Gamla/Old Ísland [Mimi's World Tour] [RIP]

Bakery: Gamla / Old Ísland
Address: Laugavegur 72, Reykjavik 
Website: n/a 
Style: Icelandic
Price: $-$$

[Note: this place has gone from a cafe selling modestly priced hot food and cakes to a full-fledged restaurant, so gone is pretty much everything mentioned down below. Not sure if they have pancakes still, but it won't be at those prices and isn't exactly the kind of place you can pop into for pancakes on a rainy afternoon. There goes another one to the tourism boom...] 

This was my final Icelandic Cake Tour of the year (unless, that is, I suddenly win something and find myself back in Iceland in the autumn ;__; Or, perhaps someone needs a worker... I'm still available for hire!) and came about solely because I believed I deserved a little treat on my very last day. :) Having taken care of every bakery in Reykjavik proper, I've vowed to take on the many cafes in the city offering promises of delicious cakes and this is the first in what I hope to be a lengthy project of mine.

Gamla Island is actually one of the few, if not the only, cafes in the city advertising traditional Icelandic home cooking and while it's not really purely sweets, they have a few cakes and having dessert here seems to be a highlight. It's not fancy, but for a place in the heart of the shopping district (and on trendy Laugavegur at that) it's well-priced and the food is good.

Not that I went here for the food, but for the traditional pancakes (490kr) which had been trying to lure me for a couple of days. I've had Icelandic waffles (and oh boy, what an experience that was! *-*) before, but never the crepe-like pancakes, made on a special cast-iron pan (the lady in charge was explaining the process) and served with, according to the menu, jam and whipped cream. In reality, it should have read whipped cream and jam. ;D This was positively bursting with whipped cream! Cutting into this thin pancake with a bit of rhubarb jam and sprinkled with caramelized sugar, you get a wonderful eruption of whipped cream which you just can't help but scoop onto your fork, even if you run out of dough. After all, one must indulge every now and then. ;) Mmmm... this was scrumptious! Top this off with a pot of Icelandic moss tea (300kr) on a quiet, rainy day and your love of Iceland forces to the brink of tears. At the very least, that's how I felt. It was a very bittersweet moment and yet I had plenty of whipped cream to help me cope. :D

Rating: ****