Storyville is kind of a pickup joint. I had the worst burger of my life there for 22 Euros last night. it also bills itself as a jazz and blues venue. Last night's band was good, but it was Rock-a-Billy, Boogie Woogie and country, not jazz or blues.

Sounds interesting!
Any additional info about the market itself? What other local breakfast type of food might one find here in this market? Thanks.

You can have porridge (the flavour depends on the day), coffee and pulla, sandwiches (I'd recommend the rye bread with gravlax), or, if your cardio-vascular system can take it, a deep-fried rice and meat pastry (lihapiirakka or "lihis"). Some of the places may also have quiche etc. Another typical Finnish delicacy available in some of the places is the Karelian pastry (karjalanpiirakka), which is best had with some egg butter. If you crave something sweet, munkkipossu (a rectangular, sugar-covered donut with apple jam filling). All quite delicious.

If you don't want to wander over to Hakaniemi, you can have most of the same stuff at the main market place. The only drawback is that the main market place is far more touristy. A further alternative is a small family bakery called Eromanga, which is located at Pohjoinen Makasiinikatu 6, quite close to the dead centre of town. Eromanga is famous for their meat pastries and their munkkipossus.

Cheers,
T.

We came to Helsinki from London on 29th May 2011. Now we have spent couple of weeks and enjoyed wonderful weather but all junk food available in Helsinki (Finland). Yesterday we have found one Indian/Nepalese Restaurant called Revintola Buddha which is better then KFC, McDonald's and Pizza's Companies JUNK FOOD just at last.
I and mywife are eating in this restaurant from yesterday listining to Mount Everest background music. I am sure you'll also enjoy this restaurant.

Please find Link: http://ravintolabuddha.com/nepal-res...and-aboutus-en

Today, I want to try MOMO (Tibetian & Nepalese food)...LOL

While there certainly is junk food available in Helsinki, there is not one single KFC outlet in Finland... And the amount of fast food chains overall is smaller than in most European capitals.

If you desire Indian/Nepalese food, you can try several places, including Namaskaar, Annapurna, Maharaja, Samrat, Satkar, and several others.

Cheers,
T.

You may want to check out http://eat.fi/en/

Plenty of choices available, no need to eat junk

Just FYI, while an improbable number of restaurants in Finland claim to be "Nepalese", they actually serve the same diluted Mughal/Punjali curry-in-a-hurry Indian as almost every Indian restaurant in the West. I've always wondered why they bother with the label, especially given that actual Nepalese food is, um, less than scintillating.

While Juuri is not a new restaurant as such, I went there for the first time yesterday for an early dinner.

The food and service were a bit of a mixed bag.

Our waitress started out a bit surly but did warm up a bit once we engaged her a bit in conversation. However, she seemed a bit out of place in a restaurant like this.

The appetizers (called Sapas, which is apparently Juuri's term for Finnish tapas type bites) were quite good. Both of us had three different dishes. My wife's fish dishes were all very good (the miniature kalakukko was especially good). Of my three meat dishes, the smoked reindeer heart was excellent, the sausage quite good (although the vodka mustard overpowered it a bit), and the game vorschmack was quite dry. Overall, we liked 5 of the 6 sapas.

My wife had sirloin of organic lambkin with a puree of smoked celery. The lamb was perfectly cooked but the dish was overly salty and the taste of the lamb was lost in the saltiness and the smokiness.

I had perch en papillote with a potato-fennel gratin with a dill-horseradish sauce. The sauce was very good but the fish was unevenly salted and the en papillote preparation did not work very well with the perch.

We only had local cheeses for dessert and the cheese platter was actually quite good - it seems that Finnish artisanal cheeses are starting to come of age.

We did not survey the wine list very well, as we quickly settled on champagne. The bone dry organic Laherte Fr�res Blanc de Blancs Brut Nature worked quite well with the food and it was rather well-priced.

The cost of the food for two (three sapas per person, main courses, one cheese platter, and one coffee) was 90 euros, which is not cheap but OK by Helsinki standards.

Overall, we thought Juuri was above average but not quite in the top tier of Helsinki restaurants. The main dishes were a little disappointing, but the inventive appetizers make the place worth a visit.

Cheers,
T.

There's a fairly new restaurant in Helsinki, Gaijin. It's the same owners as the quite nice (IMO) place Farang, but located at Bulevardi.

Gaijin is supposed to be a northern Asian restaurant, which I guess means Japan, Korea and Eastern parts of China. Well, I went there with my better half and a friend and his better half. The experience was next to horrible.

First of all, when I have reserved a table at a restaurant, I don't expect to be sitting around for 30 minutes at my table with a glass of water in front of me, and not even a menu!

We eventually got around to order their signature menu Gaijin (I think 9 dishes if you include boiled rice as one as they seem to count) with the wine package. For the record, this was 200�+ for two persons, so for that price expectations are quite high.

The majority of the dishes are poor and close to not edible. This comes from a person who has lived in Japan and is used to eating all kinds of stuff. Some dishes (2-3) were really good, excellent, among the tastiest things I've eaten in Helsinki. Sadly the majority weren't up to the standards. Somehow the place felt like wanting to do hardcore quirky Asian, rather than good tasting Asian food.

I enjoyed the flavours of Farang (although I think their tasting menus also are overpriced...) but Gaijin is sub-par. I think the responsibles should be less in TV and look more at what their restaurants are serving. And the service needs to take the noses down a few degrees and smile a bit more.

BTW, if you're coming to Helsinki and surroundings for a longer time in the summer, I can recommend the town of Eken�s/Tammisaari one hour west of Helsinki and restaurant Albatros. For such a small town, I think the restaurant has a nice wine list, and the quality of the food is quite nice. The terrace is beautiful on a nice summer day or evening.

+1000

By the way, I wish they'd take this out of the Scandinavian forum. Only Americans think Finland is Scandinavian.

I tried yesterday http://www.murudining.fi and I say we have a new best restaurant in Helsinki, at least when it comes to quality of food compared to the price. The menu changes very often, they take great pride in coupling nice wines with the food, and the service is genuine and unpretentious! In addition, it's very affordable. I had a glass of cava, 4 course meal (poached egg with truffles, slow-cooked lamb confit, cheese and white chocolate mousse) with wines (Riesling, Amarone etc) and espresso, and the final tab was well under 100�. That is an extremely good price for food and wines of that quality.

How about extending the Russia forum to "Russia and Baltic Countries" and then moving this thread there?

Btw, I can't see any evidence for some specific American "misunderstanding"?

I'm not Finnsih, but I would be surprised if anyone in Finland would place his/her country in that category.

The most natural change would of course be to name this a Nordic forum instead of a Scandinavian one, since that is what we already have in all but the name.

We don't consider Finland a Baltic country. Also, from visitor perspective, I'd imagine it makes more sense to include Helsinki in this forum than in a Russia/Baltics forum.

However, although not geographically or linguistically part of Scandinavia, we can live with the moniker Scandinavian. The name of this forum is quite well established and I don't think changing it really has any added value.

Cheers,
T.

I am at the Savoy right now. The pianist is playing "Skyfall" and "All by myself" etc. In my humble opinion, overall, this is still the best restaurant in Helsinki.