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Degustation at Apotek

Swanky interior – kicked myself I didn’t get bathroom photos!
A sneaky selfie of my view – stunning weather
The menu
Bread (not counted as a course or a taster)
This was lamb, and the white powder was ‘vinegar dust’. I have no idea how or why this dish came, perhaps the unlisted amuse bouche, which happens a bit?

 

Left is the Birch alcohol; right is my cocktail which was Reyka vodka, crowberry liqueur, birch liqueur, lime juice and ginger beer
Smoked puffin with goats cheese, berry gel and rye bread crumble. The day after this dinner, I went somewhere where they bake rye bread in the ground using geothermal heat – takes about a day.
Jackson Pollack dish! The reds are beetroot – both a juice and a puree, for the Ocean Perch, which was ever so lightly steamed, and the first warm dish
Minke whale with parsnip puree and crisps – I was meant to get just one ‘pile’ but they made a mistake and I got two. Maybe this was the dish that took me into ‘too full it hurts’
Sea trout on Himalayan salt slab – the thin apple slices prevent it getting too salty, but I ate an apple slice just to see, yep, salty. Left the other one. Oh, and seaweed again
Plaice – fish – samphire – sea weed, citrus beurre blanc and mashed potatoes
Lamb – this was a substantial size for a degustation, and I seriously struggled to finish it. It was crusted in salt, which is sold in tourist stores for $14 per tiny plastic baggy (or same weight in a glass jar at no extra cost which I liked)
Vanilla espresso martini
Skyr based dessert – the Icelandic dairy dish skyr is everywhere!

The overall experience was wonderful. My usual waitress was Lithuanian (second I’d met in Iceland) and happy to help and generally pretty bubbly.  I was initially worried when the menu said only for tables of two or more, but it wasn’t a problem.  Interesting the first few dishes were quite rapid in coming, but then there became long lapses between the mains (the fish and the lamb particularly).  I had nowhere else to be, but I’d forgotten to bring a novel, due to a small handbag, and in the end, resorted to writing on my map!!  Of course, like absolutely EVERYWHERE in Iceland, there was wifi, so I could also occasionally chat with people in Australia.  Seems a bit vulgar, but I didn’t have company with me.