Delhi Indisk restaurant & bar – the new Indian place in town

In the last few months a few restaurants in Stavanger have closed down due to the economic situation in Stavanger. One of the restaurants that closed down was Soleado despite the fact that reviews were good. But it is great to see that new restaurants are popping up where the others have closed down. A few weeks back we heard that a new Indian place was going to open up in the same place where Soleado was located. When we came there on a weekday in mid-July, the first thing I noticed was the text on the window saying “A part of Indian Tandoori”. Indian Tandoori is one of the oldest (if not the oldest Indian restaurant in town) and we have been there many times to enjoy Indian food.


Delhi looks a lot more modern that Indian Tandoori that’s for sure and we got a table even if we didn’t have a reservation. Our waitress came over to ask us if we had made up our minds and we were a bit confused when she spoke in English…did she maybe just assume that we spoke English? Based on what she was speaking to one of her colleagues I would guess she was from Eastern Europe somewhere. We decided to go for (and I’m quoting the bill here) no. 32 Hariyali Lahsuni Tikka and no. 42 Malai Makhi Masala – with Lasani naan bread and rice on the side. One thing that our waitress forgot was to ask us if we wanted it mild or spicy.


The food came to our table pretty fast and my dish (the tikka) was pieces of chicken marinaded on garlic served on onion, a salad on the side and a sauce to go along with it. The chicken was very good indeed but the onion that it was served on was not fried long enough so it had not gotten to the stage where it turns nice and sweet. It would also have been nice to have the sauce a bit more on the spicy side. Nikki seemed pleased with her masala but she also commented on the fact that she would have liked to have it spicier. We did not get the naan bread to start with and we just assumed that they had forgotten about it and we didn’t bother asking for it as it looked like there was enough food. But halfway through our meal we got it. The naan bread was a bit different from what we are used to from Indian Tandoori…and it was not as good as the one that we are used to.


All in all we had to pay 515 kroner for the meal including a glass of red wine. I’m sure we will go back as the location is convenient in connection with going to the movies in Stavanger and the food was pretty good. You can find a bit more information on http://www.delhi.no/ - hopefully the menu will be posted here eventually :-)

Regards
Gard
gardkarlsen.com - trip reports and pictures

Brasserie Myhregaarden - several things that can be improved

We walked around Stavanger on a nice summer day in July and we walked past one of Stavanger newest hotels, Myhregaarden hotell, and we noticed that their restaurant called Brasserie Myhregaarden had expanded to also offer tables outside of the restaurant. We checked out the menu and decided to try it out for lunch as they had available tables in the sun. It was free seating so we just grabbed a table and as the menu was limited it didn’t take us that long to decide on what to eat….Nikki wanted the hamburger and I wanted to try the Caesar’s salad. Shouldn’t the menu be in both Norwegian and English by the way?

We had to wait a while for the waiter and he even took an order from people that had arrived after us and in the end we had to sort of wave to get his attention. Nikki ordered a glass of Coke with no ice, the hamburger with no cheese and I just went for the salad and water. After a couple of minutes we got the drinks but Nikki’s Coke (or was it a Pepsi) contained lots of ice. It didn’t take that long for the food to come either but the first thing we noticed was that the hamburger had cheese on it. As Nikki is lactose intolerant she prefers to not have too much cheese. So we informed the waiter about the cheese and he was like sighing and told us that it was the kitchen that had made the mistake and not him. Come on guys….you should work as a team and not blame each other. But the waiter removed the hamburger and came back with it pretty fast and they had just scraped of the cheese…fair enough. So now we were almost ready to eat….Nikki just had to ask for cutlery first. At this point we felt that we had asked the waiter for so many things that Nikki felt a bit awkward about asking for some tomato sauce for the potatoes that came with the hamburger.

Let’s start with the Caesar’s salad…this salad is a classic and it is just romano salad served with a special dressing, parmesan shaving etc…Brasserie Myhregaarden’s salad was also served with chicken and bread crotons (which is very common as well). The salad and dressing was good but the chicken was very dry and I think the bread crotons must be the worst crotons that I have tasted….ever. Nikki’s burger seemed to be OK but it was served on a tiny plate so it was a bit tricky eating it without showing the potatoes out of the plate.
In the end we asked for the bill and it took a while to get that. When we finally got it we were informed that they did not take cards only cash!! Eh…for once I did have cash in my wallet but normally I only use cards when going out to eat. I do hope that this is just a temporary problem at the restaurant.

Conclusion
As you understand we were not that happy with our meal at Brasserie Myhregaarden. Our waiter seemed inexperienced, there were problems with our orders and the food was not outstanding. I hope that this is just a problem for the lunch menu but I have to admit that I’m skeptical about going back to try out their dinner menu.
The hotel and restaurant is located at Nygaten 24 and you can check out the hotel homepage here: http://www.myhregaardenhotel.no/

Regards
Gard
http://gardkarlsen.com - trip reports and pictures

Ostehuset has moved into a new place

If you have a good memory you might remember that I have been to Ostehuset before – back then it was a bit of a disaster as I found a rubber band in my food (see review from back then). Even though it put me of a bit to say the least, we have gone back there several times as it is a great place for a fast snack in an informal atmosphere. Recently they moved from their previous location in Klubbgata to a new place in Hospitalgata…only about 100 meter from the old location. The new place is better in my opinion…bigger, lots of light coming in from the big windows and still the informal atmosphere.

Nikki and I went there before going to the movies a day in June and as you can see from their menu on http://www.ostehuset.no/ the selection of stuff to eat is pretty good. I ended up ordering the risotto fennel with chicken confit and Nikki went for a bacon and shrimp sandwich. We only had 40 minutes before the movie was starting and I asked if this would be a problem and the girl behind the counter said no problem. Well, I guess that depends on your definition of “no problem” as we got the food 10 minutes before the movie was about to start.

My risotto was simply delicious…it had the texture that I feel a risotto should have and it tasted excellent. There were big chunks of juice chicken in it and the fennel was sprinkled on top with parmesan cheese and rocket leaves. Nikki’s sandwich on the other hand looked pretty naked…due to her lactose intolerance she had asked to get the dressing on the side and she was left with just pieces of bread with bacon and shrimp – were there not supposed to be any form of salad on the sandwich I wonder?
Anyway…the conclusion is that Ostehuset is still a nice place to grab some snack in an informal environment. Note that you can also get tapas here to bring back home, buy cheese, olive oil etc that you might need for cooking. If I had know that Transformers 2 would be as bad as it was I think I would have skipped it and spent more time eating my risotto ;-)

Regards
Gard
http://gardkarlsen.com - trip reports and pictures