Baltics24: Day 5 – Helsinki

Our last full day in Helsinki, so we spent it eating, walking, shopping, sightseeing, and for me another sauna.

We headed to the harbourfront markets for an early lunch and to check out the various stalls selling souvenirs, things made from wood, reindeer, elk, amber, silver, and other assorted animals. L has been eying off various warm hats, but in the end decided that Perth just isn’t likely to get cold enough.

Lunch was a shared plate full of potatoes, salmon, and crunchy fried vendace, a freshwater whitefish a bit larger than whitebait that the Finnish love to eat. Its bones are soft, so I ate them tail, fins and all (though these were all headless). Pan fried until crunchy on the outside, they aren’t strongly fishy tasting. The salmon and potatoes were also grilled, it’s amazing to walk past many stalls that basically just plonk large sides of salmon on their grills, I’m not sure of the last time I saw so much salmon cooking.

After the fish course I went for a reindeer hotdog, because it was there and I could. The slightly smoky sausage was very frankfurter like, though possibly a little leaner than the average, and mine was topped with gherkin relish, chilli mayonnaise, and crispy shallots, which wasn’t what I was expecting when I asked for fried onions but added a nice crunch. I’ve definitely had worse hot dogs.

From the harbourside we headed down into the design district, to see what was there and also as I’d read about a cafe that had been established in the 1950s and were known for their korvapuusti (cinnamon scrolls). Along the way we found the large twin-spired church (St John’s) that we’d seen every day and not known where it was. Its tall spires are clad in copper which has oxidised green, it has impressive gargoyles (replaced in 2022 as the originals were crumbling from Helsinki’s weather and can seat 2,600. Hopefully they get a good regular Sunday crowd, otherwise I’m imagining the priest talking to a crowd of 20 trying to get everyone to move up the front.

We also found the large shiny National Memorial to the Winter War, when the Soviet Union invaded in 1939, and who were then fairly solidly handed their arses by the locals. I’ve always felt that the Finns got shafted by being lumped in with the Axis in World War 2, all they really did was get invaded by the Soviets, bog them down until a treaty was signed (where they lost some territory), then join in against the Soviets when Germany headed east (as they were likely still pissed off about the treaty and the invasion).

We checked out the gift shop of the Design Museum, unfortunately it doesn’t seem to have enough of the things L and I would like to have checked out to warrant a 20 euro ticket. Seems to have lots of items like chairs, tables and other furniture, and less of cool frocks that would have convinced L to check out. The gift shop had some neat stuff. Confession time: I don’t get the Moomin thing that is huge here. Apparently the creator is Finnish/Swedish, so it’s been a solid presence so far in the trip. There are books, merchandise, more merchandise, there’s probably even Moomin toilet paper, I wouldn’t be surprised. But what Moomin is remains a mystery to me, one day when I get a chunk of time I’ll do some reading up on this phenomena. Until then, all I really know is that Moomin is a cow that … does things. For all I know I’m committing a huge pop culture sin, maybe on the scale of going to the US and not knowing who the mouse is, or Japan and not knowing about the kitty.

After checking a few shops along the way, we got to Cafe Succes (yup, one s), home to well regarded korvapuusti since the 1950s. Korvapuusti are probably Finland’s national pastry, a flatish cinnamon scroll with sugar crystals on top. The name translates to “slapped ears”, which is as good a description of the shape as any. Cafe Succes serve very very large korvapuusti, bigger than the plate. They look danish-like, but are more a cinnamon bun dough, slightly chewy, not dry, and full of sugary-cinnamon flavour (and none of that fruit stuff, we’re talking dough and sugar only here). Very tasty indeed. The coffee was okay, it seems to be a common thing here that cafes serve both standard drip filter coffee, as well as barista-made. Not knowing this, I asked for a white coffee and got a cup of drip filter and a point to the milk jug and sugar.

We wandered back to the central city so L could check a couple of stores, including a big material shop that was far less crazy than the average Spotlight. The plan was to hit a waffle place that did gf waffles, but sadly they are only open from 11-2pm, so instead we headed for Frazer, a Helsinki cake institution that have a selection of gf. Here i got the very glutinous signature milk chocolate cake, whose rich filling did indeed taste like milk chocolate, while the chocolate sponge was moist and light. Here my coffee was barista-made, so I didn’t have to add my own milk. They do lose half a point for serving cakes on textured plates, so it’s not possible to scrape up everything (I don’t know Finnish etiquette on licking plates).

We strolled back to the hotel via a few souvenir/craft shops where we grabbed the obligatory snow dome.

Back at the hotel I went for the sauna again, doing the pop in and pop out. By the third time I felt like I was getting the hang of it, not throwing crazy amounts of water on the coals, and talking time between for my body to adjust back to normal. I was even able to go a little colder on the contrast shower, though it did feel a little like an icecream headache when I put my head under. I think I could, if required, do the thing with the sauna leap of faith into an icy river. Maybe. It’s probably a good thing it’s basically summer here, so I’m unlikely to have to back up that claim with action. But definitely shallow breaths when the steam hits.

Squeegees. Showers around here tend to have them, and it’s puzzled me. But based on observations today, they are for floors, to push/pull the water back to the drain.

Another random observation: downpipes appear to have insulated wires running down them. My guess is that these are actually heated to stop ice blocking them.

From our hotel window there’s a statue/grotesque of a sitting up bear.

We’ve seen tins of bear pate, but all the restaurants that serve bear seem to be out right now.

The dinner plan was to head downtown to a place called Friends & Brgrs, which promised reasonably priced, good tasting burgers with a gf bun option. The obvious pick was the bacon burger, though sadly they were out of both bacon and gf buns (they do also have a salad wrap option, making it the burger version of san choy bao). The burger was good, even without bacon, the cheese melty, the patty had lots of flavour, and the chips were nice and crunchy, all for a decent price. Shame about the bacon though.

Then I’d hoped to stop in at Time Bar, which of the 6 tap beers, 2 are sahti. Again it wasn’t to be, as the owners are on holiday and not back until next week. Checked out another bar, Pien, nearby, as it has a large range of bottle beer, but it’s taps were pretty much all NEIPA, which is a style I don’t really know well (mostly because I don’t care overly for the concept as I’m not a huge hop-head). Settled for the summer wheat beer at Bryggeri, a local craft beer brewery, which ticks all the right boxes for wheat beer, a good balance of banana to clove, not dominated by hops, a little cloudy, and nicely dry.

Now it’s back at the hotel getting sorted for tomorrow, we’re on the morning ferry to Talinn, Estonia, to see what fun crazy cats they are there.