Travel For Food
This month, BTSB staff has put together some delicious restaurant tips from around the world for you to enjoy and places to add to your itinerary when planning your next trips!Lo Stivale d’Oro, Amsterdam, The Netherlands One restaurant you don't want to miss in the beautiful city of Amsterdam is Lo Stivale d'Oro, a tiny italian restaurant located in the central area. Getting a table was difficult, but the food made it all worth it: even the bread spread was absolutely delicious and pastas were extraordinary. The Original Mosque Kitchen, Edinburgh, UK Edinburgh University lacking an equivalent to UniCafe students are forced to find somewhere else to eat good food for not too much. The Original Mosque Kitchen and its slightly more expensive namesake Mosque Kitchen literally around the corner both offer good basic food sure to fill even the hungriest students. The Original Mosque Kitchen is situated near the campus area and has both takeaway and sit-in options for a very affordable price. For just under £4 (about 4.3e) you get a huge portion of for example Chicken Curry and Rice. The sauce is just spicy enough and the rice on the side comes in such massive amounts that so far I have never been able to finish it all. So if you ever find yourself hungry beyond imaginable in Edinburgh and you don’t mind eating from a plastic plate, The Original Mosque Kitchen is the place to go. Skinny Pancake, Burlington, VT, USA Located near the shore of Lake Champlain, Skinny Pancake is one of the crown jewels in Vermont. The state is coincidentally (or not!) the home of the American pancake and reputedly of maple syrup as well. Thus, it is rather surprising that a place serving European crêpes is among its best. Skinny Pancake is cozy with people coming and going the service is nice and the prices not too bad at all. Offering sweet and salty crêpes with a myriad of fillings, the menu should cater to every taste imaginable. Plus, the coffee's good – which you shouldn't take for granted in the land of the free. Sophie’n Eck, Berlin, Germany Berlin is one of those places where people often fly for a long weekend, thinking it will suffice to get to know the city but end up running splendidly out of time. Well, that’s what happened to me at least. After four full days of storming around Museumsinsel, Kreuzberg, East Side Gallery, and whatnot, I found myself exhausted and horrified: I’m heading home tomorrow and there’s so much I haven’t done yet! In this situation there are two options: you can continue racing around the sights the whole night and get absolutely nothing out of it, or, you can make the most of your last night in this amazing city by enjoying delicious food and wine in a restaurant you’d kill to have next door at home. The place is called Sophie’n Eck, and it is absolutely charming, in the 14th century sense of the word. The assortment of scents that hit you in the face when coming through the door is magical, and one quick glace around confirms this is the right choice – most of the customers are locals and the place is almost packed on a Monday night, which is a very good sign. The place is also a pub, so the selection of beers is impressive, and there’s nothing to complain about the wine list either. For dinner my date decided on the German classic Schweinshaxe, pork shank, with Sauerkrat, naturally. I had roast beef with remoulade and herb potatoes, and both our dishes were amazing. After finishing our tasty meals it was great to just sip some wine and watch all the strangers spending their evenings in this wonderfully cosy place, at the same time digesting both the food and the experiences from the past few days, and attaining total relaxation. Then and there, I started to miss Berlin already. Tokyo 55, Helsinki You don't have to travel far to sate your appetite for good food. In Töölö, there is a small and popular Japanese restaurant called Tokyo55. For sushi lovers, this is the place to go because of the sushi buffet: eat all you can four days a week. It was precisely on one of these buffet days that I ventured there. After gorging myself on sushi, the only complaint I had was that climbing up from the lower floor back to street level was a bit of an effort. So if you want to eat healthy and delicious food, this is a place worth checking out. And while you don't have to travel very far, your taste buds will go all the way to Japan.
Compiled by Kerttu Kaikkonen
Illustrations by Johanna Ruuskanen