An birthday duck at Lemongrass

It took my birthday for finally going to Lemongrass, a quite well-known and popular restaurant in Malmö. For years, I heard colleagues telling me how lovely the food was there. And if at first, the "asian fusion" confused me, then I taught that the popularity was possibly well deserved.
And finally, with our little Isabella, we decided to celebrate my 33rd birthday (sounds like the last supper...).

Located quite central in Malmö, it is not in a very beautiful building, however, the restaurant itself is quite cozy and welcoming.
The staff was very nice and polite, from tipping us on the fact that we could close the window to avoid smoke to intoxicate all of us, to recommending us to not take the tasting menu, in order to avoid to starve. Luckily, we followed the waitress advice and decided to try a bit of dishes, a plate of sushi, 3 appetizers and two main courses.

The appetizers and the sushi

The rice paper wrap, or better the vietnamese summer rolls, were ok. Just ok. We are used to the ones of another restaurant and those are great! And the hoi chi min sauce is much tastier. And for the same money we can get four times more rolls.
Another disappointment was the green papaya salad.  Ok, we are not in Thailand, but it lacked some sting in the taste and unfortunately, had quite little to do with the fantastic salad we still remember we took the first day in Nai Harn.
If these were the lows, we were enthuasiast instead of the spicy beef sallad. Finally spicy, finally fresh, had a fantastic sauce and the meet was nice and tasty. Yummi!!! Pity it was over too soon, but then there were four very nice pieces of sushi awaiting our mouths. Ok, it is not the sushi from Sushi Zanmai in Tokyo but for being in Sweden it was approved.

The main dishes

But the horror crawled on our table as soon as the main dishes landed in front of our eyes. Well, in our mouths, once again.
I took roasted duck. But I don't know if I was older than the duck. Quack!
And if the spring rolls that were served together with it were indeed nice (but nothing compared to Mattias' own execution), I had some pak choi (theoretically light fried with garlic) that had seen garlic when the duck was alive! (that is a loooong time ago).
Mattias was luckier in his choice with a crispy beef. Probably chinese inspired, it had a very nice texture and it simply tasted good. However, considering my unfortunate experience with the duck and since the crispyness of the beef was given by a quite thick glazing, I had my doubts on the quality of the meat hidden down there...

As you can possibly read between the lines, the experience at this restaurant was far below our expectations.  This teaches me to not ever trust certain people about food ;-D
Indipendently from that, although the place is nice, the personal professional and some of the dishes quite nice, I concluded that it is way over budget for the quality of the food (and the quantity) and that it didn't match my expectations over the dishes. If I could give a suggestion to the owner, I would specialize in one asiatic kitchen, instead of covering almost a whole continent without catching the right tastes.

Attack No. 1, by Chikako Urano

Atakku Nanbāwan: 7 by Chikako Urano
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I manage to read the 7 volumes of this wonderful manga all at once.
I could not stop reading it, although I knew more and less what was going to happen and I was not surprised to find that the volleyball japanese team was quite strong :-)
But if one loves volleyball, this is just lighting up the passion even more; if instead one is not that interested, this could generate some curiosity.
Kozue is not a very classical character, although quite unlucky in love, she is very determined and focused and has the tendency to heat up quite easily.
She has a strong devotion for volleyball and she grows as the story goes, turning enemies in friends and learning more about herself.
What I love most of the manga is that it gives me the positive feeling to devote myself to my work or what I am supposed to do, with the same attitude as the characters of the manga. Maybe there is too much harshness in the story, considering how things are today, but I don't mind the respect for the authority and the capabilities that everyone has to accept fate and give always the best.
The only minor sides are that sometimes certain passages are drawn too quickly, although they are crucial too the story and to the character development.
I hope I will soon have the time to watch the animated version, I can resist without thinking that it has been too many years (maybe 20?) since I have seen an episode!

View all my reviews

Bikini Time

Unfortunately, we had to pack all in hurry. We worked on the house until the night before and the morning of our departure we were very stressed and having a clear lack of time. Just to help out, all our things are not in any "usual place" and having everything spread everywhere made us even more confused. Especially me, matrix-based. So, so far I have discovered that I left home a couple of items: the memory card for the camera (or at least, I hope it is home...), the charger for my incredibly old phone (no comment on this) and finally, two of my bikini. I don't have many of those, since our "seaside time" is very little every year, but having available just one is too much also for me. So, I went and bought one with the sales (but was it really on sale? I never understood that) at Tezenis.

I wonder, should I buy a new charger and a new memory card for my forgetful packing operation?