We arrived at the restaurant at 7 PM and we had booked a table in advance. We got a nice table with a great view of the harbour in Stavanger and for once this summer there was nice weather :-) But after we had sat down it took a long time before we got further follow up...we did not get any question about having a aperitif and it took about half an hour before we got the menu! The menu was only "Menu for the evening" that consisted of 5 courses. We asked if it was possible to order from the a la carte menu but we got told that this was not possible as the restaurant was full. I'm not sure that this is a good answer but we ordered from the evening menu and waited in anticipation.
To start with we got a small asparagus soup that was very good...and the focaccia bread also finally came to the table and this was served with a nice aioli. The first real dish for me was the pan fried monk fish served with carrot candy, fennel and lime beurre blanc. The fish was pretty good and the same goes for the Lois wine from Austria. Two of us had monk fish for starter and two others had saffron poached halibut ....but the halibut was not served until after we had finished the monk fish. This seemed to be a typical problem this evening...it just seemed like they had too much to do in the restaurant and they struggled with the timing the entire evening.
The main dish that night was entrecôte of veal with a puree and broccoli and asparagus and morel sauce. One of the members of the party had only ordered this main dish and dessert and normally the size of the portions varies according to how many dished you have. But here it seemed like we all got the same portion. We started eating the meat and after about 5 minutes the waiter all of a sudden brought in some potatoes. We were well into the meat and we didn't know that we would get potatoes as he didn't inform us about this...another evidence on the timing problem that I have mentioned. It turned out that the potatoes were quite dry so it didn't really matter if they were served a bit late. The veal was good but not as tender as I had hoped it would be and it would also be nice to have it a bit more fried. But the wine, a Chianti Classico from Felsina, was pretty good :-)
Two of the members of the party went for a cheese platter as well and this was served together with some dark bread and some sweet syrup. We got a brie de meaux, a blue veined cheese and another French cheese that I can't remember the name of. The cheese was very good and so was the dark bread that came with it. The wine was a Symphonie de Novembre.
The dessert of the evening was only described as Chocolate on the menu. When the waiter cleared away the cheese platter we asked if we could get some coffee to go along with the dessert and he said no problem. But it turned out to not be that easy...the coffee was served 5-10 minutes before the dessert and with no sugar and cream on the table. So we were more or less done with the coffee before the dessert was served...and before the sugar and cream was brought to the table. The dessert was excellent and was a nice combination of a really dark chocolate cake, a fruit cocktail and vanilla ice cream. I wouldn't mind having the recipe for the chocolate cake as it was pure candy. The wine for the dessert was Recioto Della Valpolicella, a sweet red wine and that was excellent to the dessert.Conclusion: The last time I went to Bølgen & Moi I was very happy with both service and food but this time they struggled with the timing and that led to a bit of waiting. The food this time was good but not excellent but the annoyance was the waiting...not getting the starters at the same time, it took us 30 minutes to get the menu, they didn't manage to serve the coffee at the same time as dessert, we had to wait to get more wine etc. I hope that they will focus on improving this in the future.
We paid about 3900 kroner (about 660USD) for 5 people . Here are the prices of the various menus (with and without wine)
3 course : 465 kroner (80 USD) / 765 kroner (130 USD)
4 course : 525 kroner (90USD) / 925 kroner (160 USD)
5 course 595 kroner (100 USD) / 1180 kroner (200 USD)
Regards
Gard
http://gardkarlsen.com/ - trip reports and pictures
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