Reykjavík Grapevine - 31.07.2009, Qupperneq 29

Flavour: Pre-made sushi
Ambiance: Train in a department
store
Service: Friendly
Price per piece: 100 ISK to 400
ISK
COFFEE
1 Café Haiti
Tryggvagata 16
The coffee is plain excellent, the atmosphere
enticing and the price is right. These are
some of the reasons why Café d’Haiti is one
of Grapevine’s favourite downtown cafés.
Café d’Haiti inhabits a tiny space next to Krau
Thai on Tryggvagata. It’s almost hidden. So
if you haven’t tried their coffee yet, we do
recommend you take a walk down to the
harbour and taste a cup.
BREAKFAST
1 Grái kötturinn
Hverfisgata 16a
Super relaxed and cosy diner/café below
street level. This place makes the best
hangover breakfast ever – the truck: a
hefty plate of bacon, eggs, pancakes, syrup
and the like, all fried to perfection – and
any-other-day breakfast as well. It’s a nice
and relaxing place to eat and increase your
caffeine intake and chill with friends or with
some reading material.
2 kornið
Lækjargata 4
No time to sit down for a leisurely breakfast?
Pop into Kornið on your way to work, school,
or anywhere else, for some delicious pastries
to start your day in a sweet and delicious
way. If you have a hunger that no single
pastry could satisfy this place also has a
selection of sandwiches – like the bacon
and egg ciabatta – to fuel your body. There’s
often a bunch of other hungry folks with the
same idea, but the line-up always moves fast.
BEER
1 karamba
Laugavegur 22
Relatively new hotspot in town Karamba is
a colourful and eclectic bar on with an über
comfortable atmosphere, typically great
music and a chill crowd. This is a good place
to relax or to do some serious drinking or to
relax. Plus, their decors are done strictly by
Grapevine-friendly artists, such as Lóa (who
does our comics), Hugleikur Dagsson (who
also does our comics) and Bobby Breiðholt
(who’s done a lot of nice illustrations for us);
they are truly a sight to behold.
2 kaffi Zimsen
Hafnarstræti 18
This is a great place for beer. They have
specials on the stuff pretty much every night
of the week – two for one on Mondays! –
and they’re the only joint in town offering
those self-serve 3 litre beer towers if you’re
drinking in a group or really thirsty or a fan of
buying your beer in bulk. Plus, if you like to
sit while drinking your beer, Zimsen has lots
of chairs and roomy booths for your lounging
pleasure.
For full restaurant and food
listings and venue finder visit
www.grapevine.is for detailed
information.
VEGETARIAN CUISINE
Skólavörðustígur 8 b, tel. 552 2028
Open from 11:30 am–21:00 pm
www.graennkostur.is
We exceed high
expectations
Open for bistro style lunch every day from 11.30–14.00
and dinner wednesday to saturday from 19.00–22.00
Nordic House, Sturlugata 5, 101 Reykjavik, Tel. 6185071/8939693, www.dillrestaurant.is
offerings include pre-made sushi trays
and cold Japanese noodles.
The 10-piece takeaway tray (1.990
ISK) was exactly what one would expect:
Pre-made sushi that has been standing
on its tray in the shop.
Thankfully, the owners have just
opened a restaurant on the other side
of the warehouse to cater for eaters-in.
On our visit, the brand new place was
tip-top. Here, the sushi is made fresh to
order.
I had miso soup with tofu (600
ISK), which was excellent, and shared
a plate of 14 pieces of mixed sushi
(around 2.800 ISK) with my date. The
presentation was straightforward (a
plate with pieces of sushi on it), but the
f lavours were good, selection varied and
the fish fresh. The vegetarian avocado-
mango-roll burst with f lavour, but the
spicy crab rolls burned so I had to eat a
good pile of ginger in my desperation.
The food looks somehow machine-
made, but whatever it is, it sure is good.
What better than a walk by the old
harbour after a meal of fresh sushi?
With its take-away stall in the turquoise
harbour house, Sushismiðjan has
been in the business since 2003. The
the widest selection around. We chose
“Best for 1” (1650 ISK) and continued the
order with a mixed sushi and sashimi
tray (2150 ISK), a bowl of miso with fish
(650 ISK), a battleship with flying fish
roe (400 ISK) and the weekly changing
special, arctic char maki (1000 ISK).
And then, we waited.
It took the three behind the bar
45 minutes to get the order ready, with
no other clients when I entered, nor
an overwhelming rush. By the time I
finally got to eat, I could’ve eaten just
about anything – except for the muddy
miso soup, where something had gone
seriously wrong.
Otherwise, the fish was fresh and
the rolls pretty. The sashimi came in
generous, if inelegantly cut, thick pieces.
The flying fish battleship was good and
the weekly roll divided opinions – one of
us didn’t like it, another sushi thief who
stole a piece from behind our backs loved
it.
We got what we paid for, my sushi-
loving friend and I agreed. But somehow
it was all marked by a dull taste, or lack
of taste. Maybe today it was the rice cook
whose day our meal depended on?
At seven on a weeknight, OSUSHI
was packed with hungry tourists. I,
however, quickly ran into trouble.
What puzzled my mind was just how
the conductors of the train prevent
the portions from surfing around the
restaurant for hours on end. The friendly
and charmingly honest staff confirmed
my suspicions: OSUSHI’s only way to
control the time the sushi stays on the
table is to not fill the belt when it’s quiet.
And as it was put to us, “sometimes you
may get unlucky.”
Considering the fishy odours that
rose up from under the various plastic
“caps” and that all the sushi I ate was
warm, I felt somewhat ill at ease. One
tuna roll was cautiously left uneaten. The
pre-made sushi’s troubles with rice were
bothersome here as well, and the breaded
KFC-style prawns were dry and tasteless.
The train-style sushi was invented
by Yoshiaki Shiraishi. He also invented
robotic-style sushi, served by robots. I am
anxiously waiting for this innovation to
land on the shores of Reykjavik.
- SArI PELtoNEN & SIMoN BArkEr
Sushibarinn has reputedly been the best
bet for sushi in town since opening in
2007. Lately, the quality of the offerings
has depended greatly on the day’s chef—
and the chef’s day.
The little shop is the most
authentic option for sushi in town, with
The upstairs-at-Iða OSUSHI offers a train
option for sushi lovers. The deal is simple:
the plates passing by on a conveyer belt
are colour-coded, and the sushi on them
is priced accordingly, ranging from 200
to 400 ISK. The price of the meal is
calculated by the cashier, to whom you
carry your pile of plates after the meal.
Sushismiðjan
Sushibarinn
oSUSHI – the train
Geirsgata 3
Laugavegur 2
Lækjargata 2a
www.Sushismiðjan.is
What we think: Eat in, not out
What we think: Good sushi, slow
service
What we think: O-oh my fish is
warm
Flavour: pre-made for take away,
fresh and spicy in the restaurant
Ambiance: Fresh sea breeze on
the harbour
Service: Very good
Price per piece: From 199 ISK up
Flavour: The most authentic with
a widest selection
Ambiance: Easy-going
Service: Slow motion
Price per piece: From 137 ISK to
600 ISK
Opening hours Mon-Sat 11.30-22,
Sun 17.30-22.
Restaurant
Take out