The Bon Vivant Blog

While in town for a course, I had to seek out good coffee – Ottawa doesn’t have much of a reputation as an amazing food town, but come on – with as many office workers as it has downtown – there absolutely has to be good coffee. And it turns out, there is.

Bridgehead is a chain of coffee stores – with at least 11 locations in Ottawa, I was fortunate that there was a location just around the corner from where my course was. I dropped in, ordered an americano, and asked the barista what he’d recommend from the pastry collection – he suggested the pain au chocolat, my favourite – and so that was breakfast.

How was it? The coffee was great – rich, dark – far, far better than anything I’ve had at Starbuck’s, the Second Cup, or Tim Hortons (the Ontario trifecta of common coffee places) – in fact, this was entirely decent coffee, worthy of being served in Seattle or Vancouver. As for the pain au chocolat – I’ll pass next time. While Bridgehead has the coffee right, whoever supplies their pastries – at least based on my one try – needs to step it up a little.

But when you’re in Ottawa, caught in the maze of brutalist concrete that is the downtown, you’ll find a soft spot at Bridgehead, knowing that you’ll get a great espresso, americano, or latte.

Bridgehead Coffee
Multiple locations throughout Ottawa
96 Sparks St. (at Metcalfe)
Ottawa, ON K1P 5B6
Tel (613) 232-4936
Monday to Friday 6:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Saturday, Sunday 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.
www.bridgehead.ca

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While Seattle is probably best known for Starbucks, at least on the West Coast it is known for its great coffee scene. We’ve looked around before but haven’t committed to a city-wide coffee search. At least this trip we got a bit of a better idea what’s going on by searching out some of Seattle’s better-known coffee spots.

Caffe Ladro has multiple locations throughout Seattle, and we went to the downtown location on Pine St during our Saturday am food tour. Located in an architecturally-distinct tower from the 1960′s (I’m guessing), the ground floor location has a very distinct look but gets lots of light and has a very peaceful feel inside.

Service was friendly and fast. I had a latte – and it was certainly very good. Probably if I want to be a purist, I should be ordering ristrettos and offering tasting notes – but my palate isn’t that refined, and so all I’m looking for is a good place to read a book, get a tasty latte, and relax. Caffe Ladro is just fine for all 3 – drop by any time.

Cafe Ladro‎
801 Pine St # 101
Seattle, WA 98101-1852, United States
Tel: (206) 405-1950
caffeladro.com‎

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I had read about this place in the Wallpaper Guide for Copenhagen, and as I knew we were going to try Mikkeller Bar, I figured we should make sure that we also check out the competition at Nørrebro Bryghus.

I have so far tried out their Pacific Summer Ale (very delicious), Stuykman Wit (delicious), and Çeske Böhmer (somewhat delicious). I am sure that all of their beers are worth trying, and the three that I tried, were all relatively light, with both floral and fruit on the nose. None were harsh, and all had unique character.

Their selection of beer is sold in at least one grocery store chain (Irma – like the Danish Whole Foods) in Copenhagen, so it’s certainly easy to get.

We stopped by their restaurant/cafe in the Nørrebro neighborhood of Copenhagen, and had a pleasant beer on the patio. A nice place, on a sunny day, or good for a beer after work. Easily the kind of place that ‘a beer’ could turn into ‘ten beer’ with a stumble back to the hotel/apartment.

Definitely a place to try when you’re in town.

Nørrebro Bryghus
Ryesgade 3
2200 Copenhagen N
Tel: (+45) 3530 0530
noerrebrobryghus.dk

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I have no idea where we read about this place. Talk about a random – but very good find.

DØP is an acronym for ‘Den Økologiske Pølsemand’ – i.e. ‘the organic sausage man’ – and while every city has its street food, and Denmark’s seems to be dyed-red hotdogs, you’ll be getting a special treat at the DØP cart. I didn’t read up on the certification of this place, but they bill themselves as being organic, and that’s good enough for me.

The sausage/bun combo is delicious. The bun is whole wheat – you can see the flax seeds in the picture above, and the hot dog (with everything) comes topped with mustard, ketchup, mayonnaise, fried onions, fresh onions, and pickles. I don’t even like pickles, but I liked these pickles. The sausage is tasty – hot dogs are usually never that tasty – but this one is indeed good. And the total effect of the whole wheat bun, organic dog, and great toppings is a street food that just works.

