Hi YOU! If you have not eaten, go eat. As there are a lot of photos of food and eating in Tallinn ahead!
Majority of my posts include photos of beautiful places and stories surrounding those photographs. Sometimes I even think of changing the name of the blog to a hobbygrapher; tales of the world or something similar. This post is not one of those. This post is filled with stories and photos of food.
Tallink Megastar, a mall on water
Two weeks ago I went to Tallinn. Our trip began from Helsinki, from the new West Harbour Terminal 2. The building made me believe that maybe someday Helsinki can be that touristy hub that some other capitals in Europe are. From the glass wall we took a selfie of us.
The sun was setting as the Tallink Megastar was preparing to leave towards Tallinn. Megastar has without a doubt been the nicest cruise ship I have been to over the years. I have spent almost 10 cruises between Helsinki-Tallinn and Helsinki-Stockholm and Megastar is really worth a trip. It is almost like a shopping mall on water. There are lovely areas filled with sofas that you can lay on and there is a two story shopping area in the centre of the ship. We walked around and sat on the sofas during our two and half our journey to Tallinn.
In Tallinn we had chosen to stay in an AirBnb which turned out as the right choice for the time we had.
Eating in Tallinn
I have never really been a food snob. I like food and love eating but it does not really matter to me where I eat. In Tallinn this changed as the food we had was amazing! I was fortunate, that one of my classmates studied in Tallinn for a while so she gave us tips on eating in Tallinn and what we should see. We ended up only eating during our visit, so the sightseeing was left for the next time.
Rataskaevu 16
On our first night we ventured to Rataskaevu 16. If you go to Tallinn ever, I could not recommend this place more! We did not have a booking so we were not sure if we would fit but the lovely staff organised us a spot 15 minutes after our arrival.
Here are some of the things why I suggest you go to Rataskaevu when you are in Tallinn:
1. The bread. When we were thinking of what to eat we were brought some bread to eat. My mouth waters from just the thought of this bread.It was divine. It is of course a secret recipe, but you can buy the bread from them if they have extraones. I suggest you do!
2. The service. I might biased as I have now lived back in Finland for awhile and the service here is quite bad, but honestly the service from the staff was really lovely and friendly. And I have worked as a waitress in UK where good service is highly valued. The staff are lovely, they smile, care and made small drawings for us when we left.
3. The food. Ah the food. It is just divine. We had mushrooms and goat cheese as starters, followed by liver and pork belly as mains and also coffee as a finish. We also drank a bottle of their house wine. And all of this joy cost less than 60 euros! For two people! It was just the greatest restaurant to visit.
Kohvik Must Puudel
The next day we walked around the Old Town whilst we searched for our breakfast spot. We were hunting for a place called Kohvik Must Puudel. The food there was great too, speaking miles of the suggestions my friend had given us. I had a bacon and eggs benedict salad and a tasty cup of coffee. The place is quirky and cute even though a bit hard to find. Basically once you have put their address to Google maps just keep walking even though it might seem that the road is ending, as the place is near an “opening” on the narrow alley.
After breakfast we did some shopping in Viru Keskus and Rottermann, had brief lunch and headed for hot stone treatment in Tallink Conference and Spa Hotel. An experience I wish I had not had. We had been waiting for these treatments excitedly for weeks but it was a let down. Firstly it is almost impossible to make a Finn feel uncomfortable about being naked, but oh the masseuse managed to do the impossible. Secondly, the treatment was more just running burning hot stones on your body, in a silent room. It felt like there was something missing. The treatment ended in the masseuse running the stones on my stomach and leaving one bag on my bellybutton. After a while I started to wonder if it is supposed to hurt this much. After another while I felt it burn and the masseuse clearly realised this and finished her treatment quickly and sneaked out. I looked in the mirror and there it was. A nicely red, burnt, belly button. I could not do anything else than laugh as the situation was somehow entertaining. We left the place and headed back to our AirBnB to relax.
F-hoone
In the evening we headed to the hipster area of Tallinn, Telliskivi. Our destination was a restaurant called F-hoone. In the restaurant you can sit higher from the main area by the lifted windows. That was of course where we sat. The starter in this place was huge. We chose a platter as we could not decide what to get and to be honest, we could have survived with just their starter and our drinks. On the platter you had three kinds of meat, olives, cheeses, jam and bread. For our mains we had pork belly and beef cheek. Basically we were eating everything you could not eat in Finland if you did not earn a decent amount of money (which I am not currently making). The food was again, fantastic. Worth the money that we put in. Eating in Tallinn was incredible. After this we ventured back to our flat and drank wine we had got on the boat. The most fun was when the next morning we decided to finish our bottle before leaving the apartment. Tipsily we then toured around searching for breakfast during our last hours in Tallinn.