too long, but I have to say, and I think the Grumpies pretty much agreed, it was kind of a sad sight. They both agreed that the green stuff showed a sign of effort on the presentation side…I don’t agree. A plastic box rather than newspaper, or just paper! And the food kind of didn’t really fill out the box instead it just made the portion look smaller than it already was.

So the fish, it was Cod which is the correct one. But it also remind you of the fish sticks that mummy made you when you where a kid, the one she pulled out of the freezer. The batter was pretty thick, according to Jr, it was way to thick, which one can agree with when seeing the pic to the left. It does look a little bit like there is more batter than fish, but it was nice crispy batter though.

One can’t talk about the fish without talking about the taste, right? Wrong! It was almost impossible to taste the fish due to all the salt, big chunks of salt.

When it comes to the chips, we might have to reconsider our definition of what a chip is. For the second week in a row we are receiving potato wedges rather than chips. This week we choose to call them mini wedges. They tasted good, a lot better than they looked, but they are still not chips thus no points for crispness. Average on flavour even so.

Enough with the bitching, the service was great, they where polite nice and they let us sit in their take away place to eat the food, it was raining outside so we didn’t really want to go back out there. And as mentioned before, this feels like a proper F&C place so atmosphere scored high, there is definitely a concept here that can be developed.

The scoring however took place in a completely different place, at least I felt awkward sitting in such a small area where they most likely could hear what we where saying, giving low grades on their food. They ended up with an average less than last weeks The Globe, and even though it was cheaper the portions where small so can not give a proper verdict on value for money. Give me a couple of weeks and I might have a formulae for that as well.

If you want to find your way to the Deli, you can find there info here http://www.kodbyensdeli.dk/.

The Globe – Fish n’ Chips

Today the hunt for the best Fish n’ Chips in Copenhagen started with a trip to The Globe. With me today as my fellow judges was Miss Legal, Miss Responsible and Mr Grumpy (no they did not get to pick their own nick names so they most likely will not be all happy).

The downer was that I forgot my phone at home today so I couldn’t take any pictures, but Miss Responsible was kind enough to use her magic Ipad to take one and forward to me. I am surprised that she didn’t take a picture of the Guinness also, since she wanted us to pass judgment on that one as well (no I did not have one since I am still not drinking, 2½ weeks to go).

Yes, yes, I know; move one to the subject at hand, how was the actual Fish n’ Chips.

Me and Miss Legal was a bit early so we had to sit and wait for the other two, working up an appetite while doing so, thus it was a good thing that once we ordered the food, it didn’t take to long before it was received. The service was surprisingly good for being an Irish Pub since we had table service all evening even for the drinks, much appreciated.

The Fish arrived looking like it should, unfortunately the chips weren’t really chips, but potato wedges. They tasted good, but since they where not the crispy chips we expected we haven’t scored them on crispness.

The fish itself was cod, which I understand is the one and only correct fish to use, so points for that. There was disagreement on the crispness of it and the texture of the breadcrumbing, but still high scores. Unfortunately the fish didn’t taste that much, even I put extra salt on it and that doesn’t happen often, also the texture of the fish wasn’t really up to par. It felt a little bit like the outside was fried to extreme crispness and the middle didn’t get enough of cooking.

Another thing on the plate that wasn’t really expected was the salad, who has ever heard of salad together with greasy, unhealthy food such as Fish n’ Chips? It has not been passed judgment on as it should not be a part of the dish (but it was good, fresh and with a nice dressing).

The sauce according to the menu was supposed to be a homemade Tartar Sauce, but the general consensus (except for Mr Grumpy) was that it tasted more like a bowl of mayo. But Mr Grumpy might have added some extra points to the sauce due to the fact that there was real vinegar on the table, something I think he might have been the only one that appreciated it.

The Fish n’ Chips at The Globe costs a whopping 95dkk, I do not know at this stage if this is a lot, average or cheap here in Copenhagen, that is something we will have to revisit. Will keep track of the prices as well, it will be fascinating to compare the rating of the food with what we paid for it.

Finally, the actual scores of the evening and the first ones handed out.
Mr Grumpy kindly informed us that he knew the Fish n’ Chip standard in this town, and that we were too though on the food we ate tonight, so it might be that we have to revisit The Globe later on this year when we have tried out some more places. Always though to be the first.

To find your way to The Globe to test their offerings (and completely disagree with us if you want) here is their webpage: http://www.the-globe.dk/.

The hunt for the ultimate Fish n’ Chips – in Copenhagen

The other day miss Legal mentioned that she had some great Fish n’ Chips in whatever country she was in at that time (she is moving about so much at the moment it is hard to keep track), and I found myself craving a serving something like what I used to have during my student days in New Zealand.

My thought then was that there must be a place in the world city of Copenhagen where you can get a decent serving of Fish n’ Chips, so I decided that I will start looking. So people, if you know of any places that serve Fish n’ Chips, please let me know so that I can go there and try them out, and if you wanna join you are more than welcome to.

The official ranking will be found here on the blog 🙂