TRAVEL THE FREQUENT FLIER SILVERSEA
TRAVELIFE MAGAZINE
FOOD for the SOUL In the rugged hinterlands of Iceland, CHRISTINE CUNANAN finds crustacean nirvana
I
n a manner so befitting a #Travelife, you might say that we traveled all the way to one end of the earth to sample the best lobsters in the world in a simple wooden shack in a tiny town. Eager to explore the earth’s extreme countryside, we’d been driving for hours along a particularly desolate coastline of Iceland last July, made even more dramatic by endless craters and rugged bumps all over the horizon, created over time by the
would have to suffice as nourishment until a proper dinner back in Reykjavik.
SERENDIPITY AT WORK As luck would have it, however, instead we found ourselves driving through the Arctic version of a town. It was really just a quiet street with neat wooden houses in bright colors interspersed with storage outhouses and modest pocket gardens ringed with old-fashioned picket fences.
better than anything I could have wished for, but there was nothing to indicate a particularly significant dining experience.
UNFORGETTABLE LUNCH However that lunch will forever remain in my memory as the time I tasted the best lobsters I have ever had in my #Travelife. Fresh off the fishing boat, these were cooked with a slap and a dash in butter,
“That lunch will forever remain in my memory, as the time I tasted the best lobsters I have ever had in my #Travelife.”
The result was a 360-degree landscape so surreal, with barren landscape that felt like the surface of the moon on one side and sharp gusty winds that created ripples on an otherwise calm sea the color of squid ink on the other, that I gazed out the window the entire drive, marveling at where I was and how I got there. But hunger pangs eventually set in, and by then I was far from expecting a delicious meal in the middle of nowhere. With luck, I thought we might stumble upon a store selling the local equivalent of power bars and serving a decent cup of tea, and these
In any other universe, this would be just a regular street in a slight time warp, in the 1960s; but in that part of Iceland, this was actually a significant outpost of civilization, and this restaurant we found looked like the hub of all social activity for miles.
NOTHING EXTRAORDINARY It was simple, clean and functional, with an extensive bar (which I understand is requisite for surviving Arctic winters), several long tables lined with wooden benches and a bright red wall adorned with token shells and a fisherman’s net. A menu handwritten in Icelandic on a chalkboard indicated only one dish, grilled lobster, and a couple of sides. At first glance, it was
garlic and chopped herbs, and then dished into a tin pail, accompanied by potatoes, a basket of bread and little plates of marinated cucumbers and tomatoes picked just that morning from the owner’s greenhouse. The lobsters were small and sweet, and ever so tasty that all conversation at our table stopped while we pried the flesh off the shells. We needed no words between us, as we understood very clearly that this was a meal unlike any other in the world, to be savoured solo and slowly, so as to remember every morsel and every moment for a very long time. n
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PHOTOS BY CHRISTINE CUNANAN.
inflows of lava from one volcanic eruption after another.