Monday
Mar292010
Xich Lo - Oslo, Norway
Monday, March 29, 2010 at 6:57PM 
We had the day off here in Oslo, Norway and I would have done more had I not realized that Oslo-ans make 4 times more money than we do in the states and therefore everything is 4 times more expensive. We found out that McDonald's employees make a whopping 130kr (~20USD) per hour! You can't go to Burger King and get a whopper meal for less than $15 USD. Needless to say it was going to be a challenge to try to find a place that would satisfy my yearning for good food and keep it under 20 bucks.
I had my work cut out for me but I did the classic move of asking around. My first thing to ask was . . . "Where should I eat? Lemme rephrase that. Where should I eat and not pay and arm and a leg?" The concierge lets out a chuckle and gives me this look as if saying "Silly American you can't eat for cheap in Oslo!" I guess I'm a poor judge of character because he says "Just down the street is a great little Vietnamese place, hardly anyone in the place and it's very reasonably priced. It's just above the 7 Eleven on the second story of the building." I was floored, he just hit all the points I was looking for: 1) Vietnamese, 2) Cheap, 3) Hardly anyone there! Have I just been blessed again by the culinary gods?!
Xich Lo is very nice. I'm not going to say it's a cheap dive you can find authentic Vietnamese food in. In fact they don't actually have any authentic dishes at all. The dish I got was what would traditionally be a Chicken Bun (vermicelli noodles with grilled chicken). The restaurant didn't even have pho which I was hoping for. Nonetheless, the food was very well prepared and flavorful. And the nice lemon, mint, orange water, that they serve with the food is a nice touch too.
Cheers,
--Joe Kwon
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tagged bun, chicken, norway, oslo, vietnamese in Oslo, Norway
bun, chicken, norway, oslo, vietnamese in Oslo, Norway
Reader Comments (1)
Australia should be a lot better for you than Scandinavian nations. They don't take their food seriously because it is so expensive to eat out. They don't do it very frequently so it is really hard to find good food. The waiter may make $20 but the IT guy makes $21.