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S1:E6 | Copenhagen to Aarhus

Denmark’s Midtpunktet

By Nathan Tsai

April 16^th, 2017

Thanks to our travel plans, we started off with another early morning.

Instead of a car or a plane, we boarded a train.

Public transportation in Denmark is remarkably comfortable and quiet. The trains accelerate and decelerate at a sedate speed, the clack-clack of the wheels on the track are muted, and the passengers in the cabin converse in confidential tones. The seats are soft and supported. The whole experience was rather pleasant.

I spent the time napping so I missed much of the countryside.

Three hours later, we rolled into Aarhus—Denmark's second largest city. It is, coincidentally, almost exactly at the geographic center of Denmark: the midtpunktet.

It was a city settled by the Vikings as a trade harbor for agriculture. Today, the city is still home to trade (it is the largest container port in Denmark) and agriculture (it is home to Arla Foods—one of the largest dairy conglomerates in the world).

Aarhus has expanded beyond just shipping food to feed hungry Vikings. It is home to Aarhus University—the largest university in Scandinavia. It houses the youngest population in all of Denmark—ready to innovate and create the future. To capitalize on both of these strengths, more than 300,000m2 of research and development facilities have sprung up over the past 50 years.

After dropping our bags off at the hotel, we immediately trekked out to find lunch.

Nordisk spisehus

M. P. Bruuns Gade 31, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark

Earlier in the month, I had spoken with a chef based in Aarhus and he recommended that we try out Nordisk Spisehus if we had the chance.

I made the booking, so here we were.

Nordisk Spisehus (literally Nordic Dining House) used to be a local restaurant which was generally unspectacular.

In 2009, the current owner purchased the ailing property. In the words of our waiter: "He liked eating but was a very bad cook".

What was he to do?

Well, turns out that the answer was to copy his favorite dishes from the best eateries from all around the globe.

Every month or so, they send one of their two head chefs out to a Michelin-starred restaurant to learn the techniques and secrets of their signature dishes. The chef and his team come back armed with recipes, practice, and a list of ingredients to order. They strive for perfection; they will ship specific ingredients from around the globe to ensure that they are honoring the dish properly.

Out of about 110 3-starred Michelin restaurants on the planet, Nordisk Spisehus has collaborated with 18 of them. They also work with 2-starred (~25) and 1-starred (~25) restaurants as well.

While I think that's a terribly cool idea (which would work amazingly in San Francisco), their lunch service is a little bit different.

Instead of copying other chefs, the team at Nordisk Spisehus use the amalgamation of everything they've learned from their travels abroad to continuously refine their interpretation of Nordic cuisine. What they've ended up with is a well polished, consistent lunch from start to finish.

Dark Ale Bread:

The bread was prepared by starting with a standard rye and wheat dough. The dough is then allowed to rise. Typically, this is then baked and served as a finished loaf of bread.

In this case, this is only the beginning. The dough is then kneaded again and placed into a bath of dark beer. The dough is allowed to rise; this time, it soaks up the beer.

Essentially, this is double fermented bread which is extremely moist because it's soaked up all the beer.

The crust was soft and flavorful—hints of bitterness, a bit of nuttiness, and a rich roasted finish.

The crumb was like a sponge cake in texture and full of a complex, fermented, and almost fruity flavor.

This bread was quite unique and tasted great as well.

Butter with Herb Salt:

Surprisingly, the butter was served cold—almost frozen. This made cutting and spreading the butter on the bread significantly more difficult than it should have been.

The herb salt was very...herbal. I couldn't identify the blend of herbs because it was well balanced but overpowering on its own. With the butter and the bread though, it added a nice floral flavor to the entire composition.

Negative points for cold butter, positive points for a punchy salt; neutral rating overall.

Tatrare - Chips - Tomato:

The tartare was well prepared. The beef was nice and firm and the mayonaise bound the concoction together well. The tartare was a little under seasoned, but I'm not sure that it was necessarily a bad thing as it allowed the other flavors of the dish to really come out. The tartare was more like the base of the dish—like bread to a sandwich—than the main star.

The chips were deep-fried pork rinds. I really liked their approach to adding crunch to the dish. Typically, restaurants will pair a tartare with some sort of biscuit or toast, but this is significantly better. It adds some salt and a nice umami flavor to the dish as a whole.

The tomatoes were extremely tomato-y. They had a super intense tomato flavor with a small amount of acidic sting. I'm actually a little torn on this component of this dish. One one hand, the rest of the dish is a little bland without some oomph of flavor and these dried tomatoes are certainly provide that burst of color. However, the flavor is a little overpowering and on occasion, drowns out the other flavors.

