On the hunt for Swedish Meatballs

In almost every city in Europe there are statues everywhere
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We arrived in Goteborg Saturday afternoon, tired and hungry but having just experienced the beatuiful Swedish countryside. While, most of our trip to Sweden was spent on the train, we saw some gorgeous parts of the country. Coupled with reading my new Swedish cookbook, I became a thorough fan of Sweden. However, upon arriving in Goteborg, we discovered that there wasn't much we HAD to see and all we really wanted to do was sleep in our own beds instead of spending more money to get a bad night's sleep. Once again, our poor planning of this trip made what could have been an enjoyable experience, a frustrating one. But we worked it out and got reservations on the afternoon train to Copenhagen. Then, because we couldn't leave Sweden without eating Swedish meatballs we resumed our search. As we walked through Goteborg, I was again reminded of Portland; a busy but laid-back city with all kinds of people. We, first tried to go to the most popular restaurant, Smaka, but it's only open for dinner. We then tried the next restaurant Wasa Kallare. It's a little restaurant down a small flight of stairs from the street. It's a smaller cafe version of the bigger restaurant Wasa Alle. The little cafe had all there main dishes from the main restaurant in takeaway containers for easy dinners. It reminded me somewhat of Elephants Deli. There we all ordered meatballs with pureed potatoes and lignon berries. It was the most delicious meal I have had since I left Portland. The meatballs were juicy and flavorful. Lingonberries are one of the more popular berries in Swedish cooking. They are often used just raw and stirred as a sauce or side for many meat dishes. This sauce was similar to cranberry sauce at thanksgiving but sweeter, lighter, and better. Everything mixed together was heaven in my mouth.

the food has arrived
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Full and satisfied, Cindy and I caught our train to Copenhagen and then back to Aarhus. After spending 10.5 hours on the train, we were glad to be back home but all agreed that Sweden was a much more enjoyable place to be.