FOODNOTE: Hanne på Høyden Restaurant (in Bergen, Norway)

These were my notes while dining at Hanne på Høyden a couple of weeks ago, away on a holiday:  

• Organic butter and spelt bread like a cream-lined splurge of popcorn but with rose petals notes
• Oxtail cubes with dill amuse-bouche simple standouts
• Beef tartar with fresh-cracked quail egg in mustard and herbs aioli - rawness undetected - just has a sea cucumber texture in the emulsion
• Shore crab soup - the aroma impressive: kelp wafts or a Mendocino abalone cove - a consummate consommé; the "caviar" of a mortar-and-pestle juicing of the head of shrimp in wine, with charred-flavor of bread, the bite of softened onion and fennel fronds; exquisite sophistication like dining at the elegant seafood restaurant, Hugo, in Portland, Maine
• Hake with cabbage and the Northern lamb dish (was told a "one of a kind" species)... -Disappointment - (like saying that horse will win, at the start of the race, but then with the main dish it didn't) - no where did the fish evoke the mighty scenery and postcard red farms along the fjords; the lamb - O, God - was tough - cutting it in front of the chef was embarrassing I had to change the subject; but in fairness the flavor was good, giving me an imagining of a traditional Nordic stew of reindeer meat slow-cooked in milk, water and juniper berries my host in Bergen, Aslaug, where I stayed with, talked about one night in her kitchen 
• Pre-dessert (chef been serving us since the main dish; probably informed by the waiter been engaged with us constructively about food) Brown ice cream: ha! - has an English short beard flavor in the creaminess, and its sweetness of a Spanish milk powder candy with toasted grains; and visuals aside, the mixed fruits sorbet - the main dessert - didn't come together - there was landscape planning, but all the wrong plants

With "luxury" food, I don't believe in strict consistency. I believe in the moment. Chefs should work in this ethos - arriving at the "words" reliably from a poetic voice - explain the food that way - so guests get in the idea of the taste. But no matter. The winning factor at Hanne på Høyden, albeit, was the professional and deep eye-contact hospitality to serve, to accept feedback and to intelligently converse from personal experience, expanding the table's horizons, leaving everyone satisfied with the overall production and tact.

The restaurant is located in a quiet residential hill of cobblestones and botanic gardens where the liberal arts college (Bergen University) resides, the area called Møhlenpris. You enter the premises and a useful wheelbarrow with potted plants and flowers greet you. The street-level dinning room is formal, but the ambiance comes from the northernly air outside to Scandinavia. A beautiful country. A friendly country. A food destination in the making, likely to emerge from her "forest" as Portland, Ore. did, in the U.S.A.     

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THE FOOD OF EIDFJORD, NORWAY

Fish Soup is the all-around comfort food of cold Norway, eaten with rustic, hard and chewy wheat-nut rolls and "brown" cheese from mountain goats. Fish bone stock becomes milky; adding root vegetables, onions and herbs clears and draws out its flavor, binding the salmon and cod's vitality like forest presence to glacial seas. 

Norway is a beautiful Nature. The interior of this land is ocean, and because of the fjords lush rocks rise above the country. The food of Norway is an evocation of what is caught here, is gathered, and is herded. There is light-sense in the fish, acorn and pine in the bread, and thunderstorms over the barn.

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THE FOOD OF BUSHWICK

Two blocks north of Roberta's on Thames St. just past Morgan, in one of those old, brick factories turned artist lofts building where I had moved to three years ago this summer from Portland, Ore., I remember setting my first meal over a spread of newspapers in a studio with a built-in stage. I don't remember what I had cooked then exactly - and that's not the point. What I want to write instead is about the neighborhood - gritty and tattooed - yet food and eating there are inspired. Bushwick has become New York's "culinartists'" retreat to find the voice of food. I think they have an extemporaneous style, revealing the creativity of their own disciplines, and what nature (the flavors and notes of food) can do - to sing out in us: Wow, this is good! In their own right are artists' visceral originality: they know what to do with their wares, and they know how to follow the mouths of their ingredients. When Shinobi, a ramen house, opened on Grattan Ave. west of Thames, sure it's about traditional slurps, but the vibe is more like after a band recording. Narrows, the oyster bar, is a "norm corps" dimension of cocktail cool. Roberta's world-class food is a nuance of the creative-anonymous sect. The octopus ceviche at Union restaurant was kind of what I had expected of a Brooklyn genre. My first night in Bushwick on stage eating my food under warehouse environment conditions changed my notion about food. It's not a big deal. It's who they are.

           

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