One of the more famous spots in Bergen is the Fish Market which is smack in the middle of town. There is an enclosed area that has an actual seafood market along with several restaurants attached to them with nice views of the harbor. Right next to it is an outdoor version with stalls offering slightly more casual fare - lox, chilled seafood, paella, fish soup, whale meat, and fried seafood. At first I was super excited to visit it, but after visiting it, it was a bit of a disappointment. It's rather small - you can walk through the whole thing in less than 15 mins and all the stalls pretty much offer the exact same line-up of food. They also know that it's catered to tourists so when you're walking through, the workers will just start screaming at you to come check out their food. It's really quite distracting and annoying - especially the ones who were screaming at me in Chinese (there is a shockingly large number of Chinese tourists in Norway).
I almost didn't want to eat here but I felt like I would regret if I didn't, plus I love seafood and getting a sit down seafood meal elsewhere would be really expensive. I looked around and decided on this place right by the beginning of the outdoor market - they had a plate of chilled seafood that looked pretty decent and seating in the back. The plate had several pieces of smoked salmon, chilled tiny shrimp, chilled langostino tails (they're like tiny lobster tails), and caviar on a piece of bread with garlic mayo - all on a giant bed of iceberg lettuce (175 Krone = $20 USD with a diet coke). It looked nice enough and while it was a fun experience to have, from a culinary standpoint, this seafood snob wasn't really blown away by it. It was missing seasoning to it as it was all a bit bland (except for the lox which was super salty). Also the bulk of the dish was really the lettuce which if you know me, I hate iceberg lettuce. It didn't come with any dressing, so I was basically eating a seafood salad plain. I guess it was healthy and good for me? I wouldn't tell people to not come here because it is such a central part of the city and it is a fun experience to sit outside and have an affordable meal. I just wouldn't necessarily get your hopes up that this is some super traditional local experience with really high quality ingredients.
Overall, I really fell in love with Denmark and Norway. Stunning scenery, stunning people, cool design and at least in Copenhagen, it's really becoming a culinary hot spot. I would most definitely recommend this part of Europe to anyone (who can afford it!), especially in the summer time when the sun is out for 20 hours and the temperature is a fantastic and comfortable 60-70 degrees. Take me back!
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