The garnish—thyme in this case—actually contributes to the dish. In combination with the tomato, the salty chips, and the rich umami of the tartare, it provides a nice aroma and a bit of sharpness to the dish.

Overall, this was a very pleasant dish to eat. The only real jarring part of the dish was the tomato, but even that was a fairly marginal issue to have with the dish.

Halibut - Herb Sauce - Fennel:

I'm going to sound like a broken record here.

Fish in Scandinavia is really good.

The halibut was a bit firmer than most of the other fish I've had so far, but still cooked to perfection. The texture was more like a tuna steak—more protein and a little rougher on the tongue. Still sweet and fresh and clean tasting.

The fish was garnished with pickled onions and the lovely Ramson capers again. The bite of acidity from the onions and the hints of garlic from the capers meshed so well with the fish. This alone would have already made a spectacular dish back in the States.

The herb sauce was some sort remoulade that was a bit thinner than usual. The herbs were prepared by using a blender to process the herbs into a very fine paste. Then, the herbs were allowed to rest in parsley oil to preserve the aromatic smell and flavor. When mixed with the sauce and the fish, the flavors all mixed together very well.

The shaved fennel bulb provided a great contrast to the dish. It was crunchy and fresh.

Not much else to say about this dish. Very simple, straightforward, and correctly cooked.

The flavors were phenomenally balanced and this was a good example of the simplicity behind nordic cuisine:

Take good ingredients, cook them just enough without destroying flavor, and allow the food to speak for itself.

Lamb - Kale - Lemon:

The waiter introduced this dish by describing it as "mom's cooking".

It very closely resembles fårikål—Norway's national dish—but with a distinct Danish twist.

The lamb was broiled first and then slow-cooked overnight to give it a deep, sweet flavor. The texture was close to perfect; tender enough to melt in the mouth, tough enough to not disintegrate all over the plate.

I'm not sure why the menu described the dish as having kale and lemon as I don't think either were used in the dish. Instead, the vegetable was cabbage and the topping was roasted almonds and thyme.

The cabbage added a bit more sweetness to the dish. I believe it was steamed first then broiled. The outside was caramelized to a crunchy honeyed flavor while still being soft enough to cut with a fork.

The almonds added a nice crunchy contrast to the rest of the dish and a nice nutty saltiness which also played against the rest of the ingredients.

The sauce was just the au jus from the cooking of the lamb.

Perfect.

An Aarhus Walkabout

While nowhere as brutally beautiful as Iceland or as architecturally aesthetic as Copenhagen, the city of Aarhus is pretty in its own right.

A huge set of railroad tracks split the city down the middle.

A canal wends its way through the shopping district.

There is more brick and mortar than there is glass and steel; it all lends itself to a homey, comfortable feeling.

While the city feels slow and lethargic, the people are anything but.

Overflowing coffee shops crammed with students, beatniks, and suit-wearing business folk are filled with chatter, conversation, and commotion.

Moms pushing strollers energetically through parks enthusiastically greet friends as they pass.

Denmark's first virtual reality cafe—Limitless—calls Aarhus its home.

Unlike much of Scandinavia we've seen so far, people move like Silicon Valley-ites.

Restaurant Domestic

Mejlgade 35B, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark

The motivation for taking a 3 hour train ride out of Copenhagen was to eat at Domestic.

The restaurant has a few things going for it. Namely, Domestic's the most recent restaurant in Aarhus to win a Michelin star (and it did so in less than a year).

That's not the reason why we took a 400km detour.

One day, several weeks before, while aimlessly browsing the internet, I ran into a video posted by a chef at Domestic. While the video was pretty neat—showcasing how awesome an organized and well run kitchen looks at high speed—I figured I'd reach out to the author of the video. Why not right? Here was this chef working in one of the top-rated culinary institutions in Denmark; surely, he must have some good suggestions on where to go eat.

One thing led to another and his restaurant—Domestic—ended up sounding pretty good.

So here we were.

Domestic was founded by two executive chefs and two maître d'hôtels that have been in the business for a long time. This "equal" partnership between the front and back of house ensured parity when making decisions.

As guests of the restaurant, we felt this as well. Chefs would come out of the kitchen to present meals and the waiters seemed to know as much about the food than the chefs themselves.

Snacks were the first order of business tonight again. Eight of them. Faster than any restaurant we had been to.

Barley - tarragon:

A barley chip with a tarragon paste and dusted with barley powder.

The chip was crisp and nutty.

The tarragon paste was not only full of flavor, but added an almost creamy texture to the chip.

