Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Monks Porter House and a Dutch Porter

Today I visited Monks Café Porter House at Munkbron 11 in Stockholm. Thank you Linus and Emma for showing up, I had a great time!

The porterhouse is the third out of three different Monks Café in Stockholm, and being opened in august this year also the one of the more recent addition to the Stockholm pub scene. Eventually it will host not only a beer café restaurant but also a porter/stout brewery.

The entrance is a little odd and I get the feeling of having mistakenly ended up in the stockroom but after finding the staircase down to the basement from the 17'th century I feel a lot better. The brick walls with low vaults are combined with modern lightening and cool led screen menus promoting the current offers. That is actually an unnecessary convenience detail considering the quite impressive range of beers they have on both draught (56 to be exact) and bottles (according to the website the three restaurant together offer 1700 different beers).

The bar is nice but I will have to return at something of a more crowded night than a Monday to properly judge it. Anyhow my first impression is better than the other two Monks Café's (Wallingatan and Sveavägen). I will follow up later with a review and I will also follow with interest how the place settles.

Today, I had a De Molen Hammer & Sikkel from a 330 ml bottle after a great special offer for followers of the Monksevent twitter. 60 SEK for a bottle is a bargain since it usually goes for the double. The Hammer & Sikkel is a classic porter with 5.9 % abv and fairly dry.

The beer has a great head, which lasts for a while but after some five minutes fall down to eventually more or less disappear. The colour is intensely dark brown and opaque and the head has a white-coffee-tone.

On the nose it's a intensive smell of coffee and chocolate with a little bit of Chinese soy. It is highly malty and gives away a strong mineral scent.

The taste is a little off dry and has a little acidic twist. The aromas are mainly coffee, nuts, burnt malt, chocolate and earthy aromas with a little tone of ash in the long end. The nutty character makes the mouth feeling a little fatty.

It is a highly complex beer but I find the acidic twist a little too strong and I grade the the beer 6/10.

Best of regards
Lucas Spinnars

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Revisit at Jacobs Krog

About half a year ago I visited Jacobs Krog at Artellerigatan in Stockholm and today it was time for a revisit. The place is genuine and nice with a sparsely decorated interior and quite a few locals coming down for dinner to, just to get away from cooking. One older man even came to pick his dinner up for take-away. The specialities of the house are the Danish starters "smørrebroe" and they are really nice, and worth the visit for.

Today I felt extraordinarily carnivorous so I went for the Steak á la minute, with the green-pepper sauce. The green-pepper sauce was according to the chef the first thing he learnt to cook when he started as a professional chef 30 years ago. It was indeed very good and perfectly balanced so I can imagine he has perfected it for some 30 years now. The meat was just about right cooked and tender just as it should be and along with the sauce the plate just turned up to be empty way too quick!

Along with the meat came a little tomato salad, which was nice but slightly standardised, and strips. I have to say something about the strips though. The whole concept with fried potato is something that could, in my eyes, very well be awarded with the nobel prize in chemistry (or peace, ...or something else for that matter), but why do they at such a nice place with such a nice kitchen serve boring thin strips. Come on better up and at least serve me some real French fries, something that I would not get as good at McDonalds.

The prices had also gone up a little since last visit. Today a steak á la minute was priced at 265 SEK giving it a less good price/quality ratio than last time.

Once again the meat was spotless, the place and the staff is really nice, but they haste with the details such as the strips. Last time I questioned their offerings of wine by the glass and even though there is always a good general impression some small things brings it down a little below where it could be.

//
Lucas Spinnars

Check here for my old review (in Swedish)