FOOD ROAD TRIP: CAFE CATHEDRAL OSLO NORWAY...REINDEER PIZZA!!
It's been a long day of walking and boating around Oslo and now we are hungry. Finding a place to eat is not always so easy when you are tired and menus aren't grabbing your attention. This was the unfortunate thing on this particular evening as we went through at least 5 options before finally settling on Cafe Cathedral for two reason--we were tired of walking around and Norwegian pizza. It grabbed our attention enough to say "let's do it".
It turned out to be a skewer of chicken and beef with rice, side salad and tzatziki sauce. Thus this was more Mediterranean than Norwegian. To be honest a number of restaurants in the city seem to go this route with a number of their entrees. I guess when you live in a country with months of darkness, cold and snow, a little thought of sun-kissed shores and warm blue waters through your food is a thing. I'm just guessing. For the most part it won't bad. The meat was cooked perfectly, tender and juicy and not dry. The rice had a nice flavor to it and I haven't seen grains quite that big before. When you mixed the greens, meat, rice and sauce all together it did have those notes of Greek food to it and in that instance, they did a good job. Not a terribly exciting or inventive dish, but well done nonetheless. Ultimately, this isn't what we came for, this was....
Norwegian style pizza--reindeer, mushrooms and arugula thin crust pizza. Yep, that's right, we had Rudolph on a pizza people and to be honest, it won't have bad. The meat itself was tender, like it had been pounded down like they do with schnitzel. It had a mild taste of beef and just a tad bit of gaminess, enough to know you are eating something that isn't cow. I have to say it paired well with the cheese and tomato sauce and didn't seem at all like a weird combination. The only real let down was the crust. While thin, it was a bit under cooked and slightly doughy. It needed about 2-3 more minutes in the oven to crisp up, had they done this it would have been really good. Toppings good--crust, eh.
As far as restaurants go it was okay. For a spot that probably caters to out of towners more, the food won't bad and prices weren't to terrible for Oslo. The pizza ran about $20 and most dishes are about the cost of what you would find in San Francisco. In my terms, we didn't hate it and were happy enough with the choices we made. Interestingly enough, we asked our server where she goes to eat when going out and she said most of folks really like--wait for it--TGI Friday's. That's right, they like American food (it's what she called it), burgers and things. Very funny, we try to avoid places like that, even in the US (and no, we won't be hitting up the Oslo version). If nothing else at Cafe Cathedral, we got to try Reindeer pizza and for that alone it was worth dropping by.
