Eating out in Stockholm: a series of heartbreaks?

May 12, 2012

in Eating out in Stockholm,Life as an expat,Living in Sweden,Stockholm restaurants,Stockholm's food,Sweden,Swedish food

miss voon

My tuna salad at Miss Voon.

On Tuesday, I finally got to the Stockholm restaurant that I’d been dying to go to since it opened a few months back. I’d been looking forward to Miss Voon as I’d read good reviews and the cuisine is described as Asian fusion – one of my favorites. I’d even recommended the place to a lot of friends. But as I am so often disappointed by eating out in this town, I was nervous about going.

While I wanted to be wowed, I wasn’t. It was just average. OK. I was there at lunch and I had the tuna salad, so maybe it wasn’t the most representative choice of the restaurant’s talent, but still. The Asian noodles and tuna were buried underneath the lettuce and coriander in a rather ordinary looking presentation. And as there was just a hint of dressing on the salad, there wasn’t much taste to it at all. I was there with my friend Debora who swore that this salad was usually good, so we asked for some dressing to be added on the side. Instead, our salads came back drowning in dressing with even more dressing on the side. Yikes. It was definitely not subtle, nor was it that inspiring. I felt so let down.

Miss Voon is part of the F12 group and I generally find their restaurants to be some of my favorites in Stockholm. So I am willing to give the place a try again. I’ll let you know what happens.

On a roundabout related note, I was reading a very funny expat blog that I recently discovered. It’s written by a woman from the Netherlands who lives in Moldova. On a recent post, she had a link to an older post that featured great quotes about countries. The first one is about Sweden. And it just couldn’t have been more appropriate:

“Eating in Sweden is really just a series of heartbreaks.”  Bill Bryson

So thank you Bill Bryson for the laugh.

{ 9 comments }

1 Miss Footloose | Life in the Expat Lane May 12, 2012 at 13:41

Well, here I am, the woman from the Netherlands 😉 who loves to write stories about her expat adventures (latest about a riot on a Turkish bus). Thanks for the link to that post with quotes about the quirks of different countries; it was a fun one to do.

I’m sure there must be good food available in Stockholm, somewhere! Hope you find it. Paying for it will be another issue, I’m sure.

2 Sandra May 12, 2012 at 14:20

Hi Miss Footloose, Thanks for writing! As for restaurants in Stockholm, you can find the good. But it’s harder to find the great. And you always, always spend a lot of money – you are right about that! Thus eating out here is a double disappointment: you pay a lot for an OK meal.

3 Lucey Bowen May 12, 2012 at 14:31

Sandra, hope your are following my blog on the introduction of Asia to America, travel and foodwise!

4 Sapphire May 12, 2012 at 18:50

The F12 group in general isn’t the most impressive. Sometimes the dishes are excellent but overall, I don’t want to spend my own money there.

I think the Stockholm dining experience is getting better so wouldn’t call it heartbreaking since some cuisines fare far worse, eh hem, Malta. But Swedish dining means an anorexic wallet. No matter how much you make the wallet eat, it just really wants to stay skinny.

5 Sandra May 12, 2012 at 19:11

Hi Sapphire, Thanks for your comment. What are some of your favorite restaurants? And I completely agree that this is one expensive town to eat out in!

6 Lisa May 15, 2012 at 11:48

My husband and I moved from Austin, Texas which has an amazing number of GREAT restaurants from hole-in-the-walls to trailer food to fancy. Now we live in a tiny town in Maryland along the Chesapeake Bay, and what people call good food is just downright bad — we’ve even had some horrible breakfast experiences! We really have to drive to Delaware or Baltimore or Philadelphia for a decent restaurant experience! So I commiserate with your plight Sandra!

7 Sandra May 15, 2012 at 12:00

Oh, that’s hard Lisa. One of my biggest problems is that eating out is so expensive – that lunch salad I mentioned was $25 US. It’s hard to find good value and good food.

8 Annelie May 20, 2012 at 06:27

We had dinner there and it was yum. Maybe you should try dinner instead of lunch.

9 Sandra May 23, 2012 at 08:50

I am definitely going to try it again Annelie.

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