Aböf

Aböf
Millenia Walk, #01-109
9 Raffles Boulevard
Tel: 6338-7113

The first thing that comes to mind when I think about Scandinavian food is gravalax, meatballs, Absolut Vodka, smorgasbord and Macus Samuelsson. When I think about places to get Scandinavian food, which is something I rarely crave, is Ikea and this little place called Akavit that I went to once and never went back. The only other Scandinavian restaurant that I can think of was skol, which used to be above wheelock, but that tragically did not quite take off. Well, here’s a new Scandinavian restaurant in town: Aböf.



Aböf, if I’m not mistaken, is owned by the same people behind the popular chichi Royal Copenhagen coffeehouse. Likewise, it it both a restaurant and a tea lounge. The food is (thankfully!) not Scandinavian fusion, but rather Scandinavian and Asian with no real cross overs, so the menu lists traditional Scandinavian soup of meatballs and dumplings in a rich broth next to lemongrass chicken soup and tom yum soup, and this format is consistent throughout the rest of the menu.

Lunch started with a pleasant “welcome to our restaurant!” gesture of serving us hot bread rolls that I felt demonstrated a deep sense of sincerity. Since we came here to sample Scandinavian cuisine, we skipped over most of the Asian dishes such as a tonkatsu sandwich but made an exception for their linguine tarako, which was unfortunately very disappointing because the linguine had not bite left in it and the sauce was too bland.

As for Scandinavian dishes that were offered, they were delightful. We started with the traditional soup of meatballs, which deceptively looked less delicious than it was presenting simple and rich flavours. That was closely followed by Scandinavian pink shrimp salad, which was light and refreshing. Pink shrimps are a lot smaller and have a more subtle and delicate than the shrimp/prawns that we are used to consuming from our markets, but they were worked well as the highlight in the salad.

Following that we skipped the open face sandwiches and proceeded with their recommended main courses of meatballs with fried onion and potatoes and gravy and Scandinavian roast pork with crackling skin red braised cabbage, baked apple, pitted prunes and potatoes with special gravy. Although I’m rather sure that they used the same sauce on both their star dishes, I enjoyed them both. It is after all hard to go wrong with meatballs and pork crackling that was crisp and airy, and the sweeter elements tied it together and gave it slightly more fullness.

We also skipped dessert and headed to somewhere else, but they have a selection of cakes to choose from. The best way to get an introduction to the baked goods offered here might be through their daily tea sets, and I probably would do just that when I find the time for a lazy afternoon.

* To see the whole set click here .