A Time To Munch, Sat 17 September 2011

It may seem shallow (or ignorant) but when asked about Norway, all that usually springs to mind are Vikings, Nokia phones and fjords. Oh, and clubbing baby seals - and by that I don't mean taking infant seals to techno parties and teaching them the finer points of electro-funk. No, by clubbing, I mean bashing gooey-eyed baby seals on the head and relieving them of their rather nice furs while at the same time depriving them of a chance to grow up and make other baby seals. Oh well. No wonder Munch painted the Scream, which, of course, is widely considered to be the precursor to the Scream series of horror movies involving the use of droopy Halloween masks and lots of gratuitous mindless violence, rather like what some poor baby seals are subject to each year.

Anyway, I digress, for September's dinner has absolutely nothing to do with baby seals but is rather a celebration of the positive side of the Norwegian psyche, as expressed by Kenneth Gjerrud in his fine restaurant, Munch's Hus, Bülowstrasse 66, 10783 Berlin. This is Germany's first and only Norwegian restaurant (according to their website) and we feel that this month is a great opportunity to check out for ourselves if the recent renaissance in Scandinavian cooking is hype or based on real substance. As the question goes, if a tree falls down without anyone hearing it, does it make a noise? So, if we are not aware of Norwegian food, does it really taste good? A simple question which will be answered this month as we will bravely stick our heads and tongues out to munch our September dinner at Munch's Hus.

The website is http://www.munchshus.de/ and some reviews can be seen on http://www.tripadvisor.de/Restaurant_Review-g187323-d1060053-Reviews-Munch_s_Hus-Berlin.html and they are generally pretty positive. Amazingly, this is actually not an expensive restaurant and I think one can get away with around 30 Euro for the dinner, based on the menu on their website. There are a lot of Edvard Munch's paintings around the restaurant as well if you like that sort of visually bendy art, rather like what I see after a bottle or two of good wine.

So the evening at Munch's Hus is scheduled for the evening of Saturday, 17 September and everyone who is metaphysically interested in finding out about Norwegian food are invited to drop me an email as soon as possible. Closing date for emails is 3rd September and all those who make the list will be notified sometime during the following week.

See you soon!

Chris

How it went on the night...

We were fortunate to have Kristine give us a little guidance for the dishes and overall, I think we had a pretty good dinner. My fish platter was fresh, tasty and very light. One might even suggest it was the most healthy dish I had all weekend and I had a lot! :o) Anyway, some people were ambivalent about the elk, and I had a little nibble of Mike's Norwegian cheeses where were quite different and palatable. Overall, a good night out for everyone again!

Oh, as usual, I was clicking away everywhere I went and some pictures were not from the dinner club evening, so you have to spot the difference (and see the bland humdrum existence I lead)...