Mmm...Eggs

I've suffered from a deepening obsession with Denmark in general and Copenhagen in particular for months. More recently, Passover reminded me that hard boiled eggs are a delicious snack. And now, The New York Times brings it all together:

Everything is red inside bordello-like Bo-Bi Bar (Klareboderne 14; 45-33-12-55-43): the faded Baroque-style wallpaper, the threadbare curtains, the smoke-soaked lampshades — and especially the swollen, grinning faces of the numerous regulars. Few bars in Copenhagen draw such a diverse crowd, which on a recent night included 20-something cool kids, 30-something intellectuals and some thin ageless barflies with names like Ole and Jonas. Founded in 1917, this city-center institution remains resolutely old school. Cellphones may not be used inside, digital cameras can be used only with permission, and the marquee attraction on the three-item food menu is hard-boiled eggs. (“They’re a good food when you’re drunk,” says the bartender Nanna Sarauw. “They get people straight.”)

These days, though, I assume that buying a beer at a bar in Copenhagen is prohibitively expensive for those of us holding U.S. currency.

Comments

It's prohibitively expensive for pretty much anyone - £5-£6 a pint.

Posted by Ginger Yellow | April 24, 2008 12:30 PM

Another slice of life in that neck of the woods:

http://www.break.com/index/creepy-dutch-tv-host.html

Posted by steve duncan | April 24, 2008 12:30 PM

The price of beer in Copenhagen shouldn't bother a trust-fund scumbag. Just saying.

Posted by otto | April 24, 2008 12:38 PM

Copenhagen is pretty awesome.

I was there is '88 and the price of beer was freakin' expensive then, I shudder to think what it is now with the weak dollar.

Posted by Eric K | April 24, 2008 12:43 PM

A pint will cost you about $12, as of last November.

Posted by Drew Steen | April 24, 2008 12:51 PM

It's not too bad. A pint will cost you from 20-30 kroner at the classic bodegas where the local drunks hang out to 45-50 kroner at the less snobby downtown places to 70 kroners in the trendy bars. The only exception is Nyhavn where you can get the seedy, but cozy, atmosphere of the local bodegas but pay the price of the pretentious upscale bars.

The current exchange rate is 0.21$ for one Dkk.

Posted by Mike in Denmark | April 24, 2008 1:09 PM

We'll be taking domestic vacation trips for the indefinite future.

$12 beers? My Aunt Fanny.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | April 24, 2008 1:36 PM

Don't know about beer or about Copenhagen, but was just in Stockholm last weekend and felt the price of $18 for a cocktail was insanity. And I live in London, so when I travel elsewhere and the prices are worse, that's just really no fair.

Posted by Will Hutchinson | April 24, 2008 1:40 PM

Try Sephardic huevos haminados - hard-boiled eggs via Spain rather than Copenhagen. You slow-roast them in the oven on low overnight, cooked with onion skins, a little coffee, a little oil, and water to cover.

They come out mahogany-colored (beautiful on the Seder plate) and taste terrific.

Posted by Genevieve | April 24, 2008 2:05 PM

Was in Copenhagen last summer, though I didn't get out to clubs or anything like that. We actually stayed at a fantastic neighborhood apartment/B&B for $100/night, and we discovered that prices at supermarkets (for bottled water and such) were surprisingly reasonable.

Prices aside, what a wonderful, wonderful city.

Posted by pdp | April 24, 2008 2:11 PM

In fact, Bo-Bi Bar is a famous hangout for drunken danish writers, though mostly of the fiction- or poetry-writing kind. It's placed across the street from our oldest and most prestigious publishing house, Gyldendal. The beers would be just about 5 dollars for a bottle.

A very appropriate place for Matt to hang out, if he ever came to Copenhagen.

Posted by nexo | April 24, 2008 2:30 PM

In fact, Bo-Bi Bar is a famous hangout for drunken danish writers, though mostly of the fiction- or poetry-writing kind. It's placed across the street from our oldest and most prestigious publishing house, Gyldendal. The beers would be just about 5 dollars for a bottle.

