Today’s video tells you about a nice café terrace right in the centre of Helsinki, Finland.
Interestingly, some 8 years ago I wrote about how much the centre of Helsinki needed café terraces instead of them beer terraces, which already were plenty.
Lasipalatsin laituri in the inner yard of Lasipalatsi (in English Glass Palace), just there where some 30 years ago people were waiting buses at bus stops, has made a profitable compromise by selling coffee delicacies and lunches to customers from the inside café and mind-boggling from the outdoor kiosk.
I visited the Lasipalatsin laituri in the middle of the day and after the morning rain the terrace was almost empty, as you can see from the video. You can only imagine how the situation will be different on a Friday evening, right after work.
The hustle and bustle of the city comfortably disappeared somewhere far back when I sat in the courtyard of the Lasipalatsi in a complete peace, next to the foot of the Amos Rex Art Museum windowtowers and beautiful flower plantations, sipping nice green tea and enjoying a mouth-watering sweet gluten-free chocolate cake.
Btw. If you want to experience a similar refreshing peaceful café moment in the center of Helsinki, you should choose midsummer and noon.
Sitting by the ceiling windows or Amos Rex underground art museum in Lasipalatsin aukio, Helsinki centre, Finland, with a nice cup of tea, chocolate cake and warm July sunshine.
In 2013 I was dreaming about how nice it would be to have South Indian food in Finland and Helsinki. In 2020, this dream came true when The South Indian restaurant opened in Kluuvi, Helsinki, in August.
I visited The South Indian Restaurant and made the attached video about the clean and stylish decor of the restaurant and its good tasting South Indian food like dosa.
You can watch the video here –
South Indian restaurant experience in Finland
When the papadum breads ordered as an appetizer arrived on the table, I knew right away that it was gonna be a genuine Indian restaurant experience. This was because the loaves were not any hard crumpled curls, but soft and tasty thin loaves which I don’t remember having eaten for years. Of course those papadums, served with their own chutney, dipping sauce, were priced accordingly.
The menu was well labeled with vegetarian and gluten-free foods separately, and gluten-free alternatives were commendably found. However, the selection was not very large due to the fact that the restaurant had only been open for a couple of days, but a replenishment was reportedly expected soon. I will wait with interest to see if we will get paneer dosa, potato wada, uttapam and South Indian thali later.
I ordered only plain dosa for myself, as the other options were just chicken or sheep dosa. The dosa was correctly thin and crunchy, and inside it there was a suitably seasoned mixture of mashed potatoes. Dosa was served with two different chutneys and the portion was crowned with a sambar, a South Indian vegetable sauce served separately from a larger cup. It tasted just like it had in Chennai many many years ago. The huge dose of dosa with the sweet mango lassi was so filling that the gulab gammu ordered for dessert had hardly any space to be enjoyed.
The service of the restaurant was very good and friendly.
Plain Dosa / Masala Dosa
Where is The South Indian restaurant located in Helsinki?
This restaurant has a really great location in the Kluuvi shopping center, as the University of Helsinki and its metro stop are right next door.
Kluuvi shopping center is easy to find on foot, as it is located a javelin throw from the Senate Square, opposite the former Kaisaniemi metro station, which is nowadays known with the name University of Helsinki.
The South Indian restaurant in the shopping centre was a little harder to locate, but it was found in the new restaurant concentration on the 2nd floor of the Kluuvi shopping center. The entrance to it passed through a restaurant called Pizzarium. A random street walker does recognize the restaurant easily, as it is the one where the food is eaten with fingers by adults in the window tables.
Yes, South Indian food is made to be eaten with your fingers, but of course a fork and knife can be used. Cutlery might even be a good idea at this time of corona and handsanitizers.
Chicken Masala
Greetings from Denmark
In 2016 I wrote about the South Indian Chettinad restaurant in Denmark for my Finnish readers, and a couple of years later, in 2018, I wrote about its successor in Copenhagen. You can read my good reviews of those restaurants in the links attached, and yes, the Helsinki-based restaurant belongs to the same chain, being of an equally high standard. So I can definitely recommend it.
