Slow service at Bølgen & Moi

I have been to Bølgen & Moi a couple of times before and to be honest I have had various experiences there (you can read my old review here and here). On a Friday afternoon we decided to grab some food before a movie and at about 5 pm we called Bølgen & Moi to make a reservation for 8 PM. We were told that they didn’t have a table at 8 PM but 8.30 could work and we accepted this. The location of Bølgen & Moi is great – located inside the oil museum and located on the waterfront in Stavanger, it has stunning views of the waterfront area. We came there at 8.30 and our waiter took us to our table – to my surprise there were lots and lots of table with no people and table that were not set! So I’m having problems understanding why they couldn’t accept our request to come at 8 PM.

As we were going to the movie at 10 PM we ordered the food right away – Nikki went for the tenderloin and I went for Norwegian clip fish and Nikki also ordered a glass of red wine. After a couple of minutes the waiter came back to inform Nikki that they didn’t have tenderloin after all but she could get entrecote. Then we started the waiting game – there were not that many people in the restaurant – I would guess 20 people or so. After a fair bit of time the waiter came back to serve the wine and he had already forgotten that it was Nikki who had ordered the wine. We waited a bit more and we got a small appetizer with some bread on the side – I guess they knew already that this would take time! The appetizer was not bad at all – a small potato and leek soup with bacon. Too bad Nikki couldn’t have it as she is lactose intolerant. In the end the waiter came back and poured some more wine in Nikki’s glass even if she had not asked for it so she was like “No, I only wanted one glass”. The waiter replied that it was on the house as the food was taking so long and she needed some wine to go along with the food.

So after about 1 hour we finally got the food – but by this time we were getting a bit stressed as we also needed a few minutes to get to the movie house. My clip fish was served with various vegetables and it was pretty good even if it was a bit on the salty side. The fish was served on top of mashed potatoes with the vegetables, mussels and bacon so it was a bit strange combination. But all in all it was pretty good. The fish was warm but as I said, a bit too salty. Nikki was not that lucky with her entrecote – the food was a bit lukewarm, the small potatoes that she got on the side were dry and parts of the steak were chewy.

Conclusion: I was not too impressed with Bølgen & Moi this time. I have no idea how to run a restaurant and I guess they have to run on a minimum staff if they don’t have that many reservations one evening. But I find it annoying that we couldn’t get a table at 8 was there was clearly tables available and hence we had to eat fast to get to the movies on time as it took close to an hour from we ordered until the food was served – it shouldn’t take that long guys. But I did enjoy my fish – too bad I didn’t have the time to really enjoy it. One glass of red wine was 99 kroner (18 USD) and our food cost about 500 kroner (about 90 USD).

When we asked for just tap water we were also asked if we wanted to support a drilling for clean water in Cambodia program that the restaurant is sponsoring – I think it is great that the restaurant gets involved in stuff like this and I hope the money will help improve people’s lives in Cambodia. The program is called “Vann til vann” and you can read more about it on the restaurant homepage http://www.bolgenogmoi.no/

Regards
Gard
gardkarlsen.com – trip reports and pictures

Problems with the timing at Bølgen & Moi

I have been to the restaurant Bølgen & Moi a couple of times this year and you can read about my last experience on http://eatingoutinstavanger.blogspot.com/2007/04/fine-dining-with-fine-view-at-blgen-moi.html . This time I went to Bølgen & Moi due to some family celebration and we went there on a Friday night in the end of August 2007. The last time I went there I was very happy with the food and service but I was not that happy this time and I will get back to the details in this review.

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

Fine dining with a fine view at Bølgen & Moi

I visited the place Bølgen & Moi in the end of April 2007 in connection with a work related event. This restaurant is located in connection with the Oil museum in Stavanger and you can see where it is located by checking out this interactive Google map that I have made: http://gardkarlsen.com/stavanger_map.htm . The name of the place is derived from the two guys Toralf Bølgen and Trond Moi who are both well known names in the Norwegian food/restaurant industry and you can also find Bølgen & Moi restaurants in some other Norwegian cities. Bølgen & Moi in Stavanger is located with a view of the harbour and the view was lovely on this nice spring afternoon. We were served aperitifs as new participants joined our party and the staff was observant when they noticed that a new face had arrived at the table. We decided to go for a 5 course meal with the wine package so we all had the same meal. The place is not a gourmet restaurant by the way...the head of the restaurant Hammersvik prefers to call it a brassiere. There is a review of the place in the local Stavanger newspaper: http://www.rogalandsavis.no/bruland/article2712552.ece (only in Norwegian).

The table was set in a funky way when we came there and we all had each our huge and colourful plate in from of us. We got a starter before we started on the main meal by the way and I think it was a rocket soup. I'm not sure what stock was used in the soup but it was very tasty :-) The same goes for the focaccia bread that was served with a lovely olive dip on the side. We got a Riesling kabinett, Dr. Loosen 2005 for this meal and we kept this when the first course was served: scallop. To serve scallop at restaurants seems to be pretty common and in this case we got two served with a purée of cauliflower and blood orange vinaigrette. It is always nice with scallops but maybe it was a bit much with two...as the evening progressed some of the guests felt there was too much food to be handled :-)

From the scallops we moved on the monkfish served on risotto with vanilla and rosemary foam. Monkfish is my favourite fish and it tasted excellent as usual. And risotto is one of my favourite dishes and it was made just the right way in this meal. This was a lovely dish that I can recommend if you decide to just order from the menu. We had a Saint Veran, Cave-Prissé 2005 along with this dish.

We continued with lamb served with lentils, sweetbread, portobello mushroom and tomato. The meat was a bit to rare for my likings but it was tasty. The potatoes were very good and I'm a bit curious on how it was made. It seemed like they were sliced and then put back again and fried. We had a Spanish Rijoa by the name of Muga for this dish. I have had this on a few other occasions and it is a great wine that goes well with lamb.

The next course was a bit of cheese with bread and something sweet. I'm not sure that the sweet bit was but it was good together with the cheese and the wine. The blue mould cheese was good and not to extreme like it was at Craigs :-) The dessert this evening was a passion fruit tart with strawberry sherbet and raspberry cream...the sherbet was lovely and fresh and the tart was sweet and delicious. We had a Riesling Beerenauslese 2005 for the dessert by the way. We ended the meal with some coffee and something extra on the side and all of a sudden we noticed that we were alone in the restaurant. Time flies when you are having fun :-)

Conclusion: check out Bølgen & Moi if you haven't been there. We got great food, great service and a lovely view of the harbour in Stavanger. The only negative comment was that some felt there was too much food in this meal :-) On the plus side I have to mention that the waiters always made sure that we had some wine and they would refill during the meal if we finished a glass. We had to pay about 1200 kroner per person for the meal (about 200 $). You can read a bit more about Bølgen & Moi on their web page http://www.bolgenogmoi.no/ .


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