Al Forno–decent Italian food in an informal atmosphere

This Italian restaurant is located in the middle of town and the concept seems to be a success as there are now 4 Al Forno’s around Stavanger  - I guess everyone enjoys some Italian food. I guess it didn’t start that great as the local food critic Tore Bruland gave it a pretty bad score. I went there on a Friday night with my wife and a friend – we had no reservation but they seemed to have lots of tables available and we chose to sit upstairs to avoid draft from the entrance door. Their menu is extensive and it contains all sort of variations of pasta and pizza – but their wine list is very,very limited. We were starving when we came in and we decided to go straight for the main course and I went for the Pizza Al Forno, Nikki went for the Gnocchi con carne and our friend went for Pizza frutti de mare.
My pizza was quite good – it was topped with a spicy sausage, a bit of artichokes, lots of cheese and it had been fried in their wooden fired oven I guess as the crust was crispy and a bit black. I love my pizza together with red wine so I very much enjoyed it. The gnocchi was not that great but there was nothing wrong with it or anything – it just seemed a bit boring. And our friend did not complain about her seafood pizza either – it was served with various seafood like shrimp, mussels and calamari. I went a bit overboard and went for the tiramisu for dessert after the meal – and that was also quite good but the portion was quite huge and it was served with a splash of whipped cream from a can. I’m not sure why they had to add that – the tiramisu is great and there is no need for whipped cream on the side. To round it of I asked them if they had limoncello and they were like “of course”
Conclusion
If you like your Italian food and you just want an informal meal together with friends this could be a nice place to go. The food we had was pretty good and the service was OK. As we were about to leave a larger group came into have some food and that brought up the noise level considerably – with an open plan it can be a bit noisy there. It would have been great to see a proper wine list but I guess their main target group is not going to buy expensive wines anyway.  Most of the pizzas are from 150 to 200 kroner (25 to 35 USD) just to give you an idea about the price level. Check out http://pizzeria-alforno.no/ for more information and to read the entire menu. And here is the review from Tore Bruland: http://www.rogalandsavis.no/nyheter/article3129710.ece (NB Only in Norwegian).
Regards
Gard
gardkarlsen.com – trip reports and pictures

Egon in Stavanger – not a culinary adventure

Recently a new restaurant opened in Stavanger and that does not happen every day. This time it was a place called Egon – a part of the Egon franchise that you can read more about on http://www.egon.no . We stopped by the place on a Sunday afternoon as we wanted a quick snack – the last time we ate at Egon was actually in Tromsø (read the trip report here) – the Egon restaurants are located all over Norway and I think the Stavanger one is the largest one of them all. The places is located at the harbor in Stavanger (Vågen) so the location is perfect – another things that is nice with the location is the fact that they also have a small area outside where you enjoy your meal on nice sunny days (when that happens in Stavanger ).

The first impression of the restaurant when you enter is also quite good – they have created a theme to honor Stavanger’s history and there is a focus on our maritime, canning and oil history. But the place is also a bit confusing with tables on lots of levels and staircases in many directions. And what is up with all the steps that you have to look out for? We saw lots of people almost falling as they were not aware of a step up or down.

The menu at Egon is quite extensive and one positive thing is that it comes in many languages so I guess this place is ready for the hordes of cruise ship tourists pouring in I think the menu was available in English, German, Norwegian etc. The restaurant opens early so in this place you can enjoy both breakfast and lunch and even various buffets. I chose a crispy chicken wrap from the lunch menu costing 129 Norwegian kroner (about 20 USD) and Nikki went for the burger and that was 155 Kroner (about 25 USD). The place is very informal so you just make a note of your table number and then you head over to the cashier to order, pay for the meal and pick up your drinks. Egon is licensed to serve beer, wine etc by the way. 

