HELSINKI - St. Petersburg, Helsinki and Tallinn - page 157

up the stairs (15 rooms with 2-8 beds, dorm bed-€27, S-€54-57, D-€68-72, T-€90-96, in-
cludes sheets, breakfast-€7, lockers-€2, free Wi-Fi and Internet access, kitchen, no el-
evator, Uudenmaankatu 9, tel. [phone], fax [phone], www.erottajanpuisto.com ,
[e-mail] ).
Eating in Helsinki
Helsinki's many restaurants are smoke-free and a good value for lunch on weekdays. Fin-
nish companies get a tax break if they distribute lunch coupons (worth €9) to their employ-
ees. It's no surprise that most downtown Helsinki restaurants offer weekday lunch specials
that cost exactly the value of the coupon. These low prices evaporate in the evenings and
all day Saturday and Sunday, when picnics and Middle Eastern kebab restaurants are the
only budget options. Dinner reservations are smart at nicer restaurants.
Fun Harborfront Eateries
Stalls on Market Square: Helsinki's delightful and vibrant square is magnetic any time
of day...but especially at lunchtime. This really is the most memorable, casual, quick-and-
cheap lunch place in town. A half-dozen orange tents (erected to shield diners from bird
bombs) serve fun food on paper plates until 18:00. It's not unusual for the Finnish presid-
ent to stop by here with visiting dignitaries. There's a crêpe place, and at the far end—my
favorites—several salmon grills (€8-9 for a good meal). The only real harborside dining in
this part of town is picnicking. While these places provide picnic tables, you can also have
your food foil-wrapped to go and grab benches right on the water down near Uspenski
Orthodox Cathedral.
MarketHall: Just beyond the harborside market is a cute, red-brick, indoor market hall
(Mon-Fri 8:00-18:00, Sat 8:00-16:00, closed Sun). Today, along with produce stalls, it's
a hit for its fun, inexpensive eateries. The tiny, four-table Soppakeittiö (“Soup Kitchen”)
serves big bowls of filling, tasty seafood soup for €8.50, including bread and water (Mon-
Fri 11:00-16:00, Sat 11:00-15:00—except closed Sat in summer, closed Sun year-round).
A sushi place is across the lane. In the middle of the hall, the only slightly larger Snellman
café is popular for its €3.50 meat pies (lihapirakka) and €2.70 pastries called “apple pigs”
(munkkipossu) .
Sundmans Krog Bistro is sedate and Old World but not folkloric, filling an old mer-
chant's mansion facing the harbor. As it's the less fussy and more affordable (yet still
super-romantic) little sister of an adjacent, posh, Michelin-rated restaurant, quality is as-
sured. A rare and memorable extra is their Baltic fish buffet—featuring salmon, Baltic
sprat, and herring with potatoes and all the toppings—€14 as a starter, €19 as a main course.
The €18 lunch special (Mon-Fri 11:00-15:00) includes the buffet plus the main dish of
the week—often more fish (€21-25 main courses, €42-49 three-course dinners, Mon-Fri
11:00-22:00, Sat 12:00-22:00, Sun 13:00-22:00, Eteläranta 16, tel. [phone]).
Finnish-Themed Dining: Tractors and Lapp Cuisine
Zetor, the self-proclaimed traktor restaurant, mercilessly lampoons Finnish rural culture
and cuisine (while celebrating it deep down). Sit next to a cow-crossing sign at a tractor-