Tallinn Trip – Vana Villem Pub

The first evening’s meal was at Vana Villem. We had the usual system that I chose three places that seemed excellent (and that I wanted to go to) and everyone then chooses between them. It’s a win-win, I get what I want and everyone gets a classy dining experience. This is really my benevolent dictator style of leadership, like a king giving his subjects some appearance of choice. This option was only a ten minute walk from the hotel and had a traditional feel to it, so proved the most popular.

It was certainly atmospheric. It wasn’t clear whether this was a modern recreation or an old building, we suspected the former.

There were some Oktoberfest options and I went for two of the German food choices. I didn’t feel that I needed a litre of German beer.

The beer selection was more substantial that I had expected. This is the Abstraction from Tanker Brewery, a fruity, juicy and hoppy beer. I couldn’t identify what sort of fruit it was, my palate isn’t that advanced.

I went for two starters from the German menu, sausage soup with sour cream and bread. It had some depth to it, it was hot and the flavours were pleasant.

And the second starter, potato salad with a sausage, which was rather less meaty than perhaps would have been ideal, but the salad was creamy.

Some of the decorative features.

The dessert of chocolate fondant worked nicely, it was runny inside and the pomegranate seeds added texture. The drink is Sauna Session from Tanker Brewery, apparently it was birchy (auto-correct is trying desperately to change that to bitchy) but I don’t know birch tastes or smells like. It had a slight herbal and medicinal edge to the beer.

The payment process was smooth and the waitress was able to remember what we’d all had to put together five different receipts, quite a forensic achievement. I hadn’t expected this, but it transpired to be something that was commonplace in Tallinn, I was suitably impressed as I can imagine I would have wilted at such a request at the end of a meal. Bev only had a few minor complaints and Susanna sent her main course back so it didn’t get cold whilst she had her starters, but Ross, Steve and I experienced no issues. To be honest, we are the three unsung heroes when ordering food, like culinary commandos trying to deliver a smooth and timely dining experience for all.