Eating my way through Gothenburg

Mabel Kang
Sep 11, 2016
5 min read

The Haga district in Gothenburg is stretch of wooden houses packed with cafes and little shops, acclaimed to be perfect for "cosy shopping and fika since 1648".

The cafes along this street have outdoor seats that face the streets where you can enjoy your meal and watch the world go by. A pretty good and chill way to spend your weekend!

Overwhelmed by the food options here as there were so many cafes, our first stop was for some Swedish food at Gotlands Bryggeri. What is Swedish food you might ask? I bet you 5 bucks that you can guess at least one of them.

2 common Swedish mains are - Swedish Meatballs (yes, you guessed it!) and Shrimp Sandwich.

The Swedish Meatballs I ordered comes with a side of mashed potatoes, lingonberry jam and pickled cucumbers and topped with their delicious cream sauce. Let me tell you that I will never ever ever ever get sick of Swedish meatballs because it's so wonderfully juicy, meaty, succulent and so filled with flavour. Yumz.

It was a pity that it only came with 4 meatballs and it was quite pricey too by the way (about 150 SEK). What made it different from all the other Swedish meatballs I've tried was that I could clearly tell these meatballs (and the mashed potatoes) were hand-made by the cafe. Well for the price I paid, it better be hand-made! It was slightly drier and tougher but bigger than the normal processed meatballs you can find in supermarkets but texture aside, it was so deliciously meaty.

The cream sauce that came with the meatballs was of the right consistency that helped to offset the dryness of the meatballs and teemed with such amazing flavour that I wish they gave me a whole tub of the sauce so I could fully dunk, no, submerge and swim the meatballs in them and with leftovers for me to drink (I wish).

The mashed potatoes were of my favourite kind - smooth and buttery but with a few tiny chunks of potatoes to hint that it is indeed homemade and not those instant powdered potatoes. The lingonberry jam was slightly too tart and sour to eat by itself in my opinion but it really complemented with the savoriness of the dish.

The Shrimp Sandwich wasn't technically a sandwich. It was more like a fresh pink mountain of shrimps sitting on top of some lettuce, laid on top of a single round piece of bread, with a side of cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, sour cream, hard-boiled egg and fish roe on top. not exactly a "sandwich" per se, but who's complaining! The shrimps were fresh and succulent and more importantly, they were generous with the shrimps.

If "pretty please with a cherry on top" had a seafood variation, this was it. It would be "pretty please with heaps of shrimp and fish roe on top". It doesn't have the same ring to it, but you get the idea.

As you probably know by now, I have a second stomach for dessert (hehe) and no meal is complete without dessert! So we headed to Brautigam's, a famous chocolatier, for some chocolatey goodness. Because they're known for their chocolate, I got their chocolate ice cream and bought this chocolate-hazelnut nougat balls for 30 SEK.

10/10 would recommend as both were soooooooo gooooooood. The chocolate ice cream wasn't too sweet and was smooth, milky, chocolatey and the perfect amount of richness. It's quite a small cone (by European standards), but it was worth every single penny.

The chocolate I bought was AH-FREAKIN-MAZING too. These rich chocolate balls with hazelnut filling and it was so good, I wanted to take my time with them and save it for the next few days but they were so addictive, I kept popping them into my mouth and then... they were all gone. :( My self-control clearly needs some improvement.

Brautigam's offers a variety of everything that can satisfy your sweet tooth - ranging from chocolates to marzipan to pralines to candy.

And yes, THERE ARE SAMPLES!!!

You might think that this is the end of my meal and therefore, the end of this blog post. But NOPE, it's not, sorry guys but keep on reading for more #foodporn.

Do keep in mind that I ate all of these consecutively, in the order I have written, in one day. So I probably gained like 1 kg after eating all these *cries & continues eating*.

Since you either go big (in size) or go home, the next stop was Cafe Husaren for their famous hugeass cinnamon buns! By huge, I mean bigger-than-your-face kind of huge.

The cafe was quaint and was packed with all sorts of baked goods and pastries. I had a hard time staying focused on the task at hand (which was to try the cinnamon bun and that only) as every display surface was brimming with buns, tarts, cakes and pies which gave it a really warm, toasty and welcoming atmosphere. And of course, they displayed their famous huge cinnamon buns by the window.

In the end, we got the huge cinnamon bun, chocolate cheesecake and a hot chocolate.

The chocolate cheesecake was light and delicate which melts in your mouth. Paired with whipped cream, fresh raspberries and chocolate drizzle, it was a perfect combination of rich chocolate and creamy goodness.

The famous cinnamon bun, however, was just alright - not really worth the hype or the queue. The bread was too dry and yeasty for my liking, especially since it's so huge, but I liked that it had a sweet cinnamon taste in every bite. It got a bit tiring to eat after a while because it was just too big and I felt like I was eating the same thing over and over again in every bite (do you get that feeling too or is it just me?).

Barely even a quarter through the cinnamon bun, I was so stuffed, I couldn't eat it anymore so I kept the leftovers for breakfast for the next day... and the day after that and still couldn't finish it. The bun is so huge, it could feed a family of 4.

Overall, I was pretty satisfied with my food finds along Haga District. It's is a great place to go for a weekend meal/tea. With Swedish food, good coffee and sinful desserts - it's the place to sit and chill at a cafe for a few hours or just take a stroll down the street and who knows what you might find!