Finding the place is a bit tricky though. First, head to the ‘rundetaarn’ – i.e. ’round tower’ in the pedestrian mall area downtown – and on the southeast corner, you’ll find DØP – hopefully open, ready, and waiting to serve you a delicious dog.

DØP
Nearest address:
Købmagergade 52A, 1150 København, Denmark
www.døp.dk – NB: the web address has to have the ‘ø’ character in it, otherwise you won’t get to the right webpage

The map below is an approximation of the location – like I note above – try the southeast corner of the round tower:

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We were sitting at Aamans, and started chatting with the very nice couple next to us, who we started exchanging food recommendation with, and an email or two later, M had recommended Summerbird to us for their flødeboller – ‘cream puffs’. Did you ever eat Viva Puffs (in Canada, at least) when you were a kid – those marshmallow-filled, chocolate-coated delicious cookies that would just all-too-easily disappear?

If so, then flødeboller is for you. This is like a giant viva puff, except made with good chocolate, good marshmallow, and a bottom crust like marzipan or something.

Anyway, there’s not much more to say. If you’re going to eat one of these though, have a drink handy, as it’s a giant sugar bomb and you’ll want something to wash the sweetness away when you’re all done.

The lady at Summerbird (I almost wrote Sugarbird, which they may want to consider changing their name to) did mention that they’re one of (if not the) last chocolate manufacturer in Denmark.

So come, visit, find out what the folks making viva puffs are trying to re-create, and enjoy. Summerbird makes many other delicious things as well (we tried the raspberry-flavoured chocolate almonds) so don’t hesitate to try more than just the flødeboller.

Summerbird
Two locations in Copenhagen:
Ny Østergade 9, 1101 København, Denmark
Tel (+45) 33 13 19 02

Kronprinsensgade 11, 1114 København, Denmark
Tel (+45) 33 93 80 40
www.summerbird.com

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Always searching out delicious baked goods, we read about Emmerys somewhere or other and as it was literally around the corner from our apartment in Copenhagen, we decided to give it a try – and yes, it totally worked out.

Emmerys is a beautiful food store, with multiple locations in Copenhagen, but with a very large, and very nice store in Nyhavn. Inside is brightly lit, with nice places to stay and eat breakfast and read the paper, and a very wide selection of gourmet food items. Apparently the bread is very good, but we just had the breakfast pastries – and they were so good that we came back two more times as well.

Our favourite was the chocolate cinnamon roll – very moist, not too heavy on the cinnamon with a delicious blob of chocolate – there was something about this one that just worked. The other pastries we tried were the chocolate croissant and a honey-flavoured pastry (I think) coated in miniature sesame seeds (I think). Both were decent enough – Pierre Herme doesn’t have to worry, but they quite a ways better than the ones that I had from Reinh van Hauen.

An additional note – I had a great latte from here (get the double-shot) – definitely not disappointing.

So – when in town, definitely drop by, browse, read the paper, have a coffee and a chocolate cinnamon bun, and dream a little.

Emmerys
Numerous locations in Copenhagen
Store Strandstræde 21
1255 Copenhagen, Denmark
Tel: (+45) 33 93 01 33
www.emmerys.dk

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This bakery was mentioned in a couple of articles that we found – apparently it is a favourite of Claus Meyer, chef of Noma, according to an article in the latest edition of the Monocle. We thought we’d try it out – we went to the sandwich shop at the department store Magasin and we went to their bakery shop on Store Kongensgade to try it again.

Copenhagen has no shortage of very good bakeries – see Lagkagehuset and Bo Bech. And you can add Reinh van Hauen to the list – at least for their sandwiches and bread.

At the sandwich store in Magasin, we had a great tuna sandwich – I think that bread is perhaps the most important component to a sandwich, and this was great bread. Crispy crust, soft filling, with great sandwich fillings. D had the mueslibread, which was comparable to the mueslibread we had at Lagkagehuset. Good all around.