The powder didn't add too much to this dish, the chip and the paste were very strong on their own.

A nice start to the meal.

Croustade - roe:

This was essentially the smallest pie I've ever eaten.

The croustade (pie crust) was rolled very thin and baked to a hard crunch.

Fresh trout roe was stacked on top of a creamy filling. This was essentially a blueberry pie but fish-ified...like everything in Denmark.

Per the waiter's direction, we popped the entire stack into our mouth and chewed.

The initial explosion of the salty, umami, fish flavor hit like a truck. Then the sweet and salty creaminess of the filling eased the impact down to manageable levels.

When popped, the roe was liquid, the cream was soft, and the croustade was crunchy. Great texture overall and a very unique mouthfeel.

Not my favorite dish, but from a culinary point of view: solid.

Cod roe - Savoy cabbage:

Slightly sweet and fishy cod roe were stuffed into a thin layer of pickled Savoy cabbage in a style reminiscent of the Lebanese fatayer sabanekh.

The cod roe was a very nice filling for the star of the dish: the cabbage.

It doesn't look like it, but the cabbage was surprisingly crispy. About as crunchy as Korean pickled turnips.

When sliced so thinly and filled with the highly umami flavors of the roe, the dish was both crunchy and smooth, sweetly-sour and saltily-fishy.

The texture contrast really elevated an otherwise mediocre flavor combination.

Sunchoke - gherkins:

The sunchoke was hollowed out then given a deep fry to enhance the nutty sweetness. It was then layered with a creamy filling, gherkin jelly, and topped with micro-greens.

The sunchoke played a fairly minor role in this dish—like the barley chip earlier, it was a crunchy base with a nutty base flavor to contrast with everything else in the dish.

Gherkins (pickles for us uncultured Americans) are a staple in the foods we eat back in the States. For all of my eating experiences, I don't think I've ever eaten pickle Jello.

The cool pickle jelly melted in my mouth as the creaminess of the filling acted as a binding to bring the nutty flavors of the sunchoke and the fresh vegetal aroma of the purple greens to the forefront of the dish.

I have to say, it was actually pretty good.

Lamb - potato:

This dish was straightforward. A thinly sliced piece of cured lamb was nestled on a crisp potato peel. It was then decorated with dried flowers from last year's harvest.

I love cured meats so when you cure the meat right and serve it with minimum distractions, I can't help but like it.

A bit smoky, deeply umami, salty, and crunchy.

What more could you ask for as a snack?

Tatar - cabbage:

I might have eaten this dish a bit too quickly because I didn't get a picture of the wonderful tartare on the inside.

Suffice it to say that there was a well-prepared, well-seasoned, tartare wrapped inside this dumpling of a dish.

The skin of the "dumpling" wasn't any sort of dough. Instead, fresh, lightly steamed cabbage was used as a wrap.

However, the real gem of the entire meal was the dusting of cabbage powder on the outside of the wrapped tartare.

This powder was prepared simply enough: dehydrate cabbage, blend it in a food processor for 30 minutes, dehydrate again, and season.

If no one told me that the cabbage wrap and powder wasn't cabbage-flavored bread, I wouldn't have known.

My mouth was really confused.

This essentially was some strange paleo-inspired interpretation of a hamburger.

Really cool dish.

Chicken - buckwheat:

On a foundation of a warm buckwheat pancake, chicken liver pâté was garnished with thyme, elderflower jelly, and deep-fried shallots.

This and the next dish had a very Asian flair.

The earthy buckwheat flavor and the pungent shallots reminded me of the Chinese 葱油饼 (scallion pancake).

The cubes of sweet elderflower jelly reminded me of Cantonese chrysanthemum tea.

I have a hard time understanding how to critique preparations of liver. The flavor of liver is generally so strong I can't really make any further observations other than, "It tastes like liver".

Even though this was distinctly Western in preparation, I was instantly reminded of the East.

Interesting dish, not something I'd order if I had the chance, but very edible.

Fatty pork—slow cooked overnight—was brushed with a sweet and (tamarind infused?) sauce and finished over a grill. The meat was skewered on a twig of rosemary and garnished with a few crystals of salt.

The flavors really reminded me of my mother's braised pork ribs. It was sweet and slightly salty and the meat just felt like it was so rich with smokey flavor. The texture was soft and warm on the inside and crunchy on the outside.

The dish was simple, the presentation was simple, and the flavors were simple.

The dish was balanced perfectly, the presentation was pleasing, and the flavors really popped.

I am a simple man.

I liked this dish quite a bit.

Sour dough bread & home churned butter:

Good gosh almighty; bread and butter are amazing in Denmark.