The food was brought to our table after a few minutes and the first thing that Nikki noticed was that there were only like 4 onion rings served with the hamburger and lots of French fries. It also turned out that the french fries was lukewarm and were a bit on the chewy side – I guess they were not that fresh. But what was also surprising was the fact the the hamburger was also lukewarm and I’m not sure how that is possible. But at this point we were quite hungry so Nikki ate the burger and the onion rings but left the fries as a silent protest

My crispy chicken wrap was not bad at all actually. It contained chicken in some sort of soy sauce and with some vegetables and it was served with some sort of sour cream dip and together with melon. And as you can see from the photo the presentation of the dish was not bad either. It would have been good to also have some sort of salsa sauce on the side but I guess you can’t have it all. I was starving too at this point so I ate all of it

So what is the conclusion? I think Egon will make it in Stavanger. The location of the restaurant is great, the menu is large and it serves standard food that most people like (like burgers, pizza, salads etc) to eat. As the title says, this is not the place for a culinary adventure but rather a place that you stop by when you are hungry and need some food fast and you want to avoid going to the fastfood stores nearby. The prices are not that bad either – the lunch items range from 110 to 150 Kroner and burgers are from 150 to 170 kroner – not bad when you compare it to other Norwegian restaurants. Well, I’m not dying to go to Egon again but I’m pretty sure that I will end up going there again in the future

Gard
http://gardkarlsen.com – trip reports and pictures

Simones – Italian food with a cold draft

Note that Simones has closed down :-(

We stopped by Simones to get some food before going to the movies last week. We have been to Simones 1 time before and back then we were not blown away by the food but we wanted to try it out again. Simones is located in the middle of Klubbgata close to the coffee bar Steam and it only has about 20 seats. There is a huge glass door that leads into the place and once you open the door you are in the middle of the restaurant. This is a problem in the winter time where there is a cold draft every time someone opens the door to go in or out. As a remedy they have put up heaters but it was still uncomfortable and not very cosy when we were there on a Friday night.

We came in right after a group of 8 had come in and our waiter informed us that it would take a while to get our food as there was only once chef in the kitchen and he would make the food as the orders came in. The kitchen and the restaurant is only separated by a half-wall so it was possible to see the progress in the kitchen. Due to this large group several other people chose to leave the restaurant to find a new place to eat as it would take to long to get the food. The place has brick walls so it is pretty rustic and on the one wall there was a huge 42” TV screen showing an Italian TV show and the atmosphere is pretty informal…we had three different chairs at our table to it does not look like they have a focus on the interior.

This is an Italian place and on some forum they claimed that Simones has the best pizza in town. We decided to do it the Italian way by having a starter and then a main meal. Nikki went for steamed mussels with pesto, I decided to go for a plate of tapas and my friend Olav wanted a sandwich. My tapas was not bad but pretty standard with olives, grissini, ham, chorizo, cheese etc. I asked the waiter what kind of red wine they served by the glass but there was only 1 kind by the glass…but I think they had 5-10 to choose from if you wanted a full bottle. The sandwich that Olav got was way too big as a starter in my opinion and I think they should have cut down on the portions and made them cheaper. I think I had to pay about 140 kroner (23$) for my tapas dish.

For the main meal Olav went for the spaghetti Carbonara while Nikki and I went for the pizza. There is quite a selection of different pizzas on the menu and I went for one with ham, rocket, parmesan and mushrooms. The pizzas were typically Italian style….flat and not that much topping. Normally this kind of pizza is pretty good but the ones we got at Simones was pretty…ehh…well, boring. Olav didn’t say that much about the spaghetti and I didn’t think much of it as he is normally pretty quiet. But he didn’t finish the meal and when we walked away from the place he was like “that spaghetti was not good at all”.

Conclusion: The waiter we had did a very good job…he was polite, informed us about the delay and did the job with a smile. But unfortunately this was not enough to save the day as it took a while to get the food, the food was mediocre and we sat in a cold draft every time someone opened the door. We ended up paying about 850 kroner (about 140$) for the three of us. The pizzas were about 140 kroner I think. You can read a bit more on http://www.simones.as but the menu is not published here I’m afraid. My recommendation is: if you want good Italian food go to Allegro instead.

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

To The Herbs - Meguro - Pizza and Pasta

To The Herbs - MeguroFebruary 2007 2F Atore Meguro3-1-1 Kami-OsakiShinagawa-kuTel. 03-5437-6500Open: 11:00 - 23:00http://www.four-seeds.co.jp/brand/03_to_the_herbs/index.htmlBest Dish - Bruschetta (it is tiny but sensational to the taste buds)Cost - Pizza and pastas are priced between 1,000 and 2,000 yen.English Friendly - Yes, English menus and English speaking staff.Seats - lotsAtmosphere -