Ravintola Restaurant

I really like Helsinki and more news about that later. I just wanted to share our dinner adventure. Francois has done a wonderful job of researching fine eating establishments that are off the beaten track. They serve typical Finnish fare (think Novia cafe), in a rustic and homelike setting. At least that was the plan for tonight. After trying to get my way and eat a buffet of pizza, I agreed that Francois' selection made more sense. We took off walking (1.8kms), using our handy Nokia phone to point us in the right direction. The name of the restaurant had more of the highest point Scrabble letters than I had ever seen, and we finally came upon number 14 and it was indeed a restaurant called Ravintola (sounds Italian) and was not the place we were looking for. We asked a woman waiting for the bus and was told that clearly the place had closed down. So much for that, we turned looked at Ravintola, decided that we did not want Italian food and head backed to the center of town to find something new. On the way we saw several other Ravintola restaurants and I commented that it must be a chain? Strange.  Several blocks later we came saw a Lebanese restaurant called Ravintola Lebanese Restaurant, either the Italian chain is experimenting with middle eastern cuisine or perhaps.....Ravintola actually means RESTAURANT in Finnish!

Clearly these "experienced" travellers would not make it past the first pit stop on the Amazing Race. Come to think of it the next season should be starting soon.

Licking our wounded egos (and my greasy fingers) we stopped at McDonalds and I ordered myself enough Chicken McNuggets to feed the Finnish ski jumping team. What..I always order 20? Oh no that's Tim Bits...The Nuggets are actually called a Team Box...who knew...