The butter was sweet and light. Sort of like someone was whipping the butter and stopped halfway through. Not too bad of an idea actually. The butter spread really easily but was heavy enough to have flavor on the bread.

The bread was fresh. So fresh it could have been just removed from a piping hot oven. Warm—almost gooey—insides with a hint of fermentation; crackling hot—crunchy—outsides with the aroma of flour and a fire oven.

After the snacks and bread, the main courses were served. As we were going to need to wake up at 4AM the next day to catch the train back to Copenhagen, we elected to go with the shorter 4 course meal.

As with snacks, the other culinary craze to sweep Nordic cuisine is juice pairings.

Instead of offering a full set of wines to go with the meal, many restaurants are offering a set of juices instead. They believe that they have more flexibility to mix and match flavors that really complements the food if they are able to draw from a full range of fruits, vegetables, and other plants. Tonight, we opted to try out a juice pairing.

Roasted beetroot, sesame, and mushrooms:

The beet was sweet and earthy and had a carrot-like consistency—slightly crunchy and soft at the same time. The toasted sesame seeds added nuttiness to the dish while the pan-cooked mushrooms added sauce and even more damp and peat-like flavor. The sauce was forgettable, but the solid earthiness of the dish was the grounding point which started off the main courses very nicely.

I have a soft spot for roasted roots. Coming from mostly Chinese cuisine, earthy flavors aren't really respected as much so when I am presented with a stellar example of earthiness, I tend to appreciate it more.

Apple Juice:

This was the best apple juice I have ever had the pleasure of drinking.

Period.

It was achingly sweet and cold and the flavor of the apple was intense.

The sweetness kept the earthy flavors in check and vice-versa.

That was some apple juice.

Fish, fennel chips, cherries:

A white fish was panfried and topped with fried fennel shavings. Garnished with micro greens and fermented cherries. Served with an herb cream sauce.

The fish was not cooked well. It was dry and a bit stringy.

Unfortunately, since the fish's flavor was gone, the flavor of the garnish became overpowering. On top of that, the garnish was both tart and sweet from the cherry, herbal and floral from the greens and sauce, and salty and tangy from the roasted fennel. Paired with the sweet flavor of a well-cooked fish and I could see it working.

Without the fish to tie everything together—very confused flavors.

This was the first time fish let me down in Scandinavia. A little dissapointing.

Kombucha:

Kombucha is a fermented tea. It is made by seeding sugared tea with bacteria and yeast and allowing the fermentation process to take hold. The output is a tiny bit of alcohol, carbonation, and a nice acidic flavor to the tea. Ever since I was introduced to kombucha in college (because we made a few batches in Microbial Biology), I've been hooked on the tangy, carbonated, tea-drink.

This kombucha was fairly average. It tasted like it was brewed from a fruit-infused green tea.

I bet if the fish tasted good, the kombucha would have tasted better.

Beef with beet salad:

A cut of a plainly adorned beef rib was juxtaposed with a busy beet salad. The beet was sliced paper-thin and pickled to give it some structure. It was then garnished with micro greens, Ramson capers, sweet onions, and a delicious herb salt powder (made in the same way the cabbage powder).

The beef was cooked perfectly. Medium-rare is the right "doneness" for beef because the finished product has the full range of flavors—from the well-done outside crust to the juicy rare inside.

For all of its beautiful presentation, the beet salad was very average. It tasted mostly of the beet and the tart earthiness was a very solid contrast to the heartiness of the beef.

While this wasn't a bad dish in any way, this was a very boring dish.

Other than the presentation, nothing else really jumped out at me.

Blackcurrant Juice:

I think Domestic was going more for the evocation of the (boring) standard of red wine with beef instead of really playing with cool flavors.

The sweet blackcurrant juice was cut with some balsamic vinegar to give it a bit more of an edge.

Imagine Ribena that was a little less sweet, a little more tart, and a little more intense.

Great juice, but boring.

Pear, cream, thyme:

A pear boiled in syrup was served on top of fresh pear ice cream. The pear was garnished with hazelnut fragments and thyme. The pit of the pear was filled with a thyme oil and the entire dish was garnished with a caramel sauce.

Wowzers. What a strange dessert.

It wasn't bad, but I didn't like it very much.

This was obviously a dish that was pushing the limits of flavor and texture combinations.

The nuts and the pear and the ice cream worked well—it's a pretty traditional combination. But the thyme was certainly weird. I'm ordinarily not a huge fan of thyme already and when highly concentrated thyme oil is mixed with a super sweet desert, it doesn't really taste that good to me.