Restaurant Kolme Kruunua, like Salve or Sea Horse (Sikala for the locals), deals primarly with finnish traditional cuisine - which by my book is a good thing. The restaurant itself is really cool. The inside is warm and cosy. The bar counter - where people come to have a pint and/or a meal, is reminiscent of those you can find in Paris (called a "zinc" - the name of the metal used for the coating of the counter). The atmosphere is very enjoyable - most of the customers are locals - and because the place is often full, it can becomes noisy with laughs and loud speaks (there was a stag party during our diner on Thursday). So, top kudos for the surrounding. Now for the food. It's been a few years since we came for the last time, and it has always been good. This time it wasn't. Saila's reindeer stew was bland and tasteless. You couldn't say if it was reindeer, beef or aligator. Furthermore, the meat was a bit rubbery and the sauce watery and dull. I had myself moose sausages. Instead of being made with fresh meat, they were the industrial kind, straight from the bag to the plate. If you add that they were lukewarm border cold, and that the red cabbage salad was dry and way too acidic, you get the picture! Cheeses were good and desserts too. With just one reservation: the "köyhä ritarit" - roughly translated as "poor knights" or french toasts, were 2 very thin slices of pan fried brioche with a little bit of jam and an industrial whipped cream from the can at the cost of 8€!!! If it's not a rip-off, I don't know what is.
Each restaurant has sometime a day off. Maybe it was one of those days. Or maybe the food quality has dropped dramatically along the years. I don't know. What I know is that if you are in Helsinki and want an alternative, go an extra half mile to Hakaniemi and push the door of Juttutupa restaurant. You'll see the difference...
Kolme Kruunua is one a the very few place in Helsinki where you can eat "Läaskisoosi".
A super traditional very runny stew made with pork fat.
foreground: moose sausages with red cabbage salad, grainy mustard and mash.
background: reindeer stew with lingonberries, pickled cucumbers and mash.
The mash in Kolme Kruunua is actually very good.
finnish cheeses with blueberry jam and crackers.
Instead of proper digestive crakers, you get some salty "Tuc"!!!
foreground: lukewarm blueberry pie with vanilla ice cream
background: french toasts with jam and whipped cream
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