The personal blog of Trine Lai – foodie, epicure and excellent eats enthusiast blogging about great places to dine
I’m not writing articles for the Copenhagen Post’s Food Blog any longer. I realised that it took up too much of my time and that I couldn’t keep up with very good food the way I would like to. I’ve therefore decided to stop sending articles for the English newspaper.
So, my new year’s resolution must be to deliver more reviews faster! 
Autumn time is truffle time. The moisty, earthy smell of this strange fungus is autumn in its purest sense and as the best truffles are in season at this time of the year, this is when to opt for the truffle dish.
To me, the smell of truffles is also a trip down memory lane. My childhood was scented with truffle – quite literally, as my Italian dad back in the eighties had the noble idea of bringing the Italian truffle to the Danes, and making a living from it.
So, he sat up a truffle import, right there, in our dining room. I remember lying on the couch, doing my homework while listening to my dad selling truffles on the phone. Sometimes in Danish, sometimes in Italian and at such high speed that it became a murmur in the background, a sound turning into a melody with a rhythm. The same phrases over and over again. Then laughter and some typing on the type writer. Then silence.
Every once a month during the season, he picked up the truffles at Copenhagen airport’s cargo section and brought them to our home late in the evening. During the night each truffle was carefully inspected, smelled at, touched and squeezed, scrutinized and brushed for the tiniest sign of moist or mould, which would damage the little precious thing. Then they were weighed to perfectly match the purchase orders and meticulously packed with ice coolers to be delivered the next day.
White Alba truffles. Photo from Trøffelhuset
To give you an idea of how immensely powerful the smell of the white truffle is: We used to infuse raw eggs with truffle taste just by placing them in a jar next to a truffle. It’s that strong. It goes through everything. And it was everywhere during the week of brushing, weighing and packing. My dad kept some of the truffles in the fridge with our food which was infected by the truffle aroma. Even the milk, which was why I didn’t fancy cereals for breakfast those days…
The smelly business was a success, though. After a few years my family opened a shop so not only restaurants but also private customers could explore these golden lumps of the earth. We sold fresh truffles when they were in season and frozen ones throughout the year. Each day we offered a hot dish for take away. The classic one was Linguine al Tartufo: Linguine made with a very simple sauce of cream, butter with truffles, one garlic clove very lightly fried, sprinkled with grated parmesan cheese and finally topped with (lots of) truffle in paper thin slices. Try it. It’s so smooth and tasty, it’ll make you weep.
I still remember my very first white truffle experience for lunch at the shop where I worked twice a week. My mum cooked risotto and shaved the beige fungus over my plate. The scent and taste of the white truffle is (to me) a more distinct and sharp aroma compared to the black truffle and the light summer truffle and it has a light garlic note to it besides the earthiness – an aroma very hard to describe in fact. Sometimes the scent is stronger than perfume. Only four grams of white truffle is enough to overpower the rice dish.
The shop is gone now, but the truffle business goes on. The truffles arrive every week and in larger quantities than back in the eighties. They are still nursed, brushed and weighed by my dad and are then sold on to top-notch Copenhagen restaurants – maybe one of them will end up on your plate tonight.
Buon appetito!
Copenhagen Post on 21 November 2009
For great food and service for a reasonable price, you may have to go low. Here are three basement eateries that will give you a very nice evening, without breaking the bank.
Cofoco (Abel Cathrines Gade 7 CPH V, +4533136060) serves traditional Danish or French recipes like salmon tartar, Jerusalem artichokes soup, sweetbreads or crème brulée – but with a twist. The food is always very well prepared and created with a sense of care.
The bread is great and with a good taste of sweet malt. The wine list is short but very reasonably priced from DKK 150 to 450 a bottle, and most of the wines are served by the glass as well. I like the style of the place, the mix of elegance and roughness; beige window curtains down to the floor, raw bricks, brown leather armchairs, and crystal chandeliers over the huge refectory table, where it’s easy to get into a conversation with the people next to you.
Il Senso (Gothersgade 87 CPH K, +45 33128719) is a cosy, Italian wine bar that offers a few but nice dishes such as antipasto misto with an excellent and thin cut Parma ham, sausages, and cheeses with truffles or seasoned in raisins. The homemade basil pesto is to die for. They also cook a new pasta dish each day, but watch out for the Monday pasta alla carbonara – it’s creamy and very fulfilling! The bread is soft and with a good crust, and most importantly: The waiters are more than happy to re-fill the basket as much as you like. The owners import the wines themselves, bottle prices range from DKK 180,- and up.
The Ricemarket (Kultorvet 38, CPH K, +4535357530) is an Asian bistro run by the owners of the one Michelin-star Kiin Kiin. The Ricemarket offers very high quality Thai inspired food and a complimenting and great selection of wines at cheap prices. Really: Fritz Haag and Zind Humbrecht wines at DKK 250 a bottle is truly a bargain!
Normally Asian food is too same-same-but-different to me, but there’s something truly sophisticated about the flavours of Ricemarket’s dishes and the composition of the aromas that make me return time and time again. The grilled tuna, the salad with grilled ox meat, fried rice with chicken and mushrooms are all lovely.
So, sometimes stepping down makes the quality step up.
Copenhagen Post 10th October 2008.
The Copenhagen Post has introduced a new food blog culumn in their In and Out Guide and they’ve invited Zarah Maria, Jennie and me to write it based on the content of our blogs respectfully. I’ve decided that I’ll post my own writings here when they have been published.
The first one was came out on 19th September:
The sun has just set and it’s barely 8pm. The calendar on my fridge says September, and although we’ve been blessed with a few warm and sunny days lately, I must face it. Summer’s over; it’s autumn now.
I love the Danish autumn though: the colourful trees with their bright yellow and powerful red coats, the blue water peeping out between the naked branches at the far end of my garden, the brown leaves on the lawn of my cottage, the scents so earthy of moist decay, the red squirrel collecting acorns for its winter storeroom at the feet of the old oak in the middle of the garden, and the mild damp smell of nuts and mushrooms. Cold mornings, regretting not wearing my gloves cycling to work and being greeted by the most stunning sunrises that colour a sky decorated with clouds.That is really something.
And it’s also a great time of year for preparing simple but delicious meals that offer a tender steak, new potatoes with thin peel – which are surprisingly still available – and seasonal vegetables from Lammefjorden, the most delicious in Denmark in my opinion.
My laziness makes me focus on simplicity. Complex recipes listing two dozen different ingredients, hours of simmering stocks made of fish shells or leftover bone and fat is not really my thing. So, I often end up with a lump of red meat in my basket from a good butcher in my local area of town, Frederiksberg, or from one of the delicatessen shops around the city centre. The autumn offers so many kinds of tasty roots – like parsnips, celeriacs, red beets and carrots – that are best marinated in olive oil, garlic, fresh rosemary and thyme and a lot of salt and black pepper and afterwards cooked in the oven. Some of the acidity and sharpness that they sometime comprise turn into sweet and gentle flavours that match a grilled steak perfectly. And with a nice glass of the deli- cate and fruity Italian Valtellina wine (made from 100 percent Nebbiolo grapes) accompanying the food and, of course, a rumbling fire in the wood stove when the darkness falls: that’s what I really like about autumn.
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