Offbeat Eats

After a rather busy day touring Southwestern Iceland, primarily in the Golden Circle (Hveragerði, Geysir, Gullfoss, and Þingvellir), we eventually ended up talking the Kaldidalur Mountain pass north to the Borgarfjörður area, ending up in Borgarnes, a quiet seaside town that’s primarily a pit stop on the Ring Road; despite the rather long route we took to get there, it’s only about 2 hours from Reykjavik. And it’s pretty small, having only two non-gas station restaurants: a Filipino place(!) and Landnámssetur Íslands, their “Settlement Center” museum on the settling of Iceland, that also contains a restaurant that primarily carries “traditional Icelandic cooking with international flavours”. We decided to give it a try. Landnámssetur Íslands has a pretty good menu overall, covering the basics of modern Icelandic cuisine, with a good variety of lamb dishes, fish dishes, and the like. In particular, the special of the day was something you won’t see on an American menu: horse steak. I considered getting it (I haven’t had horse for, oh, 20+ years), but in actuality, I wasn’t all that hungry (while it can at times be somewhat tiring, the act of sitting on your butt and driving for 8 hours doesn’t burn a lot of calories), so I opted for the pasta dish, while Carol opted for the seafood special (spotted wolf fish).