Reykjavík Grapevine - 20.05.2011, Qupperneq 2

120 g Lamburger (lamb), garlic grilled mushrooms, cheese,
lettuce, tomatoes, red onion, sauce Béarnaise and french fries.
Those who taste The Lamburger will hardly be able to believe their taste buds.
THE LAMBURGER
Turninn Höfðatorgi
105 Reykjavik
Tel: 575 7575
Opening hours:
Sun-Wed. 11.00–22.00
Thu-Sat. 11.00–24.00
fabrikkan@fabrikkan.is
www.fabrikkan.is
Gullfoss and Geysir are surely a must-see in
Iceland, but neither is something you eat.
That’s why we have 13 brilliant and creative
hamburgers at Hamborgarafabrikkan
(The Icelandic Hamburger Factory).
Hamborgarafabrikkan would eat Hard Rock
Café for breakfast, but since there is no Hard
Rock Café in Iceland we eat our original
Lamburger with the wonderful Icelandic lamb.
The Reykjavík Grapevine awarded
Hamborgarafabrikkan the “Best Specialty
Burger 2010”. It made us happy. Because we
aim to please. That’s why we only use 100%
fresh high-quality ingredients, directly from the
Icelandic nature.
Attention: Our hamburger buns are not round.
They are square. Does it taste better? You tell us.
Be square and be there.
BE SQUARE AND BE THERE

