Another few weeks of work later, and my next adventure was coming around the corner. Our company likes to take us (if we’ve been good little worker bunnies) on a Christmas trip each year and this year our destination was “Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen” (that song must have been before my time, I certainly don’t remember it). I’ve been to Copenhagen before and initially that annoyed me a little bit; it would have been great to see a new city. But in the end I was glad as we didn’t do very much sightseeing and I might have been disappointed to spend a weekend in a new place and not really see it! We left on the Friday morning – I found everyone at the check in desk when I arrived at the airport and it was funny to see everyone in jeans and casuals after I’d seen them 40 hours a week for a year in suits and ties etc. Lots of idle chatter as we waited out the security queue (they’ve gotten a lot better recently but Dublin airport security can often be a very long-winded nightmare), and then the plane. I spent the time reading (“The Edge of Reason”, for about the zillionth time, but on a plane you need reading material you don’t really need to concentrate on). When we finally arrived in Lovely, Lovely Copenhagen it was Bloody, Bloody Raining (not surprising really). We were picked up at the airport and driven to our hotel to check in. The hotel had messed up our booking (despite the fact we had printed booking confirmations, and had rung up twice to confirm everything was ok). We sat in the bar and had something to eat and drink while they sorted us out, and eventually the (totally cute) receptionist told us it had been sorted and that everything we ate and drank was on them. Hurrah! Up to our rooms which were great. When I booked them (back in my Genesis PA days) I had requested rooms with a view of the Tivoli gardens (a kind of old-school theme park in the centre of Copenhagen). They gave me the standard line, “we’ll do what we can but we can’t guarantee anything”, which usually means “Haha. No.”. But to my utter surprise and amazement, they came through and we had totally stunning views of Copenhagen (including Tivoli) from our rooms. The hotel had a 60s motif which I totally loved – I felt like I was in an episode of Remington Steele with all the pastel backlighting and old school ice buckets and retro architecture. Not to mention the world’s most comfy beds! With warm and comfy duvets. Hurrah for Radisson SAS!
First night we went out for dinner to one of those cool, funky avant garde restaurants (we have some foodies in amongst our directors). We ended up going for the “Surprise Menu”, which is totally up my alley as I love surprises and trying new things. A food adventure in seven (yes seven) courses. We also ordered the accompanying “Surprise Wine Menu”, a different one for each course. The waiters were great and introduced each of the courses, and the sommelier was really funny and answered all of Roddy’s impertinent questions with good humour (atypical for the Danes, to be honest!). We ate lots of strange things like yummy crackly bread, crispy spaghetti and tomato sauce, spiced deer and avocado drops, but the best dish (unanimously) was the “cloud” thing – some kind of coconut flavoured dry ice concoction that came to the table steaming (well not really, but giving off that dry ice vapour) and sublimed when you put it in your mouth, so you had the totally weird sensation of it disappearing inside your mouth, and then you blew vapour out of your nose and mouth, dragon style. Totally cool. My colleagues are totally fun to be around, and we entertained ourselves and had a great time all night. After the restaurant (we were some of the last to leave, after all the food, the wine, the post-meal brandy, etc) back to the hotel bar for a cocktail (unbelievable but true – I drank a gin martini and really felt myself back in the 60s) and then up to our rooms to bed. It had been a long day and we still had Saturday and Sunday to go!
Saturday was another grey day, we got up somewhat early and after a yummy buffet breakfast did a very short bus tour of Copenhagen, and then got off to do what most people were wanting to do, shopping! We walked up and down the Strøget, which is the main shopping street in Copenhagen, and is also a pedestrian street. Everything felt much too expensive (and that’s pretty scary if you’re comparing to Dublin prices!) but eventually later I stumbled across a shop selling artistic prints. I had dearly wanted to buy some at the galleries in Spain, but I didn’t find anything suitable (the selection was parlous) but here was an entire shop full! After lots of browsing I finally selected one Miró and one Kandinsky which I really love. I had wanted to buy something of Egon Schiele’s, but they didn’t have any ones of his that I particularly liked, just the ones of half-naked women. For an artist with famed and renowned self-portraits, you’d think they would include one or two.
After that I went back to the hotel to lie down for an hour or so before dinner. The Saturday night was to be our big gala night and we were all to dress to the nines. I was wearing a fabulous emerald green dress I’d picked up for a song at Wild Child (a vintage clothing store in Temple Bar) and the incredibly high heels I’d worn to Rodrigo’s wedding. The dress was a little tight, but wearable, and I looked pretty good (I hope) although I wasn’t wearing anything designer. That night we were off to a totally hip restaurant in the Tivoli Gardens called “The Paul”, after the chef, Paul...something or other. There were no signposts or directions to the restaurant and we spent a while wandering about in the magical and lovely Tivoli Gardens but becoming increasingly frustrated and late. Eventually we found the restaurant and were shown in to our private dining room (by the totally hot waiter) where we chomped through (I kept the menu, so you are getting this straight from the horse’s mouth):
1. Starters of Gruyere profiterole, aged Parmesan and Ventrechè, roasted Marcona almonds, Date and chorizo mayonnaise branflakes (don’t remember that one!), olive vert Italiano grande and olive Nero baked with pimento del Piquillo.
2. Roasted lobster with pommes puree. Lobster reduction and pork crackling.
3. Roasted monkfish with veal sweetbread from Dønnerup Gods. Onion soubise and poached Butan onion. Clipped cress.
4. Bloc de foie gras (that was my faaaavourite – so delicious), Poached pork cheek with Autumn truffles from Alba. Green apple, sprout leaf and honey.
5. Jerusalem artichokes and roasted forest mushrooms. Watercress leaves. Aged Parmesan.
6. Duck roasted with its own sausage. Coco blanco, hazelnut and golden sultanas. Maple syrup and raspberry vinegar reduction. Parsley.
7. Aged Munster with fennel confit. Cumin knœkbrød.
8. Rice and cherry brûlée, Champagne granité. Cherry and roasted almond ice cream.
9. Teas and coffees with: nougat française, winter spices, pear and cranberry gel, blackberry sphere with dark chocolate, lavender flower truffle and honey crisp.
The (totally cute who Gary was trying to set me up with) waiter introduced most of the courses but Paul himself came out to tell us about some of them, including the foie gras and poached pork cheek. He seemed like a really fun guy but I bet he’s probably a nightmare to deal with in the kitchen! All of it was even more delicious than it sounds (I swear) but at the end of it all I felt as if I had eaten my own weight in delicacies. We ate, drank, exchanged Kris Kringle presents (here they call it Kris Kindle, weird) and had a good time. Afterwards back to the hotel bar for cocktails (are you picking up a pattern here?) but we were all kind of wrecked from so much eating (strange but true, apparently it takes a lot of energy to shovel food in your mouth) that we headed off to bed soon after. The next day up and about early for some more shopping (purely window for me) until we headed back to the airport to catch the plane home. I was pretty wrecked by this point and wasn’t sure how I was going to come in to work on Monday! I did though, and so did everyone else (bar Ceara who had scheduled that day off ages ago) and we all survived. It had been a great weekend, even if it felt like we didn’t stop eating the whole time! It was also a stark contrast to my last experience of Copenhagen – my second European city, fresh from Melbourne and still thinking in Aussie Dollars, eating Macdonald’s because it was the only food I could afford and staying at the cheapest hostels sharing rooms with 9 or so other people!
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