Iceland — Blog — Gary Wong

Beers 🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺
Breweries 🍻🍻🍻
Cocktails 🍹🍹🍹🍹🍹🍹
Ramen 🍜🍜
Hot Dogs 🌭🌭
Foodstuff 🐓🐑🐄🐖🦐🦞
Baked Goods 🥖🥯🥐
Museums 🏛🏛🏛
Runs 🏃🏻‍♂️🏃🏻‍♂️🏃🏻‍♂️
Flights ✈️✈️

#reykinat41

For the first time in 563 days, I got on a plane and left the United States of America. That was the longest I’d gone without traveling to another country since going nine-plus years from 2004-2013. For my inaugural international trip (with a new passport, to boot!), I settled on Reykjavík even though I’d been there before. That familiarity wasn’t an inconsequential factor in my choice of destination; it didn’t hurt that Iceland had done a very good job with vaccinating their residents. All in all, i felt incredibly comfortable going back there.

The weekend I visited was supposed to when they held a marathon but it was cancelled a few weeks before the trip. I had planned on running that one as my second 20-mile training run for Chicago. August in Iceland is ideal running weather as the temperature never leaves the 50s with the only complicating factor being precipitation. I ended up doing my long run following most of the marathon route with a 70% chance of run only to never encounter a single drop. Glorious. The only real impediment to my runs was the fowl traffic.

Last time I went, I did the a bus tour of the Golden Circle. This time around, I opted to see South Iceland. There were waterfalls, glaciers, and a black sand beach - all of it was breathtakingly beautiful. Seeing it all in one day was a lot with a few 30-60 minute stops sprinkled throughout a 10-hour out-and-back bus ride. It’s just enough time to take in the beauty of it all but it could feel rushed at times.

Speaking of beauty, let’s talk about the food in Reykjavík. There are a lot great restaurants in the city, some of which are Michelin-quality. The standout meal on this trip was dinner the first night at Sumac Grill + Drinks, a place that served Middle Eastern cuisine made with fresh Icelandic ingredients. Everything about this meal was excellent between the cocktails, the food, and sitting at the bar, talking to the chef throughout the night. Reservations go quickly here but if you’re rolling solo or just a pair, a spot at the bar across from the open kitchen is the pro move.

Standout meal 1a would go to dinner at Matur og Drykkur, which was originally intended to be a post-marathon celebratory tasting menu tour de force. This one was a more traditionally Icelandic though gussied up and modernized, of course. I had lamb multiple times during this trip (it’s easily the most plentiful of the land-based animal meats) and the lamb served here was the best I had the entire trip.

One last note about the food in Reykjavík - there’s actually decent ramen to be found! I had two bowls of ramen and while one was merely decent (wouldn’t go out of my way to go there again), the other was a great bowl that I would have gone back to if they had been open on Sunday. The TANTAMEN Nº11 at Ramen Momo, the combination of a great broth and house-made noodles, was delicious.

No discussion about eating (and drinking) in Iceland is complete without talking about the cost. You’re gonna pay a lot for just about everything. At least with the drinking part, there’s plenty of happy hours to be found, starting as early as noon each day with most going from 4 pm to 7 pm. If you’re gonna go for some alcohol, happy hour is the time to do it. The price of food is more or less gonna be what you get so it actually makes more sense to work meals around where you want to go for drinks.