Kobenhavner Cafeen

We Aussies feel a sense of connection with Denmark, after all, we gave them their Crown Princess Mary!  Thinking of Denmark, the images that come to mind are beautiful people, blonde hair blue eyed babies, fresh air, water, canals, and danish pastries!!  Well all these things Denmark does have.  But one thing I did not expect it to be was so expensive :( The Danish Kroner exchange rate with the Aussie has resulted in coffees costing no less than $6 to have in or take away, same price for soft drinks too.  And whilst Croatia and Greece average meal price was 10 euros and an expensive meal being 20 euros, it was more like an average meal in Copenhagen being 20 euros :(   Anyway….. What is Danish food like?  Traditional food includes herrings, lots of meats and stews as it’s such a cold country, meatballs, and the open sandwich. Which is exactly as it sounds.  Slices of bread topped with all manner of condiments, meats and flavours eaten on a plate with a knife and fork with no bread on top.    We went in search of traditional Danish food, and found the Kovenhavner Cafeen.   At approx DKK190 per meal it was a little on the expensive side to us (you can find meals for DKK160), but it looked full of Danish people so it must be good right?   My first upset was that they refused to serve tap water.  Bottled water only.  Imagine if they opened in Sydney, there would be a huge revolt!  And I must admit when I walked in the restaurant, I thought “yuck”.  It was so old and a bit musty.  You can imagine old people playing cards and smoking in here as it was dark and the carpet ugly and old, with very outdated furniture.  So in conjunction with the limited menu, i wasn’t that enthused about this place.  Well after looking at the menu for a while, thinking “what’s the least bad thing I could eat”, I settled on the Copenhagen casserole.  Pork loin casserole which must be ordered in at least 2 serves.  The waiter brought this huge cast iron pot which was approx only 1/4 full of food.  But woooaaahhhh what it lacked in volume it made up for in flavour.  I was proved wrong again – appearances deceptive as this was the most delicious thing I had eaten in Copenhagen!!

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It came with freshly deep fried (And very oily) but crispy french fries.

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But OMG, how do I describe the flavour…. it was so rich (and to be honest soooo salty), but there was smokey bacon flavour, and after asking the waiter, found out that the other ingredient are cream (yikes!), paprika, garlic, mushrooms, green beans.   It was SO AMAZINGLY tasty!!! The pork loin must be simmered in this flavoursome sauce, as it was so tender.  They didn’t give enough :( The portion was so small and not much meat at all. But I asked for bread to mop up all the amazing sauce.

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We also tried traditional Danish meatballs.  They were served on a platter with traditional accompaniments: pickled cucumbers, barbeque sauce, parsley potatoes and sauerkraut.  There were also parsley potatoes that were so salty that they tasted like they were cooked in sea water! The meatballs were a bit disappointing too, because they were a bit “floury” like rissoles. 

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Maybe the Danes need heavy handed seasoning as the freezing cold weather just makes you crave strong flavours, we didn’t get to try enough traditional cuisine to be able to tell.

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I do highly recommend that pork casserole though. I definitely definitely will attempt to try to make it at home.  Other people were trying the herring platter too. Not for the faint hearted Aussie like me though :)

Kobenhavner Cafeen is located on Badstuestraede 10 1209 Kobenhavn Ph: 33 32 80 81

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