Isolation Gourmet. Vol. 4

Here's the last overview of our homemade isolation gourmet, because by now we can go out to eat again and homecooking has gone down a lot. From top left:

1.  Really good carrot cake with cream cheese frosting

2. Brunch: hash browns, fresh spinach, fried bacon and poached egg

3. Scott's famous chocolate chip and walnut cookie

4. Homemade Dairy Queen: ice cream with Daim pieces

5. My first ever pie success: crispy rhubarb pie with marzipan

6. Brunch with homemade croissants

7. Beef Tenderloin with veggies

8. Rhubarb and sour cream open pie

9. Custard cake with berries and salted caramel

Haapsalu. White Nights.

Since I considered it a great idea that Scott, who was already disturbed by the fact that daylight arrives at 3:30am, would get the full experience of the midsummer and how the sunset will smoothly turn into sunrise, we chose a seaside hotel in Haapsalu and made our way there by Monday afternoon. Took our stuff through a blazing hot airless hallway to our room and still remembering those delicious cakes from Hapsal Dietrich, hurried there. Foresightedly we had booked a table.

We got the last duck cannelloni, ate some dumplings, potato-salmon salad and tartar. Just in case, already when placing the order we had asked to set a slice of the blueberry chocolate cake aside, otherwise we would have nervously been eyeing the cake display during the whole dinner, because the mentioned blueberry cake was disappearing like the first snow. We later also chose the cherry chocolate cake and walked back to the hotel the extra long way.

Our hotel and the balcony was facing the sea and sunrise. To see the sunset on Monday, we walked to the opposite beach on our peninsula. Shared the space with about million mosquito and fly and walked back to the room.

The breakfast buffet in hotel was the oldschool buffet, where every guest could cough on the food as their lungs permitted, so we decided to return to Hapsal Dietrich. Their brunch menu wasn't overly long, consisting of three items (plus smoothies) only, but we found what we liked and placed an order for avocado-salmon bruschettas (me) and potatoes with eggs and bacon (Scott). Scott, for whom the eggs only exist in cakes or as scrambled or omelet, asked his egg to be scrambled. Turned out that the breakfast chefs can only make fried eggs. Because they are so busy serving the three tables that they manages to break the eggs on the pan, but not to scramble them. So, Scott took the salmon bruschettas as well. And a slice of blueberry chocolate cake, so fresh that it had departed the whisk merely few minutes earlier.

We walked some more in town, went to the beach, had some lovely afternoon nap and got out to find a dinner place. It turned out not to be such an easy task on the midsummer and we ended up eating in a pub on the streetside. Chicken breast and beef tenderloin were good and the lemonades had cute flower decorations. Since the better part of the dessert menu was sold out, we walked to the Kuursaal to have something sweet. I ordered a profiterole and coffee, Scott took ice cream with strawberry jam. My profiterole and coffee were brought to the table right away and I had almost finished both, once Scott got his mostly melted icecream with a spoonful of jam. And my previous memory of the Kuursaal was from years ago, when we once stepped in 10 minutes before closing time, totally hungry and their kitchen was long closed and they still found a possibility to combine a huge plate of ham, cheese and tomatoes for us. They didn't even want to take any money for that. We managed to leave some though. Clearly the times have changed.

The midsummer night we had planned to stay up until sunrise to watch from our prime seats how the evening light will turn into morning light. Scott was especially convinced that he wants to see the sunrise. At 12am he yawned and let me know that he'll be back out at 1:30am to see what the situation is with the sunrise. That's what we did. At 1:30am and 2:30am and 3:30am. After that we slept until morning.

Since the chefs from Hapsal Dietrich were still resting from the hard egg frying yesterday morning and opened their joint at 12pm, we walked to Müüriääre Cafe to have breakfast. It seemed that their chefs have somewhat quicker wrist moving abilities, so Scott could get an omelet and me oatmeal.

How we went to Opera. And why we are not going there anymore.

In March, right before corona kicked in and closed all the doors, we managed to visit newly opened Opera restaurant on aa movie night. That’s the new pavilion in the central park. We had some tartar and hummus, a mushroom pie and creme brûlée. Was delicious.

We returned there on my birthday. Menu was new, from scratch. We had shrimp tempura, asian type salad, salmon poke bowl, schnitzel and limoncello cake. Everything was so delicious again that Scott was ready to have another meal there next day.

They did have a sign by the door that 2+2 should be followed and wait to be seated. Turned out that both rules are for pussies. But the chick in sweatpants, cap and shiny pink Versace purse with her date were for sure not pussies and chose in otherwise completely empty room the table right next to us.

And then, we went there again in June. Six of us this time. And new menu again. From scratch again. We did have someone with us, who could only eat veggies and she asked for some. The waitress went to the kitchen to ask, returned and informed us that all the veggies were foreseen for some other meal already. Oh, well. We found tomato salad with cheese from local farmer and pesto. So we asked to skip the cheese and pesto and just serve her tomatoes. What arrived on our table, was a plate with three slices of tomato and three little cherry tomatoes. And some olive oil. When it was time to pay the bill, it turned out that we were served the most expensive tomatoes in country - the price for three slices and three cherry tomatoes was 9EUR. We asked them to at least pack us the cheese and pesto for take away. We got a walnut size of soft cheese and tablespoon of pesto. Since also the rest of the food was average, we will be eating somewhere else.