So, I guess since I’ve been posting a lot about my Iceland trip lately, it would be fitting to post something about the volcanic eruption that’s causing so much travel disruption in northern and mainland Europe.

According to news sources, right now, as I type this message, the sky above me is laced with volcanic ash being blown nearly 1500 miles from the eruption site in Eyjafjallajökull (ay-yah-fe-aht-la-yo-kuhl). As a result, for the first time in British aviation history, the skies have been empty. It’s absolutely unprecedented.

I live directly underneath a busy flight path. Planes taking off from nearby London airports fly directly over my house. Luckily, the planes are very high up by the time they reach us, but not so high that we can’t hear them. Those that follow my Flickr stream will attest I often upload photos of the contrails the planes leave behind. They are almost a landmark of the area.

Right now though, there’s nothing. It’s peaceful and the skies are completely clear.

There are some great expat sites I subscribe to that have been posting volcano updates from the source. I recommend you drop on by. Also, check out these other great posts.

The last time this particular volcano erupted was around 200 years ago. Back then, it erupted for two years straight, so there could be prolonged disruption. That’s without the added complication that history has shown that when this volcano blows, neighbouring, much larger volcanoes are stirred into action. Eeep!

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You’ve heard of the saying, “When in Rome,” right? Well, when I was in Rome recently, I decided to eat like the Romans. When I say Rome of course, I mean Reykjavík and when I say Romans, I mean Icelandic people. It sounds odd I know, but it’s a metaphor, so you have to… ahhh, I can’t be bothered to explain it.

On my first night in Reykjavík, I decided to splash out on some fine-dining Icelandic cuisine. I couldn’t decide whether to go for the lamb, or the puffin, or the seafood, so I went for the whole lot, Tapas-style. My “Icelandic Feast” consisted of the following;

Smoked Puffin with Blueberry “Brennivín” Sauce

When I tell people I’ve eaten Puffin, I’ve mostly been met with frowns. But they don’t know how good it tastes. The shredded Puffin I had was dense and meaty. The main flavour was quite fishy but it was also quite gamey. I actually mistook the sauce for a plum sauce, such was the similarity. It complemented the puffin perfectly. I could have eaten more of it, but alas, I only had a sampler.

Baked Lobster Tails in Garlic Butter

Man, these were good! They came to the table fizzing in the garlic oil. The meat was surprisingly delicate and tasted sumptuous. I could have eaten about 20 of them.

Grilled Icelandic Lamb Samfaina

No, I don’t know what Samfaina is either. All I know is it’s good. I’ve never had lamb before (crazy, huh?), so I approached this with caution. I needn’t have. It was great! The meat was tough, but juicy and chewy. I really enjoyed it. I can’t say I’ll be eating it more often though. I’m just not a red meat kind-of guy.

Icelandic Sea Trout with Red Pepper Salsa

The fish was deliciously light and moist. It was a lot like salmon. The skin was cooked to perfection and added a nice crunch. I even liked the pepper salsa, even though I’m not a great fan of pepper.

Pan-Fried Monkfish with Lobster Sauce

A lovely, dense fillet of fish with a delicate, meaty flavour. The sauce was rich and creamy.

Minke Whale with Cranberry Sauce

Hmmmm. Nah. I really couldn’t bring myself to eat this. I didn’t even arrive at the table. I made an early substitution for;

Pan fried Salt Fish with Mashed Sweet Potato

What a choice! This was easily my favourite dish. I could have quite happily eaten a full serving of the mash on it’s own. It was so creamy and sweet! The salt fish was barely cooked (in a good way). It was so moist, so dense, so incredibly delicious. I loved it.

Chocolate Cake with a Berry Compote and Fresh Whipped Cream

I had just enough rook for pudding, And thank goodness I did, for it was worth making room for. Like most of the main courses, the cake was very dense. There’s no other word to describe it. It was like a thick slice of tort. It also came with a strawberry, another weird berry and a swirl of delicious, rich custard. Awesome!

The meal was served with an entire loaf of sliced bread with masses of Spanish-style Tapanades and a jug of water. It was also served with a shot of Brennivín, also known as svarti dauði (“black death”). The name literally translates in English as ‘burning wine’. And boy, did it burn! I wanted to cough after downing it, but couldn’t muster the energy to do so, such was the burning, so instead I noisily exhaled. Seriously, it nearly killed me. Never again!

Was the whole meal worth £30. Just. I obviously would have liked it to have been cheaper, but I went knowing it was that much and happily paid up at the end of the meal. The food was cooked to perfection and beautifully presented. Service was friendly, professional and very quick. The atmosphere in the restaurant was moody and unique. It was an experience I’m glad I had. And that’s what life is all about, right? So £30 is a drop in the ocean.

