Saturday Evening Dinner Party

It is always so much fun to gather friends together to enjoy good food, few drinks and many interesting conversations. Although I am no master chef, it is lovely to invite people over for a dinner. 

This Saturday's dinner was twice as nice as I did not cook and therefore was completely stress-free :-).

My friend's husband made the most delicious meal for us. We had Italian theme with food (and Swedish + Finnish theme with music). As starters it was Crostini with salsa (coriander, tomatoes, onion, pine nuts, olive oil and spices), mozzarella cheese, Fennel and Italian salami. 

Main course was chicken fillets marinated with self-made tapenade and accompanied with oven roasted vegetables.

I had promised to fix the dessert so that was not self-made, but bought Pannacotta.

Certainly a fun and tasty get-together!

Gorgeous Chicks' Easter Party

Easter long weekend - what a great opportunity to arrange a dinner party with friends.

Dinner party had yellow colour theme in decorations as well as in food.

Daffodils and catkins

Easter hen

Candy Store Sweetheart got some nice colourful sweets in addition to decorations. And it was lot sweets eaten during the evening. Need to have a short break before visiting Sweetheart again...

Easter sweets

Candy Store Sweetheart

I did grocery shopping at Stockmann the very same morning. As I often need help and guidance with my simple cookings I prefer shopping at Stockmann or some smaller food stores where you can get good service. And yet again Stockmann managed to exceed my expectations: I needed mature avocados for the same evening and they were hand-picked to me by the staff. Ten points for the service - I have sent feedback to the store!

First course was avocado prawn salad, a simple yet tasty appertizer by a recipe I took from Me Naiset magazine.

Avocado prawn salad

Recipe

Ready-to-eat avocados and fresh, not frozen prawns from Stockmann with a slight hint of olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. 

Main course was my hit recipe Dragon Chicken, which was so delicious that it disappeared before I got a photo of it :-).

Dessert was finger-licking good lemon pudding that I got recipe also from Me Naiset. I was little bit nervous how this dessert will turn out as you needed to use gelatine, but it was actually pretty simple. So pleased that it was a success and definitely going to make this dessert again!

Lemon pudding

Recipe

Dessert, coffee + avec

After the dinner it was lots of laughs, deep and funny discussions, good music, dancing (Frontside Ollie), fun and freezing in a taxi queue!

And the next morning refreshing breakfast at my place: strawberry smoothie, Grannas apple juice, God Morgon orange juice, bacon and eggs. 

Morning After Brunch

Such a yummy Easter break!

After Work With The Girls

Gosh, how energizing it is to have an After Work with some lovely friends. Just to take it easy for few hours, sit down, sip a drink or two, catch up and share your stories. You feel so refreshed after good conversations and lots of laughs.

The place we met was totally new for me Latva Bar, sister restaurant to Juuri and located on Korkeavuorekatu near Design Museum. Talking of which, I really should find time to visit also Design Museum as it was a while ago. They have interesting exhibitions all the time, especially this year Helsinki being World Design Capital 2012.

Latva was a perfect choise and had great ambience for an After Work in the middle of the week. Neat interiors and cool decor. I especially liked the Marimekko's Socks Rolled Down classes and tealight candles inside a grater as well as wooden interiors.

 
Latva's menu was fascinating with good selection of wines, cocktails and beer plus some Finnish tapas ie. Sapas from Juuri's kitchen. It was Tuesday today so maybe too early in the week to try too many of the treats on the menu, but there were lots of temptations. 

Verkstrand's Manhattan

Latva seems to be quite popular and all the tables were full (well, the restaurant is not that big). That is always a positive sign. Nice music in the background and not too much noice. Need to come here again!

And absolutely need to have After Works more often, also in the middle of the week.

Entrance to Latva

Restaurant Hopping Week

Eating is a pleasure! As I am not that great a cook I tend to eat out every now and then. Although I usually visit the same favourite restaurants, this week I managed to test quite a few new places where I had not eaten before.

I have been interested to go to Namu Food & Lounge at Makkaratalo for quite some time now and visited the restaurant on Thursday evening with a colleague. My first though was that the place is rather suitable for an After Work gathering with larger number of colleagues. The kitchen is open until 23 on Fridays and you are able to stay at the lounge afterwards so that sound like a great After Work combo.

Namu menu

All starters sounded delicious and we both ended up choosing Thai Scallops and sharing Edamame beans. However, scallops were pretty tastless. There was only sweet sauce on top, but otherwise the portion was really lame. And Sushibar has much nicer Edamame.

Thai Scallops, Edamame and Singha

So I did not have that high expectations for the main course. I ordered Tom Kha soup with chili and chicken. That was surprisingly tasty with good kick of chili and without a doubt the best part of the meal. Then again, I can get as good Thai soup also from my local Thai restaurant, but of course I should not compare. My colleague ate Tataki, which is grilled beef fillet and she was very pleased as well.

In front Tom Kha and Tataki in the back 

It was unnecessary to take a dessert as we both were full, but of course we could not resist Liquorice mousse, liquorice fudge and lemongrass marshmallow that was on the list. Well, that was not my favourite, but now I have tested it anyway.

Then came Friday and yet another After Work. This time in Ravintola Kuu in Töölö. Although I regularly walk pass the restaurant I had actually never eaten there. Very nice interior and comfortable athmosphere, not a party place, but perfect place to chill a little bit after a long working week.

I was not super hungry and since I love salmon, my choise was a small smoked salmon soup with toasted rye bread. In my opinion salmon soup would be better with cooked, not smoked salmon. Saying this, I was pleased and ate the whole portion.



Salmon soap

My frieds ate fried lavaret and beef brisket, which also were really tasty. But the best thing was the cozy place and relaxed athmosphere as well as the company of course.



Fried lavaret with and crayfish beurre blanc





Fried beef brisket



Saturday evening I finally got to visit new Mexican fusion kitchen Shanghai Cowboy after several months of planning to go there. Place was tiny and the tables were really closed by each others so it is better not to share any secrets here. Cool, swanky place with trendy interior, which I liked a lot.

When going to texmex or other laid back restaurants there usually is nachos on the list. Shanghai Cowboy's nachos are in totally different level. Not from supermarket, but they must be homemade or something and guacamole is mad delicious!
 

Nachos, guacamole and salsa

Main courses had really good value and taste for money. My chicken quesadilla was tasty as was vegetarian option chalupa. And both dishes were so beautiful.  

Vegetarian chalupa in the back and Chipotle chicken quesadilla in the front.

Summa summarium Shanghai Cowboy was the highlight of the week. Both the starter and main dish were gorgeous. Yet another positive thing was the reasonable price. Definitely going back again!