Meals on Two Wheels

This morning we were booked on a food tour of Copenhagen by bike. We met at the allotted time at City Bike Adventures, had a safety demonstration (helmets were optional and of the group of 12 only three of us wore helmets), and instruction on how to operate our bikes. Our bikes were manual, had 3 gears, one hand brake for the front wheel and also a pedal brake for the back - it’s a Danish thing. They were fine for tootling slowly along on the pancake flat streets.

We headed out on our “Tour du Plat” with the sky looking a bit dark, and threatening rain. We had a couple of little sprinkles but nothing to write home about at first! Our first stop was the Organic Hotdog Stand, located in the pedestrian mall, for a traditional Danish hot dog with all the trimmings: - fresh onion, crispy fried onion, mustard, tomato sauce, pickles and some Danish mayo. The dog was organic pork and it was served on a toasted wholemeal organic roll. It was delicious and a bit messy.

We then left the pedestrian mall and made our way up to the food market, where we had a drink at Mikkeller & Friends. Most had beers and I had lemonade made with Sicilian lemons. We then went to Boutique Fisk (fish) stall and had cod fish balls - they were huge, so they were cut them into quarters and served with rye bread, pickled red onion and a kind of tartare sauce and lemon. They tasted very good, but a quarter of a ball was sufficient. We had the opportunity to wander around the savoury food hall for a few minutes before heading to the sweet food hall. Here we went to Summerbird, where we tried Grand Cru Flodebolle, which was marshmallow with a marzipan base double dipped in dark chocolate - they were absolutely bloody delicious.

When we went to get back on our bikes, it was pelting down with rain and so our tour leader, Svenja, gave us an extra 15 minutes wandering around the market. The rain had let up a bit but it was still quite heavy and so on we rode to our next stop a restaurant called Vita, where we had two half Smørrebrød, a curried herring one and a potato and mayonnaise one. They were served with a shot of Aquavit, an Eau de Vie which had a light cumin flavour. I wasn’t a fan but Ian enjoyed both his and mine. Our final stop was at a Lagkagehuset (layer cake house), a pastry and coffee café where we tried a cheese danish, a cinnamon roll and a slice of wienerbrød, which means Viennese bread. I only tried the wienerbrød which was delicious and went very well with coffee. Ian tried them all and went in for a few repeats.

On the way back to base, Svenja took us past the Marble Church, Amalienborg, which constitutes four palaces, one where King Frederick X, Queen Mary and the family reside. The King was home today (indicated by the flag flying above the castle), not that we saw him. One palace is used by Queen Margrethe II, another by other senior royals, such as Frederick’s brother Prince Joachim, who now resides in Washington, and the fourth is empty. We got to see the relieving of the guards, as they stand at their post for four hours and then are relieved. We then returned to base, dropped off our bikes, farewelled the others and then headed back to the pedestrian mall to do a bit of shopping. We then headed back to the apartment with the intention of having a quiet night in again.Read more