Well, after all the lunch meeting was pushed back to 3pm so I called another friend and we had a buffet lunch at the Hotel/Restaurant Helka near the House of Parliament.

Very interesting Artek style decoration and almost uber-Finnish/Nordic. They offered a salad buffet, soup of the day and three mains plus water and coffee for a reasonable price. What I was delighted to see were proper condiments like olive oil, vinegar, pepper from the mill and various hot sauces on offer. The food was quite ok and the place seemed very popular with an office crowd.

On Saturday evening we ended up on the southern tip of Helsinki and in the restaurant Central. Just had some pizza and a few beers but the crowd was enjoyable, looked like a mix of artists/media people and local residents at dinner and chatting. Could well recommend this place for meeting friends. Will try the Belge next time...