But then I went to another one of their bakeries to try out some of the breakfast foods, and I have to say I was very disappointed. I had a blackberry muffin that was oily and too short on the blackberries. This was a muffin I would expect to eat in a hospital cafeteria.

I also had a chocolate croissant – it was doughy and had a measly small strip of chocolate in the middle. Overall, a poor showing on the breakfast foods – I really can’t recommend it for this, unless you’re looking for generic breakfast goods that you could get in any coffee shop in North America (and if you’re reading this blog, chances are that’s not what you’re looking for).

But the sandwich? The sandwich was great.

Reinh van Hauen Bakery
Numerous locations throughout Copenhagen
www.rvh.dk

Just a quick entry – we read about this place in the Wallpaper City Guide for Copenhagen – apparently, it is a butcher that converts into a steakhouse at night and on the weekends. We didn’t stay for dinner, but having had a bit of trouble finding a real butcher in Copenhagen, we thought we’d drop in while we were in Østerbro to see what it was all about.

The store is very nice, and extremely clean inside – the staff were friendly and helpful (in our experience, a bit of a rarity in stores in Copenhagen), and they sell meat, cheese, sausages, and many other food products. The restaurant area looks very nice, and I’d have no problem coming here any time for a meal.

We just tried some sausages (see the pic above), and both were very good. Clean, helpful, with good food – what more could I ask for from a butcher?

Gourmandiet
Rosenvængets Allé 7
2100 København, Denmark
Tel: (+45) 39 27 10 00 ‎
www.gourmandiet.dk

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While the Danes aren’t as famous for their beers as the Belgians, Dutch, or Germans, they are off to a good start with Mikkel Borg Bjergsø’s ‘Mikkeller’ Brewery.

Voted twice as the best Danish Brewery by the association of Danish Beer Enthusiasts, Mikkeller is obviously a place that you need to visit while you’re in town. While you can find their bottled beers in many stores, a visit to their downstairs bar in the Vesterbro neighborhood of Copenhagen is worth the trip.

We sampled their witbeer (‘not just another wit’) and an imperial/IPA style beer, ‘I beat you’. The former was about 4.5%abv and the latter about 9.5%. Both were excellent. I’m not that familiar with beer-tasting lingo, but the witbeer I would have any time, and the I beat you was delicious for such a strong beer. Neither of these beers is light on taste – and both have some interesting aromas that I haven’t seen in beers before.

The bar is fairly small, with concrete walls and floor, and small wooden tables – not the most comfortable place in the world, but after a few ‘I beat you’s, you probably won’t care.

Definitely this place should be on your list to visit while in Copenhagen.

Mikkeller Bar
Viktoriagade No. 8 B-C
1655 Copenhagen.
Opening hours:
Sun-Wed: 15:00-24:00
Thur-Fri: 14:00-02:00
Sat: 12:00-02:00
bar@mikkeller.dk
www.mikkeller.dk

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As I mentioned before – the most important thing when coming to a new city is to find all the good bakeries. And at Bo Bech, we found a bakery that while it produces only one product – a loaf of bread – it produces what I would have to consider as the best bread that I have ever eaten. We purchased three of these very large loaves in three days, just to give you an idea of how good it is.

Bo Bech previously had a restaurant, Paustian, that has closed and will apparently be re-opening in a new location in 2011. In the mean time, he has opened a bakery that only produces a single product – one size of a loaf of whole wheat bread, that is stunningly good.

How good is it? This year in Paris we went through some of the list of the ‘best baguette in Paris’ for 2010, and this bread is better than all of the ones that we tried. While you might complain that we’re comparing apples and oranges, and indeed, a baguette is used for different foods than whole wheat bread – this is still better.

Taking four days to make a loaf might explain some of this. The crust is perfectly thick – crispy and chewy, and the interior is so delicately soft. And the flavour is so good that you want to eat the bread without any condiments – no jam, no nutella, no chorizo or gorgonzola – just the bread.

So – as they say that people are now coming to Copenhagen just to eat at Noma, I think they should add something to that list – don’t leave Copenhagen without buying a loaf at Bo Bech.

Bageri Bo Bech
Store Kongensgade 46
1264 København, Denmark
Tel: (+45) 3918 5504
bageri.bobech.net

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