Halvorsens Conditori

It's fair to say that I have been warned often enough about how expensive Oslo is.  Between the varying exchange rate, the decimal points (my maths has suffered since the introduction of the Euro), and the fact that I haven't really been here for more than a week in the past, I sort of thought it was ok.  Expensive, but ok.  As long as one didn't go in for too many bottles of wine with a meal etc. it would be alright.  On Saturday, the bubble burst.

We were shopping in town and decided to go for lunch.  Henrik suggested this cake shop which is tucked in beside the Parliament and the Freemason Building. (Ahem).  It looked really lovely, and we were starving so we decided to go in.  On the way we passed a beautiful old-fashioned window cake-display.  This looked like the place for me!

According to Visitnorway.com, Halvorsens has served cakes, french pastries, sandwiches and canapés to the people of Oslo since 1881.  Had I read this before going in, the word canapés might have rung some warning bells.  However, none the wiser, and having passed the lovely cake display, in we went.  We passed an amazing looking counter with fabulous fresh cakes:

And really healthy looking sandwiches:

We also found a nice seat in a corner beside a photo of what the place looked like in 1881:

By the looks of things there weren't many customers back then.  But on Saturday, it was full of the pleasant hustle and bustle of people popping in for a nice afternoon cake and cafe:

As I mentioned, we were starving, so we decided to have a sandwich first, and maybe think about a cake later.  This was the moment where things started to go a little bit pear shaped.  Why?  Well, the sandwiches were made for, well, lilliputians I suppose.  An entire smoked salmon sandwich, no joke, was one slice of bread (that tiny bimbo bread) with one slice of salmon, and surprise egg underneath.  Check out the size of the slice of lemon below as a reference point.

Henrik ordered coffee and the pot that came with it was tiny, as was the glass of water I ordered.  It was pretty much a shot glass!  Fair enough I thought, maybe these Norwegians are really healthy and don't actually eat so much for lunch.  I should probably try to adapt to this custom, it might do me some good.  Then I saw the bill:

212 NOK, probably about 25e for two slices of bread with some food on them and a tiny pot of coffee!!!  The smoked salmon sandwich pictured above actually cost about 12e!!  NUTS.  I don't think I've ever eaten anywhere this expensive, and it wasn't even clear what we were paying for.  I mean, it wasn't as if some super chef was required to make the 'sandwiches', although maybe balancing all the tiny pieces of food on the tiny slice of bread is challenging.  I suppose the atmosphere was nice, but COME ON! Needless to say, we didn't hang around for cake.