Eating out in Helsinki

As the casual reader may have guessed eating out is a major part of our holidays. Would hate to have to write reviews for Michelin or anything like that, but we like to eat well. Brussels offers numerous options (perhaps too much choice) as does Helsinki. We were a little surprised to have to fall back to Plan D last night (Thursday). Plan A was a small place called Juuri (note to self - use online booking before departure). Nothing at all while we're here. We're staying a little out of the centre and thought for Plan B we'd see if we could get into Wellamo - a restaurant we've failed to eat in (closed or full) on a number of previous occasions. No luck last night (full), but at least we now have a reservation for Saturday (if only we could remember at what time!).

We'd left for dinner early enough to resort to Plan C if necessary, but Elite was also fully booked. Should have guessed being it was the opening night of the Helsinki festival and it is a artsy type of place. So getting lots of use out of our public transport tickets we quickly formulated Plan D and finally fell into Salve. About the same sort of place as Zur Kogge in Rostock. In all the guidebooks but used by locals as well. Tasty grub.

Given last night's experience we wanted to make sure we had tonight's location reserved. The fortified island of Suomenlinna has a number of eateries, but we have always been taken by the Suomenlinna Brewery Restaurant - Panimo (panimo is simply Finnish for brewery) next to the ferry terminal from the city proper. We'd spent much longer on the island than we'd expected during the day - simply soaking up the sunshine that developed and simply popped in on way back to hotel. In the event, a reservation wasn't necessary, but after last night better to be safe than sorry.

Let's see about dinner. Mostly this is a reminder to ourselves, but also gives idea of what sort of food's on offer.

Brewery’s fish zakuska: peppered gravadlax, smoked salmon, baltic herring with juniper berry, herring caviar, russian pickles and marinated chanterelles served with hot dill potatoes

Scallops sautéed in Pernod-butter with cauliflower purée and crispy bacon

Both were excellent starters. We usually try to have different main courses so we can try more of the food, but neither of us was going to be the one NOT having the reindeer:

Brewery’s pepper noisettes of reindeer - traditional Jaloviina cognac and pepper sauce, parmesan-potato cake and sautéed vegetables with mushrooms.

Fantastic meat cooked to perfection (by our standards). And we tried the beers, too. Well, wine would have seemed a shame. The pils and the ale made a pleasant change from ordinary lager and we enjoyed sitting on the terrace in the sunshine. While David went for the porter to go with the main course Andrew plumped for the ale. Both were extremely drinkable. OK wouldn't want to pay the equivalent of £7.50 a pint every night, but don't drink in microbreweries every night.

Not the cheapest of meals but we were well satisfied by the time it came to catch the ferry back to the market square. We can heartily recommend Panimo.