Pint and burger: Pints and burgers
It seems to be the case that Finnish burgers are good and very light, almost Lager beer is also good now. Back to roots, right? No, actually my taste have changed little bit, or I’ve lost interest to these treats, so it’s time to sum where we are at right now in pint and burger-wise.
Whether you were around to experience it yourself or not, it’s worth remembering beer was once just lager beer in Finland. We older geezers have all drank that exclusively (or at least 99% of us, maybe somebody lived outside Finland etc and I know that you all drank also Koff Porter now and then. It doesn’t count). So, my ”new” taste for lighter and more pale beers is a recipe that’s as tested as strawberries and cream.
It’s hard to know where to begin with this story, but lets start somewhere: Many Finns have a summer cottage, I don’t. Instead of going to cottage, me and my wife are going at least once in a year to London, near Covent Garden every time. We have a private joke that we are calling this area as our cottage. I’m living in house so more gardening etc is not my idea of the relaxed time, a lake or sea would be nice though. Late London visit made my thoughts about pints and burgers finally its current form.
Warm winter, hot summer, so my all time favorites (whitin last decades), heavy Ales are voted out, instead of that Pale Ales or even tasty, well hopped Lagers. Burgers… well, either my taste is changed toward local offering or local offering is so good that my previous favorites ain’t good anymore.
The best pub in the world, Helsinki Airport’s The Oak Barrell was little disappointing this time. Don’t get me wrong, this is very expensive and mediocre pub with half decent beer offerings, but somehow I like to sit there very much. You guessed right, it’s the nice upcoming trip that makes the feeling so good. This time time flied by and I had time for one pint only (2 is my regular portion here), also nothing special on tap.
I opted for Fuller’s IPA from bottle there, not very nice have a bottled beer at pub, I think, but on tap there was nothing special as I said. I had a little bad feeling in my stomach and I avoided heavy ALEs for that reason also.
Second beer at airport was Maku Amber Ale that is a very disappointing beer. I almost didn’t drink it, but as a Finn of course I drank it, no matter how bad it was. I also hate that Nordic Kitchen restaurant, but I haven’t found any even semi decent beers elsewhere at non schengen area
At London and Manchester I ”accidentally” took London Pride and Jaipur from tap and I must confess that I like so much more the bottled version. Yes I know, I shouldn’t, but what you can do, remember my lager roots.
Weather was quite hot here too and refreshing Pale Ale was the medicine, good ones including Meantime London Pale Ale and Guinness Hop House 13 Lager. I also enjoy ice cold Guinness stout, that’s one hell of invention serve that beer ice cold by the way.
Back in Lahti I realized that before so lame Teerenpeli Notkea Nipa IPA is almost my favorite. Ok, I could get a pint of that from tap easily, that makes the difference, but I also like this beer really much. It could take a time to get used to something, like great music albums could need several listenings before they would open. It’s refreshing but not too pale, perfect to enjoyed in portion of pint or two. I’m not still back at Finnish regular lagers like Karjala or Lapin Kulta. I can drink those of course, but I enjoy more Pale Ales and more diffucult (read: more hopped) Lagers. This could also be some snob attitude, you never know.
Burger scene is changing too for me, the Shake Shack is nowadays only mediocre burger joint. As soon as I took a first bite a huge ”it’s not the same that I remembered” -feeling came to me. Couple disappointments on the row and it is not even on my list of top burgers anymore. Same goes with Jamie’s Italian burger, it was even worse.— I like fresh and simple taste, veggies, juicy burger patty, not dry and salty spice burgers. I understand that this changing could be just that I’m used to local way to serve burgers, but this is how things are today.
I had to try Burger King again, what if it would be just fine? No, it wasn’t. So Shake Shack is still light years ahead those normal Mickey Dee’s and similar burgers.
Burger is still good, but I have lately enjoyed well made pastas very much. And I’m very picky. I ate Carbonara at airport to both ways at this UK tour and both dishes were quite awful.
One but very unlikely reason to this ”restaurant food ain’t so good” thing could be that I’ve finally learned how to cook properly. Burgers, not really great yet, but pasta, I have couple quite successful recipes and I have added couple own twists to those. If you would taste those portions, you could think differently, but me and my family like those quite much. Or they are good actors. Well, learning to cook really well have been one of my goals, so maybe I’ve learned something.
With cooking I have two styles
1. Nothing fancy, with modern equipments like Teflon pans (I tried carbon steel and cast iron… not for me) and microwave, just aiming to good final result.
2. Fire. Wood or coal and open fire.Very simple style. Usually I use a grill that my friend welded for me from stainless steel. This is very fashionable here right now,— but people are misguided to buy almost 1000€ grills and use those like oven. I don’t judge, but it’s not for me.
Summer break is over, winter is coming. I’m still trying to eat healthy in order to pass annual blood tests without medicines, but that’s not end of the world food or drinkwise. It could even open door to something new. Feeling good is my ultimate goal.