Next time you’re in Reykjavík, eat out at Tapas Barinn. It’s a great way to celebrate your arrival in one of the world’s coolest places.

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• iceland
• reykjavík
• food

Reykjavík is a great place to eat. Gone are the days when absolutely everything was ludicrously expensive. Now, you can sample Icelandic cuisine and world cuisine with an Icelandic twist without a second mortgage. Here’s where I chose to eat.

Saegreifinn - The Sea Baron

A great little place that’s full of character. To be found on the dock of the Old Harbour, Saegreifinn sells reasonably priced, fresh seafood. They’re best known for their Lobster Soup served with bread (around Kr1000 / £5.00) and their fish skewers (around Kr 1800 / £9.00) which you can select from the open fridges. Once you’ve ordered, take a seat on a barrel at one of the long communal tables, eavesdrop on the conversation and gaze around at the clutter of nautical decorations. Within a few minutes, your food will be brought to you. Saegreifinn is not only popular with tourists, but popular with locals who come in and buy large packs of dried fish fillets. This isn’t the best cuisine in town, but it’s fresh, tasty, reasonably priced and served in a very unique atmosphere. Its well worth a visit.

Eldsmidjan

This is a great little place for travellers on a budget or those that know a good pizza when they eat it. Eldsmidjan is just outside the city centre in a residential area. It’s a five minute walk away from Hotel Leifur Ericsson. The first thing you notice as you walk in is the heat and wonderful smell from the wood burning oven. The kitchen in front of you is a hive of activity. On the floor is a pile of logs waiting to be tossed into the fire. If you’re taking away, order at the counter at street level. Or, if you want to eat in, go straight upstairs and ask for a table. They make pizzas in three different sizes. A large 16” pizza will set you back around Kr1500-Kr2000 / £7.50-£10.00 , an amazing deal in this expensive city. As a part-Italian, I know an authentic, fresh pizza when I taste it. These were spot on! Don’t forget, as with a lot of Icelandic restaurants, once you’re done, go to the counter (downstairs) to settle the bill. It’s hard to have a bad culinary experience in Reykjavik and Eldsmidjan holds this statement true, but what it also proves is that not everything in Reykjavik is expensive.

Tapas Barinn

If you’re going to splurge on a meal while in Reykjavik (and why not, you only live once) make sure its at Tapas Barinn. Tucked away in the city centre, behind a small wooden door, you’ll find this dark, atmospherically lit, lively restaurant. Indecisive types might have trouble choosing from the menu here; there are over 60 different tapas dishes to try. Prices vary depending on the dish, but are typically around Kr1000 / £5.00. This isn’t particularly great value for what you get. It’s much better value to order one of the set menus although even here, you should expect to pay around Kr5800 / £30.00. Although expensive, I found this to be only slightly over what I’d typically want to pay for such a meal. Prices aside, the food is lovingly crafted, fresh, exciting and delicious. I ordered the Icelandic Feast; six tapas and a desert. This set menu included Whale meat, but I asked whether I could substitute it for something else and my attentive and friendly waitress said, “Of course,” so there’s no need to worry if you’re tempted by a set menu but one or two of the tapas don’t appeal. My favourite tapas was the Puffin with Blueberry sauce and the Saltfish with Sweet Potato Mash, which was the dish I choose in place of the Whale. The chocolate cake desert was a dense and delicious chunk of loveliness. In all, I had a great evening. The food was amazing, the service fast and friendly and the atmosphere fun. Go on, give it a go.

Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur

You can’t go to Reykjavík and not grab a hot dog from “Europe’s best hot dog stand”. I mean it! Even Bill Clinton sampled one of this delicious snacks when he was last in town. Their sausages are made from a combination of lamb, beef and pork and only the good bits of meat are used. A hot dog costs 280 ISK (about £1.50) and condiments include ketchup, sweet mustard, fried onion, raw onion and remolaði, a mayonnaise-based sauce with sweet relish. I ate four “with everything” in two days. They were that good! For the price, they can’t be beat. And that’s not even mentioning the taste. Perfect for a lunchtime snack, or order five at once for a delicious evening meal.

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I’m back from Iceland. Boooooo! It’s never fun coming back to normality after you’ve had an amazing time in a foreign land. Iceland is a truly unique place that I’m glad to have visited and that I hope to go back to sometime.

Its uniqueness is shown in the photo above which you dear reader get to see before it gets released for public view on my Flickr stream. What you’re seeing is a natural occurrence. Hard to believe, right?

I’ve uploaded all 250 photos to Flickr already, but as usual, I’ll be releasing them in batches of 10 or so over the courses of the next couple of weeks. Tagging and describing them all takes time. Coming up here on the blog, there’ll be my hotel review and reviews of all the restaurants and attractions I visited, so follow and subscribe to find out what I got up to.

