Open sandwich

Strictly speaking, I didn’t “travel” in Copenhagen. I studied and played there. So it may not be right to say that these articles are travelling journals – but the definition of which’s not so important from the first beginning. So that’s it.

The food there. I actually can’t remember anything which is really delicious and unforgettable. Later in Germany, Italy and Austria, I’ll say there’s at least one highly flavoured dish in my mind for each country. But Denmark, I feel sorry to say that, not even one. It’s a pity for me. Not that I didn’t spend money on restaurants. Once I did go to a restaurant near city centre to eat open-sandwich. Nice atmosphere, nice decorations. But when I walked out of there, to say the truth, I missed the beer more than the sandwich. Now I think maybe I should visit families, instead of restaurants, to try the real Danish food. In a country that it’s so expensive to eat out, family-dish must be more various and typical. Even the home-made open sandwich will probably be more delicious than the one in the restaurant, I guess.

But I’ll write something for open-sandwich. After all, it’s quite famous there.

Simply speaking, as I saw in that restaurant, open sandwich is a tiny slice of bread with different kind of spreads, cheese, meat, fish…… ( whatever you like to put on, but usually they’re not warm) The bread’s so small that I felt I ordered the wrong dish when my sandwich was served – I couldn’t see the bread… was covered totally by the stuff on it, which was a piece of fried fish, with something interesting on it (looks like caviar and mustard sauce). Plus a bit of lettuce that you can barely notice. Generally it tasted good, but was…just a bit, not warm enough. In my opinion. For someone (like Taiwanese) who is used to warm-served food, facing this not-so-cold and no-so-warm fried fish……what more I can say? It’s just like the temperature of something which was just micro-waved for 30 seconds. Maybe Danish think it’s just the right temperature for food to put in the mouth, but a bit too cold for me. The slice of bread’s too small that I couldn’t eat the sandwich in a normal way – take a bite with the stuff on it. If I do so, then the bread will be all gone after the first bite. Then the dish can not be called sandwich anymore (though it doesn’t look like from the first). So I separated the bread to tiny pieces, eating with fried fish. Don’t know what I was insisting for.

After eating the whole sandwich, I didn’t feel full. Although it’s something I already expected, after spending so much money, it still made me a little annoyed. The feeling of not-so-full. Yet what’s comforting is the beer – delicious and huge and cold. That’s nice. When I went out the restaurant, I saw many Danish sitting outdoors in daytime, just enjoying beers (nothing else) I couldn’t help but thought that, the quality of beer is really something that the Danish will never neglect…


嚴格說起來，我在那裡並不是在旅行的。是在念書與玩樂。因此這幾篇事實上若說是旅行文學，大概不太合適。不過總之，文章的定義本來就不是什麼重要的東西，所以就這樣吧。

那裡的食物，真要說起來，覺得好吃到難以忘懷的還真是一樣也沒有。之後在德國以及義大利，奧地利，至少都有一兩樣讓我感動的美食。但是哥本哈根，很抱歉，一樣也沒有。並不是我不願意花錢去吃餐廳; 在氣氛極佳的木屋裡吃道地的開口三明治，我的確是這樣做過的喲。還點了ㄧ大杯Tuborg啤酒。但走出餐廳的那一刻，老實講，比起開口三明治，那杯啤酒還讓我更懷念。現在想起來，假如要吃到真正的丹麥美食，或許要到各個家庭去品嘗吧。在外食如此昂貴的國家，想必家庭料理是親切的多。即使是家裡頭自製的開口三明治，也比餐廳的好吃吧。

還是稍微提一下我對開口三明治的感想。畢竟是丹麥有名的特產。

簡單來說，就是各式各樣不太熱的主食(你能想到的各種口味都有)，堆在ㄧ片極小的黑麥麵包上。小到餐點送上來時，讓人懷疑自己是不是點錯了 -- 因為根本看不見麵包。已經完全被菜遮住了嘛。我的主食是一塊炸魚排，上面有貌似魚子醬以及芥末醬的東西。還有幾乎讓你忘了他的存在的一點點蔬菜。味道整體來說很不錯，但就是不夠熱。已經習慣食物熱騰騰上桌的台灣人，面對這不冷不溫的炸魚排，真是不知道該說甚麼才好。似乎是微波爐設定三十秒後送出的魚排。不冷不熱。也許丹麥人覺得放進嘴巴這溫度剛剛好，但對我來講就是太冷了。麵包因為太小塊，無法像一般正常的三明治一樣把料與麵包一起吃。這樣做的話，也許第一口下去就沒有麵包了。這麼一來就不叫三明治了(雖然本來就長的不像)，所以我把麵包分成小塊，好好的與料一起用刀叉配著吃。也不曉得在堅持什麼，總之我得告訴自己吃的是丹麥的開口三明治。

整個三明治下肚，不怎麼飽。雖然這也是預期中的事，但灑下這麼多錢後，這種飽足感甚至讓人感覺有點惱怒。令人欣慰的是啤酒既美味又大杯。冰涼的程度正好，真是不錯。讓我感覺丹麥人即使怠慢食物，也絕對不怠慢啤酒。許多丹麥人在夏天的餐廳露天座位上，大白天點了啤酒喝。看見這個事實，讓我不由的這麼想。