Baltic States Tour - Riga, Latvia 1

We flew to Riga, the capital of Latvia from Tallinn. The flight time was only 35 minutes.

Riga is located about 15 km (9 mile) above the mouth of the River Daugava on Gulf of Riga, a bay of the Baltic Sea between Latvia and Estonia. I was able to see the mouth clearly before landing.

Riga is famous with its large and fine collection of art nouveau buildings. When we arrived at the Old Town, I immediately realized that we time-traveled from the Middle Age to around 1900. 

It was already the early evening. J's choice of the place for dinner was Zviedru vārti. The family-run, homely serves traditional Latvian dishes that we were eager to try.

For starter we ordered was grey peas with smoked meat. Served as hot, it was nicely tart with vinegar and actually lighter than what it looked. We simply liked it.

We also shared a traditional Latvian fish snack plate, which was served as cold. There were four kinds of herrings. All was nice. One of them tasted very familiar, just like a Sushi topping in Japan.

We had two main dishes to share. One was traditional Latvian Dumplings with beef (or/and lamb?) filling. Pepper, white vinegar, a mix of chopped fresh scallion and dill, and sour cream were served as condiments. The dumplings were delicious. They reminded me of Sui-Gyoza, Japanese boiled dumplings. If there were soy sauce instead of sour cream, the dish would be tasted very much like Sui-Gyoza. 

The other main was fried Baltic herrings, served with mashed potatoes and salad. They were lovely, too.

For dessert we tried rye bread soup with fruit and whipped cream, a traditional Latvian dessert. It is named soup but the texture was more like pudding. Rye bread soup is generally made with oven-toasted and then boiled rye bread along with dried apples, cinnamon, raisins, plums, cranberries and a little sugar. The soup is chilled and served with whipped cream like this one. It was superb. Our waitress told us it would be in a small cup in advance, so we ordered one for each. That was a wise decision. I wouldn't have wanted to share it. I wonder how I could find a good recipe to make my own soup.

We were very happy and satisfied with the dinner and looked forward to exploring Riga the next day.

To be continued...