In the meantime, I’d like to revisit the uneducated assumptions of Iceland that I made before I went to see how right or wrong I was. The first assumption I made was that Iceland is expensive. Well, it is and it isn’t. One of my meals cost £30.00 all in, about £15.00 more than I like to spend. The food was amazing though, so I decided it was just about worth it. So, in that respect, Iceland was expensive. But then, I had no trouble finding things that were about the same price as they are in the UK or even cheaper. Supermarket prices were almost identical to prices in Britain. Clothes seemed to be about the same too. At the other end of the scale, hot dogs are an absolute bargain. In the four days I spent in Iceland, I had four of the best hot dogs I’ve ever had. They were £1.00 each! One night, I had an amazingly authentic and delicious 16” pizza for £7.50. There are bargains to be had in Iceland, but you have to do the research before you go. So, is Iceland expensive? Sort of.

My next assumption was that all Icelandic people are nuts. Wrong. Some of them are. Bjork for example is nuts. The street sweeper who declared his love of Liverpool FC and then sang “You’ll Never Walk Alone” at me in the street was nuts. But on the whole, Icelandic people are quiet, polite and reserved. I actually found them to be quite ‘British’ in their general mannerisms. I felt comfortable in their presence.

They eat Whale in Iceland. This is an assumption I made that proved to be spot on. I had the option to try some, but I substituted it for Saltfish (a wise choice for it was delicious). The closest I got to Whale meat was seeing it on a skewer in a fish restaurant. It was a very dark red-brown colour. It looked worryingly appetising.

Upon arrival at the airport, I immediately realised my assumption about the Icelandic language as also spot on. There is barely any correlation between the English language and Icelandic. Their word for ‘Police’ is ‘Lögreglan’. See? No correlation. At least in Denmark, their ‘Police’ were called ‘Politi’. I had no problems though, as everyone spoke English. Everything was written in English too. In fact, such was the prominence of the English language that 90% of the magazines and books on sale were in English. The magazines in particular were almost entirely British magazines. I could only find gossip mags and Vogue in Icelandic.

Iceland is an island of amazing natural wonder, so said I. I was correct. The photo above is one example. I have a couple of hundred more for you to see. As I said, keep an eye on Flickr to see them. In short though, Iceland is an arrestingly beautiful place.

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• reykjavík

There there. There there.

That’s me consoling my bank account, for it has just been taken by surprise by a rather hefty withdrawal. Yes, I’m off again to somewhere new. This time, it’s Iceland, the land of… Well, I’m not too sure actually. I haven’t really had time to read about it. The period of time from having the idea of going, to booking it, to actually going is 11 days. This is certainly one of the most impulsive things I’ve ever done. Normally, I like to book several months in advance and plan to meticulous detail. This time though, there’s really not much time for that. All I can do is continue to batter my bank balance by booking excursions and transfers, pack my bag and go.

So really, what am I expecting? Bear in mind, I really haven’t done any research yet, so I’m basing my assumptions on tittle-tattle, here-say and national stereotypes.

It’s so expensive

Yep. It’s true. Iceland is an expensive place. It’s what happens when you’re stuck in the middle of the ocean, miles from anywhere, with no natural resources and having to import everything, even lettuce and cucumber. Due to the recent collapse of their economy, it’s not nearly as expensive as it used to be, so now’s a great time to go. That said, give or take the odd bargain hot-dog or entrance fee, most things are on the pricey side. I’m braced for that though. Money’s for spending and life’s for living as far as I’m concerned.

They’re all nuts

Living in a remote place like Iceland surely must affect the brain. Look at Bjork. Nuts! I’m expecting to sense an aura of kookiness from the general public.

Whales

Yep, Whales. Chopped up and served with chips and a side-salad. Iceland has to make do with what they have (unless they import it) and what they have a lot of are Whales, Puffin, Guillemot and Sheep. They eat all of these in a variety of ways. I’ll be steering clear of the Whale, but I’ll probably give the others a go.

Pardon?

The Icelandic language seems a world away from what I’m used to. Most words seem festooned with accents and syllables. Luckily, much like the rest of Europe, English is widely understood and spoken.

Amazing Natural Wonder

Iceland is the result of the Eurasian and North Atlantic plates pulling apart. It is home to a lot of tectonic activity and the result is not only Iceland itself, but a land of eerily beautiful scenery, geysers and hot thermal pools. In short, there’s lots to gawp at.

That’s all that springs to mind right now. Subscribe, follow and revisit over the course of the next week for live updates, photos, audio and video from the land of… well, stick around and we’ll find out together.

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