Icelandic Cuisine!

The first question I usually ask myself (and my friends and family usually ask me) is, "What's the food like?"  In response to Icelandic cuisine, my initial response is, "expensive," followed by delicious!

Here we see Marie and her lovely plate of láx.  Yes, folks, lox is a word derived from (take your pick: Norwegian/Icelandic/Swedish/name your Nordic language) meaning salmon.  Soft, flavorful and creamy are the best descriptors of Icelandic láx.  

Katie was inspired to eat the smoked puffin.  Note the irony (and slight sacrilege) of the stuffed puffin behind her on the antique radio.  It was quite a small portion and had a lovely blueberry sauce over it with an accompanying soy-sesame dressing.  It was really good, though a full dinner for one would require at least three birds, which doesn't really seem worth killing three animals for one human to have one meal.

Bakarí in some small town.  Lots of fresh-baked bread and pasteries, how to choose?

 A delicious meal at an Icelandic fish n' chips spot.  Locally-caught haddock flash-fried in uber-crispy batter served with roasted garlic potatoes and a citrus-ginger soda (no sugar, so a bit tart!).  

Anne, notice the kitty?

 Here it is, the Icelandic hot dog stand the world is talking about.  Frequented by Bill Clinton, Anthony Bourdain and Marie Burns (among others), I'd really looked forward to this experience and nagged my travel buddy more than once about when, exactly, we would have lunch here.  We stood in a line 25-deep (didn't think I needed all of the photos on the blog, but it was long) and I successfully ordered in Icelandic ("eine mith ölla," one with everything!).  The nice blonde girl hands you a normal-looking hotdog with three kinds of sauce on top and, buried between white bread bun and wiener, some chopped white onion and its cousin, the crispy-fried onion.  One bite and, well, it didn't change my life quite like I thought it would.  It was a hot dog and I was in Iceland, but I didn't need a second.  I did, however, buy both sauce and aforementioned crispy-fried onions at the store so I could host an Icelandic hot dog party once I got back.  The bargain meal of the trip at only 320 Kr, roughly $2.50.

Perhaps my favorite meal of the trip: lobster soup at the Seabaron at the old harbor in Reykjavík.  Yum, yum, yum, this is the best soup I've ever had.  The tenderest bits of lobster in a rich, salty, creamy, leeky broth served with warm bread and way too much amazing Icelandic butter (and you know how much I love butter), which is the second-best butter I've ever had (Jersey butter being the best, slightly begrudgingly).  I think I talked about it every day of the trip.  I'll be combing the Internet for recipes.

 Happiest moment of the trip...maybe...