Tomorrow's THE DAY!

It doesn't matter even though there's barely any snow left on the ground - our après-ski warmly welcomes you to enjoy the Austrian atmosphere in the middle of Finnish winter (or is it spring already?) As a reminder, here's our menu! 

Our superwomen, Tiina and Heidi, have been working with full speed in order to bake delicacies for tomorrow. And based on the pictures, everything looks yummy (despite some technical difficulties)! I am eagerly looking forward to seeing you all in our Austrian-style restaurant at 12-16.

 Oh well, sometimes the technology lets you down.. Luckily the girls had two extra mixers!

 Mhh.. First Sachertorte is ready!

Apples are waiting for Strudel!

As a sneak peak, we’re going to wear our dirndls and braid our hair in order to fit the theme. The decoration will mirror an Alpine village and the Austrian music will give the finishing touch for our après-ski. What are you still waiting for? Dressing up accordingly would be fun but not necessary :)

 Dirndls, one for Tiina and one for me!

What would aprés-ski be without skis?

Since there are a lot of engineers around at Design Factory, there are doing some last minute prototyping about a doorbell. As a specialty, it sounds like a lamb when you ring it.. :D 

Ready!

If you cannot make it to our restaurant, I encourage you to take a close look at the list of restaurants participating and to go at least to one of them in order to get a feeling of what The Restaurant Day stands for: having fun, entrepreneurship and community spirit. Pop-up restaurant hopping instead of bar-hopping is also more than recommendable (and healthier for sure!) ;) See you tomorrow, bis morgen! 

And finally - this is how to make Sachertorte in two minutes!

Prototyping in the kitchen

We gathered together to try the recipes for Restaurant Day at Design Factory. We even had a lot of people to try what we were cooking and they gave us an objective and honest opinion. I must say that the hit of the evening was Sachertorte which tasted so juicy that I’ve never had such a cake in my life! Although I spent some months in Vienna and had one too many pieces of Sachertorte, they used to be quite dry. Our recipe is a bit modified and have to say that it works better than well. One of the jury members, Eetu, the head of Design Factory told us that it was the best Sachertorte he has tasted in his entire life. But don’t take our or his word, come and try yourself!

We also got two new team members: Meri and Maria. Meri was responsible for doing the hardest work i.e. being the first one to wisp everything (although in the end Tiina was the one who had to finish all the mixing with raw power..) and frying the crepes. The second team member, Maria, is going to design everything possible based on our vision. It might not be the easiest task on Earth because we gave only three sources of inspiration: mountains, dirndls and lederhosen. :D But we have a lot of faith in her!

For all interested, our menu is as follows (might not say anything to non-Austrians/German-speakers but one’s best friend Google might help!):

Kaspressknödelsuppe

Frittatensuppe 

Apfelstrudel mit Vanillensoße 

Sachertorte

Heiße Schokolade 

Heiße Saft 

Almdudler

Since pictures tell more than thousand words, here are some during the process

Sachertorte (though not original recipe) was the hit of the evening!

Ladies after cooking

One lonely piece left

Knödels getting ready

Meri preparing the soups

 Knödels in progress

 "This is how you cut the cake!"

 Sacher is ready!!

Austrian soups are rather interesting

 Era of technology - iPad replaces cooking books!

 Yummy!

 Just chilling

Yep, that's Knödel mass

"PICTURE TIME!!"

How's our Skihütte project going on?

Well first of all, look what Amazon brought us – yes it's Almdudler, the famous herbal drink from Austria! And the cherry on top - some Mozart Kugels. Could it be more Austrian? (Austrians, feel free to comment) 

Regarding the logo: from scratch to sketch, here's the first version designed by Tiina's brother Jyri. Some fine-tuning is yet to be done, although I would already say that's a pretty amazing job. We'll see if we have that much snow here in February, but one can always dream :) 

Next week it will be time to taste-test some soups and figure out which are the best recipes. We are also going to make some decorations. We'll see if all of our ideas will work in reality, haha!

Since the Restaurant Day is still some 2,5 weeks away; in the meantime you can tune in to the right mode and start listening to some awesome Austrian folk music :) Happy listening!

And so the story of our pop-up restaurant experiment begins!

Tiina, a friend of mine, came up with the brilliant idea of participating in Restaurant Day while she was working in Graz, Styria (Austria) when she saw the first TEDxTurku video about Restaurant Day. She was feeling a bit home sick, but at the same time she had fallen in love with Austria (again – it was the second time she was living there, the first time being for her exchange in Vienna). And what better – in that situation – than to start planning an Austrian-style Skihütte pop-up restaurant! Since I was doing my exchange in Vienna, Tiina’s status update immediately caught my eye, and I asked if she needed an extra pair of hands. So, I became part of the team – as we all know, teamwork is power!

Just to give you an idea what Restaurant Day is all about!

Our core team consisting of Tiina, Heidi, Fiona and I, had our first planning meeting last week. The Austrian style dinner (which we unfortunately forgot to commemorate with pictures) helped us to get in planning mode, and our ideas started to evolve. Our pop-up restaurant was named ‘Skihütte am Hügelabhang,’ which loosely translates to ‘a ski hut on a hillside.’ We also agreed on the menu, which will include soups as well as Apfelstrudel and Sachertorte (my absolute dessert favourites). Even traditional Almudler can be found in our exclusive selection! ;) Gluten-free and vegetarian options will also be available. Our pop-up restaurant will be located in Vallila (for exact coordinates, take a close look at this link: http://www.restaurantday.org/en/find/?id=52daca870cf239319d8a9e3a ), and a Facebook event will be created soon.

Oh yes, wine was an important element of our delicious dinner!

I’m already so excited and eagerly waiting for 16/2, as is the whole team. Looking forward to sharing this amazing day with a bunch of amazing people – you guys! More sneak peeks to come so stay tuned!

Our logo sketch made by Tiina