By Ashley Harris
Lead Writer, The Fifth Course

Food, food, food. It’s almost embarrassing to admit how much food we had gone through during our entire seven weeks in Europe but calories never count when on vacation, don’t they? Another restaurant we had checked out was a cute little spot that went by the name of Mad & Kaffe. This place is special, due to its choose-your-own-adventure style dining, where you are given a choice of three, five or seven items off of the menu and the final result is strategically put together on a wooden serving board. We had found ourselves sitting out on the front patio, as the restaurant was full inside. Brunch seemed like an extremely popular time for Danish locals to meet up and talk about last night’s affairs or the juiciest gossip.

The combination of sweet, salty and savoury worked well in our choices, as we began to taste each other’s items.

Me (7 items)

• Organic Vesterhavsost cheese from Thise with blackcurrant jam
• Scrambled eggs, sautéed brown mushrooms & cress
• Sausage with lovage from Lejre Mikropølsemageri with truffle mayo & cress
• Chicken nugget with chili mayo & cress
• Danish pastry with sea buckthorn
• Icelandic skyr yogurt with red berries
• Cantaloupe with chili spices

Him (7 items)

• Organic Vesterhavsost cheese from Thise with blackcurrant jam
• Scrambled eggs, sautéed brown mushrooms & cress
• Red grapefruit with passionfruit sugar
• Rye bread & sourdough bread from Andersen & Maillard with organic butter
• Cold smoked salmon from Iceland with smoked cheese, cucumber, ryebread crumble & watercress
• Danish pastry with sea buckthorn
• Icelandic skyr yogurt with red berries

Overall, have a seat and play around with the menu at Mad & Kaffe. The fixed price of kr.165 ($34 CAD) for a seven-item board will prove your time and money’s worth. I had hoped to make another stop for brunch before we left for Greece. Though we weren’t successful in returning to try choosing different items for a second time, the contents of this Danish wooden board continues to live in my mind and continues to show up in my own brunches here at home.

Address: Sønder Blvd. 68, 1720 København, Denmark
Phone: +45 31 35 08 80
Hours: Sunday to Saturday – 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.