Humarhusid - The Lobster House

Continuing with our international theme of being in Reykjavik, we decided to visit the famous Lobster House located in the heart of downtown Reykjavik. Before I do that however, a special shout out to http://amysfoodadventures.com/ who had some pleasant comments on my blog.  I had a chance to stalk her blog over the past weekend and she, like I, sure have visited a lot of restaurants in Toronto.  So thank you to her and again to all of my readers.

One of the comments I received in the past week or so was "why are some of the marks so high for some of your restaurants?"   Truthfully many of these restaurants have been just that good.  I don't try to sugar coat anything and personally as long as the food looks good, tastes good and feels fresh than I don't personally have anything negative to say.  Certainly if there are any negative aspects of it, I certainly will come straight out and let you know but most of my experiences have been rather pleasant ones.

So onto The Lobster House.  This place is situated inside an old house that was converted into the restaurant.  The creeky floors and tight fitting restaurant seats about 100  and we were told from the locals that if you want a good lobster, this was the place to be.  My wife ordered the  Hvalur x 4 aka Whale Meat as a starter and the Grilled Lobster and Gratin. They also had a dish of lobster and horse meat but since I was trying the whale meat for the first time, I did not want to push my luck with the horse meat so I will save the horse meat another time.

Before anything arrived, the waiter came back and gave us a sampling of "seabird sashimi" We found out later the bird was guillemot.  We were a little shocked since none of us have eaten this before but it was only one piece so we gave it a try.  The meat was a little chewy and it actually tasted like lamb and fish put together.  It had a very distinct taste that would be cringe a little bit.  Difficult to describe and certainly not something I would do again.

The Sea Bird

Hvalur x 4 aka Whale Meat

After gulping some water, our starter arrived.  There were about eight pieces of whale meat and 4 different colorful sauces to go with it.  They included ginger, red beets, herbs and mushroom.  The sauces were as is.  For those who have never had whale meat before and I being one, I will describe the raw whale meat alone without sauce.  Some people told me it tastes just plain yucky.  Personally it tasted like raw tuna.  I think for those who have eaten a lot of Japanese sashimi in the past, whale meat is probably no different than any other fish meat that is out there.  My wife however says it tasted like many, many pieces of tuna squished together and that it was rougher and harder to chew.

Grilled Lobster and Gratin

Finally our main course arrived.  There were some potatoes and vegetables along with 5 small pieces of lobster.  I say small because coming from Toronto, I call these lobsters, crayfishes.  3 of them was mixed with garlic sauce while the other 2 were grilled with butter oil.  One could not tell the difference between the two.  However, I do have to say the meat just fell off the shell and it was quite fresh with no hint of mushiness on the meat.  The dish although appearing to be quite small at the beginning did fill us up pretty good.

All in all it was a good experience.  The Lobster House does live up to its name.  Not too sure about the seabird though.  The lobsters in my mind could have been bigger although eating Canadian size lobsters in Iceland is probably a rare thing judging from the fact this is the second time we were served such small lobsters.  Most hotels and tour guides do recommend this place and they also have a $13.99 (roughly) lunch special).  A definite good place to check it out.  I give this a 4 out of 5.

The Lobster House (Humarhúsið)
  Amtmannsstíg 1
  101 Reykjavík

  Tel.: (+354) 561 3303