The Tarv, Tórshavn, Færoe Islands

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The Tarv is a steak house that serves traditional Faroese cuisine together with en eclectic selection of barbecued specialties. It is newly established in the former premises of Poul Hansens Heilsøla in Tórshavn, Faroe Islands. The white façades, to the left in the row.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson & CM Cordeiro 2019

Some of best restaurants in the Faroe Islands are clustered around its oldest center, the Tinganes, which has served as the governing center of the islands as long as written history can tell. Around this peninsula are the two harbours of Tórshavn. If given the opportunity to return to the Faroe Islands, I will definitely revisit The Tarv.

The Tarv is located at the corner of the larger of the two harbours of Tórshavn. It´s a restaurant that serves some of the best of Faroese raw produce, fish and meat, in one of my preferred methods of cooking, grilled. The essential list of side dishes that accompanied grilled meats included Béarnaise sauce and pepper sauce were enough to make my evening.

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Etika, Japanese cuisine with a Færoese twist, Færoe Islands

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Etika, the only sushi restaurant in Tórshavn, Faroe Islands, serving a fusion of Japanese cuisine with raw produce sourced from the Faroe Islands.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson & CM Cordeiro 2019

With Japanese sushi restaurants being found everywhere on earth it was a given first thing to do to see what a sushi restaurant could do on the Faroe Islands, where access to fresh seafood – whitefish, salmon, shrimp, mussels, whale – are abound. Etika opened in July of 2009 and in 2019 seems to remain the only sushi restaurant on the Faroe Islands. Etika serves classic Japanese cuisine with a Faroe twist. Its modern and cozy interiors extends to its flavour innovations reflected in their dishes served. Just the tiniest hint of orange made the salmon maki intriguing.

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West coast shrimp sandwich à la Tromsø

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West coast shrimp sandwich, with shrimps from Tromsø, Norway.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson & CM Cordeiro 2019

I’m often amused when coming across shrimp at the local grocery store in Tromsø, the shrimps being at least twice the size of the ones found at the stores in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Shrimps are probably one of the fastest means to meal that needs little time in preparation if you’re in a hurry and/or haven’t got the time to sit and cook/plan all meals. Haul a kilo or so of shrimps home and you have the main ingredient to some ready-to-go-meals. Peeled shrimps can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 2 days and we love to have it over bread in a traditional Swedish west coast räkmacka with egg and mayonnaise.

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Black sesame seed bread

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Black sesame seed bread.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson & CM Cordeiro 2019

A few years ago when in Singapore, I came across a café that served hamburgers with black buns. It was a novelty at the time. I asked the kitchen to the café how the buns were made, and they said they used food colouring. I searched both online and in bakeries where I spotted black loaves of bread, for various means to bake black buns. My search returned several alternatives. Some recipes used squid ink, others used charcoal. One of my absolute favourites used black sesame seeds.

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Pickled cucumber Swedish style

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Inlagd gurka / pickled cucumber, Swedish style.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson & CM Cordeiro 2019

The crown dill and Västerås cucumbers get ripe for the picking at almost the same time in the garden. This harvest timing is probably what makes them a perfect pairing for the cucumber pickling. There are variations to pickling the cucumber that can be found online. The pickling used here includes mustard seeds, horseradish and chili. The pickling is done in two stages. First is the overnight soaking of the cucumber slices in salted water. The next day’s work is to concoct the vinegar, sugar and salt bath that will keep the cucumber slices happy and flavourful till time to serve. Best served with a favourite pâté .

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Postcards of late autumn, Styrsö, Sweden

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On the grill in late summer, along the Swedish west coast.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson & CM Cordeiro 2019

Spring is often the more colourful season, with trees coming back to life and flowers blossoming. Bees are a delight to sit and watch as they make their rounds around the garden flowers. Come late summer and early autumn, the garden tends to take on a more varied hue of green. We’ve managed to change that some over the past few years by growing different types of garden friendly vegetables. Or at least, Swedish west coast garden friendly vegetables. The Swedish west coast has relatively shallow soil with rocky soil beds that need clearing out before planting. So we built a few sand boxes and experimented some to see which vegetables felt at home in them. Carrots were a hit a few years ago. This year’s harvest is also interesting with garden sweet peas, Västerås cucumbers (great for pickling) and different types of lettuce. A small harvest of tomatoes also seems on the way. Most delightful are the herring wood barrels filled with rainwater. We use them to water the plants, “indoors-outdoors, can-can”.

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Oxtail soup

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Oxtail soup.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson & CM Cordeiro 2019

It was during the 1980s that Singapore saw a number of restaurants that served European styled food using recipes from France and Germany that I was introduced to a tomato based oxtail soup. My mother at the time was working for a German company with its Asia-Pacific headquarters located in Singapore. It was those years that we had the opportunity to try classic German goulash served with large chunks of meat, as well as oxtail soup. Soups in the restaurants were served together with heavy grained breads, and that’s how I have oxtail soup today as well.

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European food fair, Tromsø, Norway

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My absolute favourite moment on the Saturday city walkabout. When the perfect song begins to play when you’re at the perfect food stall at the summer food fair in Tromsø. “Sugar, ah honey honey”, The Archies from their album Everything Archie’s. (1969)
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson & CM Cordeiro 2019

Tromsø is a little city that sparkles. Almost every other weekend sees some kind of exciting event. This weekend, 1-3 Aug. the Tromsø Skyrace was complemented by more grounded activities such as this petite European food fair held in the small square located adjacent to the city centre’s main shopping mall, Nerstranda. At Torgcentret, some couple of hundred meters from Nerstranda, was an ongoing Saturday farmer’s market and flea market.

This European food fair was exciting. Condensed into a small space, you could literally taste several of Europe’s most famous produce and dishes, from fudge, Belgium waffles served with raw, farm produced honey, to candied dried fruits.

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Art Café Tromsø: A passionate combination of art and food

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Cheryl Marie Cordeiro and Ivonne Wilken, Art Café, Tromsø, Norway 2019

At Art Café with Ivonne Wilken in Tromsø, Norway. Ivonne is a writer and artist. Her sculpture exhibition titled “Connections” is currently on display at Art Café, Richard Withs plass 2, 9008 Tromsø, through the months of August and September 2019.
Text & Photo © Art Café, T. Altintzoglou, JE Nilsson & CM Cordeiro 2019

The summer months of Tromsø is warm, languid and beautiful. The university is closed for the summer holiday and this makes a marked difference to the atmosphere of this city, that has as its core activities, education, medical expertise and tourism. Tourists still dock off from the majestic looking cruise ships that pass by, but the crowds are fleeting and transient. What is, are the long hours of summer sun, to be enjoyed at one’s own pace if you’re spending your summer here.

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Pear and double cream chia pudding

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Chia pudding made with pears and double cream.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson & CM Cordeiro 2019

In the canteen of the convent in which I grew up, CHIJ Katong Primary in Singapore, there was a corner stall that sold drinks in bright colours of green, purple, yellow and rose pink. The last drink was called bandung, a drink made with evaporated or condensed milk flavoured with rose cordial syrup. A lot of these large plastic drink tanks had in them chia seeds, that complemented the colours of the drinks, and which would draw the attention of the little ones, including myself. I used to call the chia seeds, frogs eggs. We had tadpoles and frogs in the school ponds when its monsoon season, so I thought they really were frogs eggs served in those drinks. It was gelatinous and tastes pretty much like smaller versions of tapioca pearls that go into the much loved bubble tea found in most Southeast-Asian countries.

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