AQ Kafe

Over Labor Day weekend, after a bird crapped on my head, we went for lunch at AQ Kafe, a Scandinavian cafe near Columbus Circle. We like Scandinavian food, with its clean and healthy dishes, but hadn't yet tried this cafe.

We split two dishes.  One was the gravlax sandwich (cured salmon, red onion, avocado, mustard), which also came with a side salad.

Gravlax sandwich

Salmon, greens, avocado and mustard

We have had better gravlax but this sandwich wasn't bad.  The salmon tasted fresh and clean, the greens added a nice crispiness, the avocado and mustard added creamy texture and flavor.  The bread was probably the weakest part of the sandwich as it wasn't anything too special, and I had trouble biting it.  The side salad was pretty much mixed greens with a light coating of dressing. It was fresh and clean which was nice to have but not amazing.

The other dish we split was the Swedish meatball entree (meatballs, pickled cucumbers, lingonberries, mashed potatoes, cream sauce).

I liked the arrangement of this plate, separating each part of the dish into its own section. It looked so uncluttered.  The mashed potatoes, cucumbers and lingonberries were fairly standard and about what you would expect from them. 

The meatballs came covered in the usual gravy, which in this case was necessary since the meatballs themselves were a little dry (especially in the middle). I'm not sure if it's because the meatballs were of a slightly larger size than some other Swedish meatballs we've had, but after biting into them, we had to add more gravy to them each time in order to improve the flavor and texture. We've definitely had better meatballs.  Might even say they are better at Ikea, which offers them to the masses at a fraction of the price.

Our meal at AQ Kafe wasn't bad, but it wasn't as good as the other Scandinavian food we've had.  We've only written here about the Scandinavian kiosk at the Epcot Food & Wine Festival but we liked those (small) plates more.  The other thing about AQ Kafe was that prices were pretty high. Not that surprising since it's a (non-Ikea) Scandinavian place, but another reason we might not return.