While I lack the burning intellect of Bourdain, I do love to travel and I do like to eat. One of the silver linings of this little trip to the land of Vikings is that I am somewhere I've never been. I also get to try out restaurants and food. I've tried out 4 restaurants since I've been here.
The restaurant cafe... Our first night here we weren't up for traveling ver far. So we just took the elevator down the hotel restaurant. Next time I will heed the recommendations on Yelp*. The moat interesting thing about the restaurant was the cliental. Nearly every table seemed to be occupied by someone being reared across the street at Mayo. Since I'm all about taking photos you can tell how much I wanted to share my food. I have not been able to go back.
The singing pancake... By far this has been my go to restaurant. I think it's a quirky little place.
And... you get a dinner and a show. The restaurant's name is Pannekoeken. That is a Dutch/Belgian pancake(or so according to Wikipedia). This is a decent restaurant on the corner near the hospital. After the lackluster meal of the first night, I pushed my mom to this restaurant(Literally - She was in a wheelchair) I checked it out on Yelp* and the reviews were moderate. I went anyways. Big stuffed pancakes sounded good. The restuarant had a quaint diner feel with a twist. The interior was painted creamsicle orange and a light minty green. There was a nice friendly feel.
I ordered the cranberry and rum pannekoeken. My mom ordered potato pancakes. As we sat waiting for our food, I enjoyed my coffee. Every few minutes there was a muffled voice over a loudspeaker. I swear that it started to sound like the Swedish Chef from the Muppets. A short while later I heard singing and turned to see one of the waitresses singing "pannekoeken, pann-e-koo-ken." I guess they bring out the dishes to a song. Stuffed pancakes turned out to be pretty good. Just look at the photo!. The pannekoeken was tasty with the butter rum sauce. My mom's potato pancakes were also nicely done. I'd go back.
And I did. Mary, my mom, had an urge for fried fish. I went back and ordered a fried fish plate. I also picked up some of their muffins. For getting carry out fried fish it was pretty good. The best part were the muffins. Ooohhhh...yum.
Church and American-Greek Comfort Cuisine... I went to church. It was Sunday, I needed to go to His house, and I needed to have a nice talk with God. i had to because He was telling something because the church has the SAME name as my parish back in Goshen. St. John the Evangelist. When God talks you can't ignore him. Just ask Jonah.
Church was a needed respite. It was nice to hear his word and get a spiritual pep talk. Also the Deacon was a real character and spoke wonderfully.
After church it was time to look for a new place for grub. I walked the cold and blustery 3 blocks to a row of restaurants near the Mayo Hospitals. Today I picked out a place because it was the first one I saw(after Pannekoeken).
It was a place called Mac's Cafe Restaurant. Their tagline is "Iconic American and Greek Comfort Cuisine". I couldn't pull the trigger and order anything Greek(well except for dessert). I was feeling kind of plain and seeking some comfort food. What's more comforting than a Budweiser and a burger. It hit the spot and made me feel just a little bit better. The perk-up did me good. I wanted dessert so I decided to go Greek. Nothing is much better than baklava. I brought back the baklava and a piece of chocolate cream pie.
Hospital food... When I was growing up hospital food was much maligned. I think it's still placed on a level equal to ---well I'm not sure there is anything that come down that far. I haven't had the food that my mom's been eating, but I've eaten out of the cafeteria here. Actually it is pretty good for food that has to walk the tight rope of health, taste, and mass production. I've had several lunches here. I think the fell of the tight rope compensating for taste and mass production. It's good in a pinch.
