Riga: This Post is All About the Food

The whole Baltics trip started because I wanted to go to Riga.  The reason I wanted to go to Riga is that I read that it had more Art Nouveau buildings than any other city in the world.  (Yes, that's right, the WORLD!)  We spent an extra day in Riga to see these Art Nouveau buildings, and I will write separate posts about all our Art Nouveau trails, once I finish my Baltics trip round-up.  But since Art Nouveau is almost all we saw in Riga (and this will be covered in later blog posts), I will dedicate this post on Riga to food.  While the food was really remarkably good everywhere we went, food in Riga wins the prize.

Our first night in Riga, we went to a restaurant called Melni  Muki  (or Black Monk), which I found on the internet.  We were tired, and we ordered potato pancakes, which came with smoked salmon and sour cream; see above.  See picture at the top.  It was supposed to be an appetizer, but it completely filled us up.

The next night we ate at a beautiful restaurant called Kolonade, right next to the Freedom Statue and across from the Opera House.  We started with gin and tonic and a martini, then Tony had snails (which came in shells) and I had a fried herring appetizer.

I then had local trout with beet-leek salsa, quinoa, and saffron sauce, and Tony had Aberdeen Angus chopped steak with chicken egg, potato confit, caramelized carrots and spicy plum sauce.    

We were too full for dessert!

Our other big meal was at the Fish Restaurant at the Dome Hotel.  This was our blow-out, and it was a really marvelous meal.

We started with a martini and a glass of Prosecco and an amuse bouche--and for the life of me I can't remember what it was..Then Tony had Black pudding Benedict with quail eggs, lingonberry jam and rye bread, and I had pickled herring with smoked potatoes, horseradish mousse, pickled shallots and dill.

For mains, Tony had risotto with porcini mushrooms, spinach, parmesan cheese and truffles, and I had catch of the day whole fish, which was flounder, with seasonal vegetables and lemon parsley butter with capers.  We also had a great bottle of Pouilly Fuisse.

For dessert we had special dark rye trifle with cream cheese and berry sauce (dark rye is a very traditional food in Latvia), and more prosecco.

We hadad other really good but less spectacular meals as well.  But these were probably the best of the trip--from potato pancakes to Baltic seafood. 

I will sign off with pictures of us enjoying restaurant-time in Riga.  (And Art Nouveau in Riga will soon follow!)

#Baltics
#Riga
#KolonadeRestaurant
#FishRestaurantDomeHotel