The first night I was in Sweden my co-worker and I went to a famous restaurant called Sjomagasinet for our only formal meal here and the longest amount of time we've spent not working.
The restaurant was super old school. Most of the people were white-haired and also wearing suits and fancy clothes. We were the loud Americans in jeans; one unshaven and both jet-lagged.
We started off with a herring platter. Six types of marinated raw herring, another type of Baltic Sea fish, crackers, and hard cheese. It was incredibly rich (they were marinated in various oils and cream sauces) but the highlight of the meal.
Next up was a lobster soup. Which might have been called butter soup with hint of lobster if my coworker and I had a say in it.
Then we had the main fish courses. The fish came from 200 yards outside the restaurant. You don't get much more local than that. I had halibut confit which was topped with duck liver.
I had forgotten how long dinner in Europe can take. The goal is not to get you in and out of the restaurant as soon as possible in order to seat more customers, so at first we thought we had been abandoned by our waiter, but then realized he was allowing us time to hang out, digest our food, and enjoy ourselves between the filling courses. It was really nice. We would have been suffering afterwards without the generous pauses between courses and it gave us time to absorb our surroundings, be present, and appreciate being in Sweden and eating such an amazing meal. We better had--the meal was fit for a king and the bill was, too!
End of the evening and the restaurant had emptied out (our meal lasted three hours).
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