Julbord at Tre Kronor, Tuesday 12/20, 8 pm

Thanks to popular demand (well, Cathy cornering me at Klas) I have gone ahead and set up a Christmas smorgasbord event at GNR nominee Tre Kronor Restaurang with a G, for next Tuesday, December 20th at 8 pm. The card above shows what we're having, I'm sure it will be a classy, folksy, way cool event. How will the food be? Well, out of 33+ things I'm sure some will be very good, and contain no lutefisk at all.

Here's the deal: space is very limited and they need reservations well ahead of time so I have reserved from 4 to 8 spaces. One for me, and I will hold one each for Cathy2 and for Josephine because they previously expressed interest. (Please post to say if you can make it or not.) That leaves 5 more, first come first served.

I will make a final reservation on Friday. So you must sign up in this thread by noon on Friday, 12/16. Incidentally, this is pretty much an ironclad commitment, come rain sleet or snow. So if you think you might not show, don't commit and take a spot away from someone else. We will hunt you down like Viking raiders if you do.

It will be fun! And Yuley!

Tre Kronor
3258 W Foster
Chicago, IL 60625
773-267-9888

Of that long list, I can recommend the creme brulee, which they serve in a deeper than normal vessel...well actually it's a cup one might use for soup. It's quite a good, if unorthadox, version. I'm sure some of the other stuff will be good as well. I wish I could join you. Happy clogging! (I'm particularly interested to hear what Jansson's Temptation is.)

Herring six ways?! Oh yeah, I'm in.

Hammond

PS. Still waiting to hear from my cuz, who may join.

Bad news, Jojo. When I talked to them last night adding another seemed okay but when I called today to confirm, too late, they're already over capacity and won't add another. So sorry, maybe Jewish Chinese Christmas at Lao Sze Chuan is for you...

For the rest of us, though, BYOB is fine.

There are several items on the menu that are particuarly intriguing. I don't know much about food from Sweden, but I'm guessing "fiskpudding" is a type of fish pudding (?) and I couldn't find a translation of kalvsyita, but I did find a pic, and it looks a little like fancy sulc.



So, does anyone know what you drink with fiskpudding and kalvsyita? I'm thinking vodka...or maybe akkavit.

Hammond

Hammond--

My Swedish cookbook has kalvsylta as "jellied veal" -- and the preparation looks like veal in an aspic flavored with bay, allspice, cloves, onion and celery. Head cheese is called "pressylta". Myself, I was wondering what Prinzkorv was -- some type of sausage. And it is quite possible that the fiskpudding is lutefisk pudding. We will soon find out.
As far as vodka-- that bottle of Absolut you have somewhere is made in southern Sweden, in a town called Ahus. But akkavit or even Danish beer (its what the Swedes I know drink) would do nicely as well.

Mike, thanks for organizing this. I said many times last night, why is not Swedish food more popular. I really love this kinda food*.

Going in, I expected gluttony but I was not expecting too much quality. I was very pleasantly surprised. The herrings were all top notch. I snuck the potato salad with home-made mayo on my plate a second time. I liked all the forms of salmon.The meatballs especially good. In the vein of learning something new every day, I never knew the ligonberries were supposed to go ON the meatballs.

For those who have never juleboarded, it's a four step process: herrings, sided with potatoes (both boiled and salad) + rye bread and rye crisps; ice plate including the salmons (hot smoked, gravlax and mousse), boiled shrimps with cocktail sauce, raw oysters, pate, and cold cuts including veal jelly and reindeer loin; hot plate including meatballs, a few kindsa sausages and best, potato gratin with anchovies. The last course was desserts, rice pudding, creme brule (a/k/a burnt cream) and fruitcake. Dinner also included a small glass of hot glogg and a few Swedish carols.

I cannot believe I'm taking a client out to lunch today at Smith and Wollensky because right now, I cannot imagine eating for the next month.

Rob

*One day, when I write a post on 100 ways you know you are a chowhound, #23 will be, "you know you are a chowhound when your best memory of Disney World is the Norwegian buffet."

To add to VI's snapshot of the event, there was also cheese on the ice plate (range of gjetost, Danish blue, havarti, brie and one or two others).

The herring was superb; many varieties, with the most traditionally popular being mustard and "glassblower's," which is a herring in a pickling broth with small pieces of shredded vegetables. All herring was complemented by VI's blueberry infused vodka.

My goal was to sample a little of every single item, and I accomplished that without feeling zeppelin-like at the end of a meal. A plate of food looks really beautiful when there are about 25 small servings of different high-quality items piled on, and this food is very colorful (not a lot of green). Though the spice range is somewhat tight (not a lot sparks, and everything seemed seasoned with Nordic moderation), the quality of ingredients was high so the flavor was good throughout, and items were frequently presented in bite-sized triangles, rolls, rectangles, balls, and small slices, encouraging endless nibbling and facilitating eating in the dark, as was necessary when awaiting the entrance of the nice blonde girl dressed in white singing Santa Lucia with the crown of candles (before the meal, she was kind enough to walk non-Swedes through the routine of eating 40 or so separate foods). This flaming headdress ritual has always been kind of a mystery to me, and it was cool to see it reenacted.

First-time lutefisk eaters (myself, and I think Josephine and her charming daughter Elizabeth) were glad to have had the experience of trying this legendary preparation – though it seems unlikely that any of us will be rushing back soon for more. I did learn, though, that it’s correctly consumed on a pillow of potato, which buffers the gelatinized fish and renders it close to enjoyable eating.

Thanks to MikeG (and, of course C2, who apparently is the party mammal/motive force behind every LTH gathering).

Hammond

This was a really nice dinner and very interesting. The upstairs at Tre Kronor really is like dining in someone's 100-year-old two flat (especially with atmospheric Christmas lighting) and there was a nice cross between hominess and professional cooking here.

At the beginning we got the rundown from our hostess. The meal was divided into four courses and you were strongly encouraged to take each in its turn. First up was, yes, the herring course. I feared this would be a chore to get through and took a light first plate. Actually it was probably my favorite part of the meal, eight or nine different kinds of herring, several of which (especially the ones with a sweetish, I said sweetish not Swedish, cast) were really tasty.



Next was a cold buffet (in practical Scandinavian style, not only was this on ice but the window was open next to it!) with everything from the aforementioned reindeer cold cuts (tasted like beef to me, but hey, another species eaten) to smoked salmon.



Then the hot stuff, the meatballs and some of the sausages a particular standout, the brown beans not so great (would have benefited from a hint of the hog), the lutefisk... well, I tried it! (Alas, the picture of the face that Josephine's daughter made didn't really turn out. But you can imagine-- just imagine being a teenager and getting a mouthful of rotted-fish-flavored soap.) Finally, dessert, which was pleasant but simple stuff-- a strongly cardomom-scented fruitcake, a creme brulee, a rice pudding with lingonberries.



Pretty good food over all with some definite high points, a nice classy but homey Yule atmosphere, good company of LTHers (and Studs Terkel at the next table!)-- unlike Vital Info I'm not sure after Klas and this I need old-European heavy food again any time soon, but I sure enjoyed it and recommend it to anyone for the next couple of days or next year.