brunching the finnish style in cafe ekberg

in Helsinki, the capital of Finland, there is a cafe with a great reputation for its brunch – Cafe Ekberg. Now there are a lot of different brunches, and this might not be the something most people are used to, but it certainly was delicious. A lovely mix of salty and sweet.

The salty was represented by the rice porridge (I suspect it was a bit of an accident as this is normally somewhat sweet), selection of breads, croissants (as flaky as in Paris, which I am still searching in California) and the ultimate Finnish delicatessen, ‘Karelian pies’ – those little rice, or sometimes potato or carrot-filled pasties made out of a very thin rye crust. Often topped with a butter and egg mix, or as in this case with all sorts of cheese, smoked salmon or other meats.

My to-do list now has a task to revive my Karelian pie making skills, and I will certainly share the pain (takes a really long time – I recall how we used to make these for all large family events and it would take all day long to make hundreds of these pies…) and the recipe of making those pies for the food enthusiast.

The sweet tooth certainly enjoyed the most the fresh strawberry-cream pie (pictured), which will also make it to the “to-try” baking list. I’m afraid this picturealso reveals my greediness when good things are on offer – I easily munched a couple of plates of these treats plus the porridge…My food heaven morning!