Love from Reykjavik

I've been in Iceland for just about a day and I am at once bewildered, excited, astounded and all around floored. It is a bizarre and delightful place and now that it's the summertime, the sun doesn't set. Today, after a long wallow in the blue lagoon, Candice insisted on eating at Orange. I'd heard of it, but truth be told, I wasn't very excited. Since the collapse of the Icelandic economy, I was more keen to milk it for what it was worth and eat at Vox or Fish Market. But I was persuaded to go to Orange and persuaded again to order the 5 course surprise 'Lets Go Crazy' menu and I nearly fell out of my chair.



The starters arrived in little buckets: Haddock lollypops. Too cute, but wait!



The bucket just hovered at the table and was tied to a big orange balloon...



that was three times the size of my head. The weight of the haddock pops were just enough to keep the bucket on the table and once we'd gobbled them up, the whole helium contraption floated to the ceiling.




the starters also came with these curious jars, resting on a box of coffee beans



we popped it open and inside was a spicy leaf, tuna, some sort of celery compote, mushrooms and mushroom foam. absolutely delightful.



then, this was supposed to be a lagoustine and artichoke milk soup with parmesean crackers, but was substituted with cod because of my unfortunate shellfish allergy.



then on a lava rock plate there was barely cooked salmon with citrus and pineapple, potato puree and a naga foam. there were these green sturdy furry leaves that looked very endearing but tasted like super green grass. Candice loved them and I tried hard to, but couldn't. Instead I slurped up th stripe of pesto.




This is the one that pushed me over the edge: beef with truffle and mushrooms and pumpkin puree. Annoyingly enough, the green watercress imposters made a comeback. I think it was this course where the food stopped being so inventive and started to play safe and tried to win me over with quantity. I was teetering in my chair.



INTERMISSION: pineapple sorbet palette cleanser



And this sealed the meal. I'm not sure what it was exactly because I was too stuffed to think properly. It was vanilla ice cream on brownie crumbles and some hazelnut chocolate moussey something with strawberry gel and strawberry sauce, mystery fruit on the side. Good thing it was an uphill climb to get back to the service apartment.

Tomorrow we're roughing it out on a 10 hour bus ride to the south coast of Iceland armed with tons of premade sandwiches, running on toast and scrambled eggs and filter coffee before we descend onto Fish Market for Reykjavik Dinner #2. Stay tuned!