The OperaKalleren

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After a frustrating afternoon of attempting to get my flight switched to this morning, only to find out after three phone calls (one of the operators hung up accidentally just as she was answering my question, resulting in me crying for five minutes out of frustration before calling back), that the flight change would cost me an additional $1400. Ah, no thanks.

So I was in no mood to go to dinner. But I'm into doing the next right thing and fulfilling my obligations, so I took a short bath and then washed my hair and rushed around to get ready. I had carefully picked out an outfit at home that I thought would be warm and suitable - a white tee shirt under a light, giraffe-print cardigan, with a soft caramel colored wool skirt, dark brown patterned tights and my knee high brown boots. With the terrain being such as it is, I decided to flaunt fashion and wear my snow boots again, and I picked up my black coat (again, not matching), my new warm blue scarf from Jess, and a red hat and gloves. I didn't bother to blow dry my hair or do anything with it, because I was running short on time. I know you're wondering what this has to do with anything, but you'll soon see...

I headed down to the hotel bar, where I was to meet our lawyer and his two partners. It was extremely crowded, and as I looked around, I realized that there were many people dressed to the nines, and looking very chic. Feeling slightly self-conscious, I looked for my dinner companions and spotted them by the bar. When I reached them, I learned that Elle Magazine was throwing their annual fashion designer awards here at the hotel, and we were in the middle of what seemed to be the pre-dinner cocktail hour. I wanted to sink right into the floor, and the dirty looks from all the fancy women there didn't help much.

Our lawyer introduced me to a friend of his attending the event - Kale (pronounced Kah-lay, not like the vegetable), who was very nice, and very attractive. He looked directly at me as we spoke, and his focus on me gave me a little more confidence among all of the beautiful women. Of course, he's married to a local talk show host, who had stayed home for the evening. C'est la vie.

Kale wandered off to schmooze, and we departed for dinner at the OperaKalleren, which I learned is one of Stockholm's most famous restaurants. They already have one Michelin star, and are working towards a second one. Had I known how fancy this dinner would prove to be, I would have dressed up! And the snow boots would have been more easily hidden under dress pants than they were under my skirt.

After handing my coat to a gorgeous man in the coat check (I should MOVE here!), we went into the restaurant and were seated. Declining an apertif (for what felt like the millionth time this week), I settled on still water, and I must say, it was some of the best still water I have ever had, here or at home. We had a little amuse bouche of a slice of sausage with a white bean paste of some sort, and it was quite good, though a little salty. So that gave me hope for the upcoming menu. Until it was handed to me.

I realized that while this place was fancy, it was much fancier than anywhere I have ever been before. The prices were staggering (although, not in comparison with some of the ILN meals I have approved), and the list of items was not in my culinary repetoire. Though a good deal of it was in Swedish, with only some English translation, I quickly ascertained that we were to each choose a whole menu, but not separate courses. My heart sank. But I resigned myself to getting the vegetarian menu, which promised to have some foods I would willingly put in my mouth - especially a gnocchi dish in a pumpkin soup. So I swallowed the lump in my throat.

But then, after some back and forth in Swedish with our waiter, it was decided that we would all order the first menu, which happened to be the most expensive at 980 kronor, or $150 per person. Pretty intimidating when you're already sure that you won't like most of the items on there. But I smiled wanly and agreed. Luckily, I could choose two of the courses from the selections. I chose the soup instead of the langoustines - a Norwegian lobster - and the beef instead of the fish.

I know you're thinking that those are pretty standard choices, so what's the big deal? Well, here goes. Our next course was also on the house, and it was a tiny cup of mushroom soup. So as not to seem like a baby, I ate it, and it wasn't half bad (I'm not a mushroom eater either). Don't get the idea that I like mushrooms now though! My official first course came out. The soup. It had black truffles in it. Okay, not great, but manageable. Oh, and did I mention that it also had calf's tongue? Yup, that's right, baby cow. And there was squash and zucchini chopped up in there too. At this point, I was trying to tell myself that at least it wasn't the reindeer that was on one of the other menus. So I ate it. It tasted okay, but the texture was exactly as you would expect - just like biting your own tongue. I won't be eating that any time soon. Sometimes I just swallowed the pieces whole so I didn't need to chew them.

Since it was so fancy, the courses were relatively small and came out at a slow pace, which I enjoy. My waiter was my hero though because he surreptitiously poured my water into my wine glass when I said no to the wine, and for that as well as for pointing out the alcohol in a later post-dessert sweet, I will forever be grateful. Very kind man, Michael.

My next course was the beef, a vacuum poached fillet of beef, which came with a salty bouillon (noticing a salt theme anyone? Maybe it's a Swedish thing. Jess would like it here), baby vegetables, and two horseradish dumplings. I limited myself to the beef after trying a little of the other pieces of the meal and finding them close to forcing my gag reflex. The beef itself was delicious - maybe the best I've ever had. It was incredibly tender, and very flavorful. So I started to feel a little better. Then came the selection of cheeses, which included a brie, another soft cheese, one that seemed to be a kind of parmesan, but not as strong, and a fourth cheese, which I also understood to be Italian. They were paired with a sweet jelly of some type - brown, so maybe a fig jelly. The cheese was a little strong for my taste, including the brie, but I did eat it. Dessert was mostly delicious - a selection of various chocolates, which I ate in my order of preference, white, dark, milk. It seemed the right way to do it, especially in retrospect because it built to a lovely chocolate climax. The white chocolate was shaped as a half moon on a bit of cake, what they described as a chocolate cream (not bad), the dark was in a very soft and creamy sorbet (better), and the milk chocolate was a square of creamy/cakey goodness, somewhat like a mousse. Just lovely. Then, we had additional sweets, the "pastry delicacies," and the only one I tasted was a jelly candy of some sort that was not very sweet, and felt like skin. I was done.

Kale arrived sometime before dessert, and was determined to be our tour guide around the best new clubs in Sweden for the evening. Luckily, I was able to beg off because I was so tired I didn't know if I could make it back to the hotel. The end of the meal had us listening to the band in the bar that was separated from the restaurant by only a glass wall. They were quite good - reminiscent of the Cranberries, and very soothing. We wended our way through the throng of party-goers heading into the club inside as well, and parted ways outside. One of our lawyers was kind enough to walk me to my hotel, and thus ended my last business evening!

Today has been spent sleeping and watching tv on my computer - incredibly lazy, but I am in dire need of some rest! Hopefully I can continue to rest on the plane tomorrow, but I'm not looking forward to the 5am wakeup, or the nine hour flight! Nothing like 21 hours on a plane in one week. And in a couple of weeks, I'll have thirty plane hours in a week, but only two flights! The travel continues...

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