Reykjavík Grapevine - 18.05.2012, Blaðsíða 51

R E V I E W S
1/10 The Best Restaurant in Iceland
the best goddamn restaurant 2011
the best thai food
www.banthai.name
www.yummy.is
year 2009, 2010 and 2011
www.yummiyummi.net
BanThai
B
an
T
ha
i
......................................
Thai Fusion Food
tel:588-2121
Hverfisgata 123 við Hlemm
One price 1000 kr.
Laugavegur 130 ofan við Hlemm
te
l:
69
2-
05
64
Ban Thai is the finest Thai restaurant in Iceland
we recommend....... yummi yummi
Iceland’s
Restaurant of the year
2009 & 2010
by the Nordic Prize
Nordic House Sturlugata 5 101 Reykjavik tel. +354 552 1522 www.dillrestaurant.is Open for lunch every day from 11.30 and for dinner wednesday to sunday from 19.00.
Màs Organica. Màs Sensual. Màs Salad Bar.
Kryddlegin hjörtu is perfectly located
with a sweet view of Esja in all her
mountainly glory (914 metres, but
who’s counting!). It is wedged between
the Indian Embassy on the left and the
social security office on the right, which
strangely enough sort of sums the res-
taurant up perfectly—sort of ethnic and
very affordable.
The menu at Kryddlegin hjörtu
couldn’t be simpler: salad buffet and a
rotating selection of soup at 1790 ISK
during lunch and 1990 ISK at later
hours or a stable selection of two main
courses, an oven-baked fish with cous-
cous or a lasagne (both at 1990 ISK).
The focus is squarely on the lunch hour,
but it was still surprising to see them
closed for business during weekends
and closing at 21:00 on weekdays.
So what does the place look like? Re-
member that Martin Bashir documen-
tary about Michael Jackson? Remem-
ber that bit in the Vegas shopping mall
where he goes shopping for furniture?
By the looks of the interiors at Kryddle-
gin hjörtu the king of pop found time to
float by on a cloud of Lorazepam to give
some pointers. It’s minimal but all over
the place and serving affordable health
conscious food—this is where Steve
Jobs would have gone during his Hare
Krishna days. The fact that the place
takes its name from the Icelandic trans-
lation of ‘Like Water for Chocolate’ by
Laura Esquivel, that perennial favourite
of the Scandinavian housewife, is just
the icing on the cake.
What else do you need to know?
Well, the place looks like they’d employ
servers but the deal is that you grab a
seat, pay-at-the-counter and help your-
self. If you opt for the soup, bread and
salad (as most do) then you’ll be given
one bowl that you will have to reuse,
even if you wish to sample all the avail-
able soups. While they do it to avoid a
pile up of bowls with half-eaten soups,
it is undeniably annoying for those who
want to try more of what’s on offer.
However, I found that asking nicely can
remedy that quite quickly.
I had the soup and salad and my date
had the fish with couscous. With it we
had Fuller’s Organic Honey Dew, which
seems to have become a mandatory part
of the selection at all organic restaurants
in Europe. We went on a Tuesday so
the soup selection was Mexican “salsa
soup,” coconut-curry, fish and mush-
room.
The quality of the salad bar is the
main reason I would call their prices
reasonable. The salad bar offers two
spreads, a delicious spiced garlic butter
and a hummus made on location with
home-made tahini and organic chick-
peas, freshly-baked bread (mostly the
dense gluten-free kind, which my date
liked but I am a lot less fond of), differ-
ent types of vegetables (all organic too,
not that I can tell the difference anyway),
rice, nuts, beans and so on. The salad
bar alone is enough to fill up on and
that’s not including the four soups.
I had heard good things about the
soups, but I must say I was a little un-
derwhelmed. The coconut-curry turned
out to be a pretty basic Thai green curry,
heavy on the kaffir lime and scrump-
tious. The Mexican-style “salsa soup”
was decent and generous with the
chicken. The fish soup was some kind
of brown, wimpy goop and didn’t appeal
to me at all. I refused to try the cream of
mushroom soup as cream of mushroom
should be limited to Warhol prints and
is never fit for human consumption.
I tried my date’s fish on couscous
(turns out dining with a food critic gets
old really fast) which was excellent,
though far too heavy on the fresh cilan-
tro but fresh with a nice spicy crisp on
top.
I recommend the fish on couscous,
the spreads, and the Thai green curry
soup if they’re serving it on the day you
go. I like my breads light and fluffy so
those didn’t really do it for me, but a
lot of people seem to love them so you
should try for yourselves.
The only real downside was that the
owners found out I was there to review
the place and hovered over the table like
cartoon vultures explaining every last in-
gredient on the menu (remember what I
said about dining with food critics?).
RAGNAR EGILSSON
ALÍSA KALYANOVA
What We Think: Good value
organic salad bar. A refreshingly
simple fish and couscous dish.
Great view. Variable soup quality.
Good choice for a quick lunch,
but don’t expect to have your
minds blown.
Flavour: Fresh-tasting amalgam
of Middle Eastern and Central
American cuisine, but nothing
that would freak out your health-
conscious auntie.
Ambiance: They seem to be
doing good business, but the
atmosphere was pretty bland and
laid-back. I did notice a group of
bongo players settling in when we
were leaving so maybe I should
have stuck around for that.
Service: Self-service.
Price: (2 people with drinks):
Approx. 6000 ISK
Kryddlegin Hjörtu
Skúlagata 17, 101 Reykjavík
10%Discount
If yo
u br
ing
this
prin
tou
t we
give
you
10%
dis
cou
nt
Gandhi Indian restaurant
Pósthússtræti 17; 101 Reykjavík
ICELAND - Tel.: (+354) 511 1991
www.gandhi.is e-mail: gandhi@gandhi.is
Example from our menu:
Indverskt ævint ri – Indian
adventure
Let our chefs surprise you with fish,
chicken and vegetarian courses
accompanied with nan bread and raitha.
Indverskur eftirréttur – Indian dessert
ISK 4.900 - 10% = ISK 4.410