Address: Grensásvegur 26, Reykjavik
Website: http://www.konditori.is
Style: Icelandic, Danish, Scandinavian
Price: $-$$
[It took me one year -- well, that's the last time I was in Reykjavik -- to find out that Copenhagen is no longer, but the website exists and gives me a bakery in Gardabaer) There seems to be a new bakery in its place, but that will have to wait until next year. I'm leaving Iceland tomorrow. ;___; Goodbye, Copenhagen! EDIT: the location is now empty... or at least there is no longer any sort of bakery there]
Uh-oh, it's been ages since my last World Tour and I haven't even gotten to the places I visited in Tallinn (the third and final leg of my summer trip 2012 ^^)! So, I thought it's about time to stick in my last one from good old... Reykjavik (no, I have yet to visit Copenhagen ^^;;)!
I'd seriously been looking forward to this place after having read about it a year before in my tour book about it being a 'heaven for pastry-lovers' or something like this, but didn't have the time for it. So, this year I made sure I got to this place. Actually, as pathetic as it sounds, my tour book (it was obviously out-dated) mentioned that Copenhagen had an second location in Kringlan (the big shopping mall) so that was probably the first reason I went to see it. .__.;; Finding nothing and remembering seeing the original location from the bus, I decided to just walk the few blocks... all for the sake of a little piece of Copenhagen. :)
Well, either I came at a bad time (though I'm not sure how bad late on a weekday morning is) or they've gone downhill since this tourbook review, but I found the place almost empty. The baked goods section is fairly large, but about half of that had absolutely nothing in it. A lot of the staples in other bakeries (Icelandic poppy seed buns? ;)) just weren't there and I had a bit of difficulty picking something sweet (the breads seem to be more popular than the sweet goods... and of course, I had myself another cheese bun (~300kr) to complete the cheese bun tour ;D) Finally, I caved and just asked the worker (as a rule, I don't like revealing I don't speak enough of a language when shopping, so I try to get by, but asking requires the use of English XD) if I could buy half of one of their strudels (whole, they cost 600kr). There was one cut in half already and I would have taken that one, but asking which one I wanted, I selected this one, which had 'apple' as part of its very long name (I paid 330kr for it) and which looked neat: a typical Danish strudel dough (I know from Hansen's amazing pastry shop) with an apple filling practically smothered in cinnamon and topped with slivered almonds and an alternating pattern of white and chocolate icing.
I say 'practically smothered' because, honestly, if I hadn't recognized the word for apple in the name, I could never have said there was any apple in it; that's how loaded with cinnamon it was (you can maybe see it in the photo: see those whole filled with brown stuff? That's the 'apples'! The first few bites, it was alright, but then it just got too intense. It was gooey like apple sauce.. that doesn't sound so appetizing, but the texture was so good: both soft and a few pieces of apples, but then it was cinnamon overload. The dough itself was a little too soggy as well (I swear, I might actually have a problem finding someone that will dethrone Hansen's -- they're just *that* amazingly delicious)... I guess my expectations were way too high when coming to this place; ironically, it was the random finds that ended up being better... and this applies to all three countries I visited and sampled baked goods from this year. Specifically talking about this place: not worth going by free Kringlan shuttle bus and walking four blocks in the rain when there are some yummy places in the city centre.
Rating: **1/2
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