2
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 6 — 2011
Editorial | Haukur S. Magnússon
The Reykjavík GRapevine
Hafnarstræti 15, 101 Reykjavík
www.grapevine.is
grapevine@grapevine.is
Published by Fröken ehf.
www.froken.is
Member of the Icelandic Travel Industry Association
www.saf.is
Printed by Landsprent ehf. in 25.000 copies.
Editor:
Haukur S Magnússon / haukur@grapevine.is
Journalist:
Anna Andersen / anna@grapevine.is
Editorial:
+354 540 3600 / editor@grapevine.is
advErtising:
+354 540 3605 / ads@grapevine.is
PublishEr:
Hilmar Steinn Grétarsson / hilmar@grapevine.is
+354 540 3601 / publisher@grapevine.is
Contributing WritErs:
Þórður Hermannsson
Kolfinna Baldvinsdóttir
Bogi Bjarnason
Ólafur Sindri Ólafsson
Marc Vincenz
Bob Cluness
Clyde Bradford
Helgi Þór Harðarson
Megan Herbert
Magnús Sveinn Helgason
Kári Tulinius
Steve Ganey
Guðmundur Steinn Gunnarsson
Egill Helgason
Harpa Fönn Sigurjónsdóttir
Ryan Patrick
Haukur Már Helgason
Jón Örn Loðmfjörð
Pétur Eggertsson
David Howden
Valgerður Þóroddsdóttir
Snorri Páll Úlfhildarson Jónsson
Sindri Eldon
Editorial intErns:
Vanessa Schipani / vanessa@grapevine.is
Maroesjka Lavigne / maroesjka@grapevine.is
José Angel Hernández García / jose@grapevine.is
on-linE nEWs Editor
Paul Fontaine / paul@grapevine.is
art dirECtor:
Hörður Kristbjörnsson / hoddi@grapevine.is
dEsign:
Páll Hilmarsson / pallih@kaninka.net
PhotograPhEr:
Hörður Sveinsson / hordursveinsson.com
salEs dirECtor:
Aðalsteinn Jörundsson / adalsteinn@grapevine.is
Guðmundur Rúnar Svansson / grs@grapevine.is
Helgi Þór Harðarson / helgi@grapevine.is
distribution managEr:
Þórður Guðmundur Hermannsson
distribution@grapevine.is
ProofrEadEr:
Jim Rice
PrEss rElEasEs:
listings@grapevine.is
submissions inquiriEs:
editor@grapevine.is
subsCriPtion inquiriEs:
+354 540 3605 / subscribe@grapevine.is
gEnEral inquiriEs:
grapevine@grapevine.is
foundErs:
Hilmar Steinn Grétarsson,
Hörður Kristbjörnsson,
Jón Trausti Sigurðarson,
Oddur Óskar Kjartansson,
Valur Gunnarsson
The Reykjavík Grapevine is published 18 times a year by
Fröken ltd. Monthly from November through April, and
fortnightly from May til October. Nothing in this magazine
may be reproduced in whole or in part without the written
permission of the publishers. The Reykjavík Grapevine is
distributed around Reykjavík, Akureyri, Egilsstaðir, Seyðis-
fjörður, Borgarnes, Kef lavík, Ísafjörður and at key locations
along road #1, and all major tourist attractions and tourist
information centres in the country.
You may not like it, but at least it's not sponsored. (No
articles in the Reykjavík Grapevine are pay-for articles.
The opinions expressed are the writers’ own, not the
advertisers’).
Hour
www.grapevine.is
THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO LIFE, TRAVEL & ENTERTAINMENT IN ICELAND
IN THE ISSUE Issue 6 • 2011 • May 20 - June 2 2011 COMPLETE CITY LISTINGS - INSIDE!+
We love drinking. It’s part of what
makes life on the island vaguely
bearable, and it is a fun way to kill
time. Drinking at bars is especially
nice, as it will expose one to stuff one
wouldn’t encounter drinking at home
with the curtains drawn. BUT THERE
ARE SO MANY BARS! HOW DO WE
KNOW WHICH ONE TO GO TO?
Indeed, there are over fifty bars in 101
Reykjavík. So we went and had a beer
at all of them... PAGE 20
WHALES
Are they for watching
or eating?
Samaris, black metal
TRAVEL
DIY Roadtrippin'
+ Mývatn FUN!
ASYLUM SEEKERS
Will Medhi ever get
an answer?
SPORTS
Water polo? Yes, water polo!
MUSIC
“DJAMM ER SNILLD”
WE RATE + REVIEW
every single BAR
in 101 Reykjavík!
Comic | Lóa Hjálmtýsdóttir
Wow. Every bar in 101 Reykjavík, huh? That’s a lot
of bars. Rating and reviewing all of them is a huge
task. Well, maybe not compared to, say, ‘rating and
reviewing every bar in Manhattan’, but Manhat-
tan is a very densely populated metropolitan area.
It is the modern day Rome or Athens (or Babylon
or maybe R’lyeh?). Almost everyone lives there!
Downtown Reykjavík is tiny, yet it still has millions
upon millions of establishments that are dedicated
to the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages.
Over fifty, in any case.
And as you know, we are all borderline alcohol-
ics, and we keep having to reach further and further
to justify our all-weekend benders. This issue’s mis-
sion was not only intended to provide the good peo-
ple of Reykjavík and their guests with an overview
of their choices when it comes to alcohol-related
lounging and how much each place charges for
drinks (also to compile the excellent ‘happy hour’
list), it was also an excellent excuse to once again
get really, really wasted while claiming to be work-
ing.
Will we find another excuse for next weekend’s
bender? In the immortal words of US presidential
candidate Sarah Palin: “You betcha”.
You can flip to page twenty right now to view the
results of our survey. There aren’t many surprises;
some places are all instantly awesome, others are
kind of lame (or scary!), but most of them are just,
you know, bars where you can get buzzed. Our run-
through should optimally give you an indication of
which place might be suitable for your tastes and
budget, and you can also figure out where you can
go to hear your favourite style of music (if your fa-
vourite style of music is ‘frat boy drunkenly playing
top 40 hits on an acoustic guitar at some random
party’, you are in luck).
A lot of people helped us make this happen,
not the least all the writers who graciously donated
their time and livers to completing this unselfish
mission. We are very grateful.
You might be asking yourself whether our rat-
ings are all biased and stuff, and you are right to
wonder (although if you’re so into questioning au-
thority, we can think of some real authorities out
there that are in dire need of being questioned and
disputed). Of course the individuals that visited
these bars and wrote them up have their personal
favourites, they are after all active participants in
Reykjavík’s nightlife. But we tried to be sorta scien-
tific about things and not let our own preferences
influence our verdict (I was actually surprised at
how low some of my own favourites scored, but
then that’s life).
Also, it’s fun to note that the team (I like to call
them ‘ICELAND DRINKING TEAM 2011’) had rep-
resentatives of both genders and most age ranges
(we had men, women, native Reykjavikings, New
Icelanders, twentysomethings, thirtysomethings
and fortysomethings, for instance).
If you find yourself disagreeing with a given as-
sesment, write us a letter explaning your case and
we will print it. We love encouraging and engaging
in discourse!
Now. Go pick a bar and go get a drink. And while
you’re there, ponder the fate of Medhi Kavyanpoor
(page six), who has been fighting for his right to an
existence for over seven years now, and is quickly
being worn down. Ponder the fate and situation
of asylum seekers in Iceland, and how our treat-
ment of them—while maybe slowly improving—is
still shameful and embarrassing. Ponder personally
doing something about it, for instance by writing a
letter to the Ministry of the Interior (www.innanriki-
sraduneyti.is) and letting your outrage be known.
These are real live human beings we’re talking
about, and our treatment of them—when doing a
decent job would be so easy—is fairly to very upset-
ting and depressing in equal measures.

Bedroom Community don’t often add acts to their
roster, but now they’ve have taken UK artist Puzzle
Muteson under their wing and released his first
album, ‘En Garde’. This is for good reason. This
young musician has composed an album of strangely
comforting songs with his trembling vocals, soothing
guitar picking, and mixing of electronic beats and
orchestral strings.
Puzzle is hard to classify into a genre: some might
say he's a folk artist, while others might give him a
completely different title (“relationship-core”? “folk-
tronica”? “witch-wave”?).
Regardless of Puzzle’s genre (“puzzle-gaze”?) ‘En
Garde’ is the fancy song and title track they’re giving
you Grapevine readers this issue. It blends his unique
vocals with a strings section and trance-like electron-
ics, and some guitar picking. It is definitely worth a
listen.
Check it out at: www.facebook.com/puzzle.muteson
Puzzle Muteson
En Garde
TRACK OF THE ISSUE
Download at www.grapevine.is
TRACK
OF THE ISSUE
Download at
grapevine.is
Haukur’s 40th Editorial

Illustration: Hristbjörnsson
this.is/trendy
Maybe Partying Will Help