The Smorgasbord on Viking Line

September 12, 2007 at 9:51 pm · Filed under autumn, dessert, fish, food

Hi, my name is Maggan. Welcome to Maggan’s kitchen!

In our recent trip to Helsinki, H and I finally had buffet dinner on Viking Line. We so decided since our trip was free, courtesy of the duty-free shop on the ship. We had traveled to Helsinki in June on the same ship and I had shopped enough to qualify for a bonus card that enttitled me to a cabin, meaning a free roundtrip ticket. How much I shopped for? I won’t tell.

H and I shared our table at the buffet restaurant with two ladies who were travelling together. They were going on a sightseeing tour in Stockholm. They were Findish (Finnish-Swedish). Despite the very heavy accent on their Swedish, I found them easy to understand. Words came forth slowly and my brain had time to decode them. I was taking things easy on this trip. So did my brain.

The buffet on Viking Line lived up to my expectation. A bowl of a variety of salad leaves in one corner with other salads. Three dessert tables in three corners. Roast meats on two sides of the very long buffet table. Different kinds of salmon dishes next to the meat dishes. Big bowls of cooked fresh sweet shrimps by the salmon dishes. They’re the sweetest. It must be the cold waters here in the north that make them so.

I tried to go for the salads first. But the crowd pushed me to the Mediterranean corner. Argh! Fine. I love Italian too. I lost H. Or H lost me. I found him sitting behind our designated table—number 70— with his first plate. Apparently he went straight for the roast beef and meat balls. Then came our Finndish tablemates. I quickly looked at their plates. Salmon and salmon. That would be my next plate too.

It was time for my next plate. Pickled salmon, warm smoked salmon, cold smoked salmon, baked salmon. To my taste, this fish is best with potatoes. So, I got Jansonn’s temptation and marble potatoes. What a feast! If I had died and went to heaven, then I must be a cat and had died a few times before because I recognized the feeling very well.

The pickled salmon was remarkable. It was worth going for it again. But it was time to move on to the shrimps before I became full. I got a new plate and filled it with shrimps. Just shrimps. A plateful of them. H was surprised that I didn’t take the whole bowl from the buffet table to save me another trip, in case I went for seconds.

The salad corner was free by this time. I took the chance and had salad for my next plate. While the crowd was on the dessert by this time, I was lagging behind and was still on the salad. I saw no reason to hurry. H and I still had about 45 minutes to be there.

As the rest of the crowd, H was on his dessert plate. His first dessert plate. And so were the Findish ladies. Well, as for myself, I went back for more salmon. The pickled and smoked salmon were just too good. A good closure I thought.

While H was on his second plate of dessert, and I on my second salmon plate, one of the Findish ladies started talking about panna cotta. The younger one had once made panna cotta dessert with apricots and it was delightful. Obviously, she was a good story-teller because her panna cotta did sound delightful.

I had decided to forego the desserts. I didn’t need sweets after the salmon. But hearing the lady’s testimony about panna cotta changed my mind. I became curious. I had never had it before and I had the chance to try it. If salmon was the closure, the panna cotta would be the appendix.

The panna cotta in the buffet had raspberry sauce. It wasn’t as sweet as desserts normally are. It had a texture similar to leche flan. I couldn’t tell if there were eggs in it. But I assumed there was gelatin. I enjoyed panna cotta not for its taste but for its texture. It was very soft to the bite but hard enough to be moulded and hold itself in shape. Until the last dessert spoon, I still couldn’t say for sure if there were eggs or gelatin in it.

H and I were pretty much stuffed after dinner. We went back to our cabin to rest for a while before we hit the duty-free shop. How ironic that eating can be exhausting sometimes.

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