Reykjavík Grapevine - 18.05.2018, Blaðsíða 45

Back To School
Comfort food and fun times at
Stúdentakjallarinn
Words: Shruthi Basappa Photo: Art Bicnick
Universities are known for many
things—sports, arts, academics,
meeting report deadlines, and, of
course, great drinking binges. A
lot of the latter tends to take place
at the student bar, and the Univer-
sity of Iceland caters to this time
honoured tradition splendidly at
Stúdentakjallarinn.
Housed in the basement of its
most recent campus addition, the
bar is modelled along the lines of
an American bar—or perhaps this
is just the unspoken design code
of student bars worldwide. There
are dark, comfy couches, a large
screen, seating aplenty, and the air
is thick with the smell of beer and
nachos.
Hangry and shameless
Stúdentakjallarinn is open every
day, and at university lunch hour,
be prepared to wade through a
sea of students, professors and
off-the-street plebs like me look-
ing for a steal. My partner and I
patiently waited to place and pay
for our orders, watching ‘Anchor-
man’ playing on mute on the big
screen. Hangry and shameless I
ordered the these-came-out-of-
a freezer-pack dish of coconut
shrimp (1,590 ISK), tortilla pizza
with Parma ham (1,590 ISK) and
the cellar burger (1,490 ISK).

The shrimps are deep fried and
come with a swimming bowl of
wakame. Talk about assuaging
guilt over fat. I’ve enjoyed the torti-
lla pizza on several occasions, and
their popularity is well deserved—
the portions are massive, the top-
pings generous and all sense of
established food
o r d e r t h r o w n
out the window
(guac on a torti-
lla pizza? Sign me
up!). Many end up
with leftovers—a
win-win, in my
book! All around
us, nacho moun-
tains were being
demolished with
g usto, burgers
chomped down, and the beer was
free flowing, even on a weekday
afternoon.
Shitbroke Friday
Where Stúdentakjallarinn really
shines is in its regular events and
spunky regular offers—Shitbroke
Friday, anyone? I have a soft spot
for their Nerd Nights, the most
recent one bringing together the
cosmos, love, and the history of
yo-yoing, because.. why not?
Surprisingly for a student bar
joint, Stúdentakjallarinn is also
strangely family and child-friend-
ly. After lunch hour and early
evening, it tends to be quite laid
back—a perfect opportunity for
younger patrons to catch a bite,
their parents to catch a breath or
watch a Sunday screening.
Awash with nostalgia
Those with a valid student card
can really put all those beer offers
to good use. Beers are priced at
590 ISK, a steal by any measure.
For alums who’ve long graduated,
this year the Student Union—
which runs Stúdentakjallarinn—
is turning fifty.
Fittingly, they’re
offering birth-
day beers for 50
ISK on every last
Monday of the
month. Whether
it’s a celebration
of perfect test
scores or drown-
ing your sorrows
af ter fai l ing a
c l a s s , t h e r e ’s
enough beer, music and movies
for everyone.
My partner and I ate our meal
in silence, eavesdropping on the
conversations around us about
tough professors, the origins of
their grandmothers’ names, argu-
ments over the best interpretation
of assignments, and side-eyeing
the class crush. It was a true en-
capsulation of universities being
a world unto themselves, and we
walked out awash with nostalgia.
1 0 1 Ó Ð I N S T O R G R E Y K J A V Í K Í S L A N D S N A P S B I S T R O . I S
s n a p s b i s t r o @ s n a p s b i s t r o . i s + 3 5 4 5 1 1 6 6 7 7
F R E N C H O N I O N S O U P
I c e l a n d i c Í s b ú i c h e e s e , c r o û t o n s
2 . 3 0 0 . k r
M O U L E S M A R I N I È R E S
s t e a m e d m u s s e l s f r o m B r e i ð a f j ö r ð u r
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F I S H O F T H E D A Y
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45The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 08 — 2018
Tortilla pizza: it's a thing
“The portions are
massive, the top-
pings generous,
and all sense of
established food
order thrown out
the window.”