Eirik Stavem – to whom it may concern…

Need tips about where to go, and where not to go for food in Oslo? Keep reading…

I wanted to make a post about my recent restaurant-experiences, because they range from the top of the pops to the faaaaar end of the other side of the scale.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to a pizzaplace called Casa Mia with Divisha, Kristian, Gerdur, Andre, and Daniel. The reason we went there was because they had 50% discount on all their pizzas… Guess we were fools who thought they would be able to handle the increase in customers that such an offer would generate. This is what happened:
1. We waited 15 minutes before they gave us a table.
2. We sat down, ordered our food and beverages, some orders were with some special requests (without olives, but with chili insted), but nothing they shouldn’t be able to handle.
3. After waiting about 40 minutes, and still no pizzas, we noticed that there were people sitting at two different tables who arrived after us who had been served already, so I went to the counter and asked them what was going on. After lots of back and forth between the waitress and the pizzaman, they finally decided that they had forgotten our order because the waitress had placed the note in the wrong place, so we had to wait 10 more minutes and the food would be ready.
4. After about 5 minutes, one of the waitresses came up and asked us if we wanted free coffee since the food was late. I said “can we have another serving of drinks instead?”. She nodded, and got us another serving of drinks. We were pretty satisfied with this, and thought “ok, they made up for a bit of the delay there”.
5. The food finally arrived, and it was fairly good. They hadn’t done any of the special orders, but we didn’t complain because we were almost starving to death, so we didn’t want to wait another hour…
6. We finished our meal, and asked for the bill. Just to be sure, we checked if they had charged us for the second serving of drinks, and they had. So I went to the counter again, and told them about the mistake. Apparently, it was my mistake. She hadn’t offered us free drinks, but free coffee. So to be nice, they offered to deduct the staggering amount of 60 NOK from the bill. After a very short argument I realized that there wasn’t much I could say, so we paid the bill, told them that they wouldn’t see us back again, and left.

My recommendation: NEVER eat at Casa Mia, especially not if they have a 50% discount day…

Moving up the scale, I want to mention a new Indian restaurant that opened a couple of months ago on Alexander Kiellands plass - Gutta fra Calcutta. At a reasonable price (main course 150 NOK), the food is very good, and the staff is very friendly and serviceminded. I definitely recommend a visit to this place if you like Indian food, and want a good meal at a fairly low price.

Moving to the top of the scale, we have Markveien Mat & Vinhus. The prices here are much higher, we paid 4500 NOK for a three course dinner for 6 people, but it was more than worth the price. I had swordfish as an entree, frog fish as main course, and raspberry sherbet for dessert.
The food: fantastic!
The service: they gave all the information we wanted, recommended wine that was perfect with the food, were always paying attention to our needs, and were all very friendly and professional. Just perfect!
The price: paying 750 NOK per person for a dinner sounds steep, but considering the quality and the service, I think it’s exactly where it should be. We could have gone to a nice place like Bagatelle, and would probably have paid twice as much for the same food and service.

My recommendation: if you’re going out to celebrate an event, or want to take your significant other out for a romantic and special night, go to Markveien Mat & Vinhus, you won’t regret it!