Tabelog Event at Skál, Lower East Side

This post is in collaboration with Tabelog.

On Earth Day, I attended a blogger meet and greet at Skál on the Lower East Side. This event was hosted the lovely folks at Tabelog to celebrate the completion of their spring 2014 restaurant awards. They even let me bring John along for the evening. Skál, which means “cheers!”, is an Icelandic farm kitchen with modern Nordic cuisine. How strange it was to find a Scandinavian restaurant right by Chinatown. It’s a charming space, and it’ll definitely stand out in the area. John and I arrived a little late (hah, typical), and the restaurant was already packed with other food bloggers. The truth is, as much as I love exploring the city and trying new restaurants, I’m a little bit of a homebody. That said, I’m glad I made it to Skál. Everyone I met was very friendly and fun to chat with. When you put a bunch of food bloggers in room, the conversation, of course, revolves almost entirely around food.
In 2007, I spent a summer abroad in Europe, including 7 weeks in beautiful Copenhagen. This visit to Skál reminded me of my summer of smørrebrød, the famed Danish open face sandwich, which often had fish of some sort. As you might imagine, Nordic cuisine is not the most vegetarian friendly, but we happily nibbled away on pickled vegetables and enjoyed some amazing caramelized carrots. The burnt honey was really good, but it kept sticking to my teeth. Thank goodness for prosecco to rinse it all down, right? The other treats served up that evening include oysters, beef tartare, duck wings, smoked mackerel, and cod croquettes. I couldn’t resist the salt cod croquettes with horseradish remoulade and had a couple of those. Totally worth it.

Later in the evening, the Tabelog team talked about their plans to expand to other states, including Chicago and California. That will be interesting, especially as Yelp HQ is in San Francisco. Hope everything goes as planned for Tabelog! Skal’s chef Ben Siegel also talked about some of his delicious creations and the restaurant. Fun times with Tabelog once again. Many thanks to Tabelog and Skál for a great night!

Note: This post is in collaboration with Tabelog. I was invited as a guest to this event and received a complimentary meal. This was not in exchange for a positive review and all opinions expressed here are my own.

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