A very appropriate place for Matt to hang out, if he ever came to Copenhagen.

Posted by nexo | April 24, 2008 2:30 PM

Just out of curiosity: How much does a pint of Ben and Jerry's cost in the US? Here in Copenhagen it's 53 kroner or about 11$.

Posted by Mike in Denmark | April 24, 2008 2:53 PM

if you like hard-boiled eggs, get an Egg Cooker that steams hard-boiled eggs (7 at time) - simple, quick, painlessly and flawlessly, every time. I got mine at Target on an impulse buy for about $20 about 3 years ago - one of my best purchases ever.
The egg whites are excellent lean sources of protein for your new exercise program.

Posted by Ethel-to-Tilly | April 24, 2008 2:58 PM

the price of $18 for a cocktail was insanity

No different than many spots in NYC.

Posted by Al | April 24, 2008 3:11 PM

So, are we to take from this that Matt actually celebrates Passover? How could any good progressive do so? It is the prototypical Likudnik-Zionist-Neocon holiday. Look how many innocent Egyptian civilians suffered and died during the plagues because those rotten, trouble-making Jooos prayed for freedom and deliverance. I mean, how indiscriminate! And, let us all remember that but for the Exodus, where G-d took the Jews out of slavery and gave them the Torah (how terribly exclusive and ethnocentric!) and then cared for them 40 years in the desert, all in fulfillment of the promise to Abraham that the Jews would live and rule in the Land of Caanan, which of course all progressives know was actually Palestine (the Caananites were the first people to suffer under a ZOG!), today's "occupation" of Palestine and oppression of the peace loving and democratic Palestinian people never would have occurred! So, all of you who are really progressive and truly on the left side of history, repeat after me: Down with Passover! Down with matza and horseradish! Down with Likudnik-Zionist-Neocon celebrations of oppression! Victory to Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, Fatah and anyone else who fights the ZOG and its tools, including hard boiled eggs!

Posted by Eagle613 | April 24, 2008 3:14 PM

"swollen faces"?

What's wrong with those people?

Posted by Jon H | April 24, 2008 4:32 PM

While visiting Chicago with my boyfriend, we went out one night to a French restaurant to have a drink. A diplomatic discussion ensued over whether the tree-like appartatus on the bar held hard-boiled eggs, egg-shells, or uncooked eggs.

When the bartender came over he confirmed they were hardboiled eggs, "They are free. Have one!"

Free hard boiled eggs. Doesn't get much better than that.

Posted by CHoward | April 24, 2008 4:35 PM

Coming from New York, a beer in Copenhagen is actually not that expensive -- usually about $5 or $6, but you aren't expected to tip. Mixed drinks are always a bad deal.

Posted by Rachel | April 24, 2008 4:54 PM

Just out of curiosity: How much does a pint of Ben and Jerry's cost in the US? Here in Copenhagen it's 53 kroner or about 11$.

I think $3-4 in most grocery stores. Most things are more expensive in Europe. And harder to get.

Posted by Mixner | April 24, 2008 5:11 PM

I remember the dope in Copenhagen was puissant. And, that it was a pretty bike ride from the city to the 'burbs. But, hard-boiled eggs? Uggg.

Posted by Trevor | April 24, 2008 5:18 PM

I paid 52 kroner for a pint of Carlsberg in January, which is $11 according to the Google. That was in a karaoke bar in central Copenhagen, so I'm sure you could do better.

Now I'm back in the land of $1.75 Hamms. God bless America (and let Cascadia be blessed as well, though not by God).

Posted by Evan | April 24, 2008 6:19 PM

Hard boiled eggs on the bar were common in the U.S. in "workingmens" bars in ye olden days. In the 1970's, one might still see them now and then in neighborhood street corner dives, especially in small bars passed down in families, because they would keep the tradition like dad and grandpa did. They were usually free for the asking (along the lines of salty snacks offered today.) Before all poultry products became something that had to be handled like toxic waste because of salmonella et. al., hard-boiled eggs were something that "kept" for many days without needing refrigeration. Pickled eggs were an alternative you might see in some areas.

Posted by artappraiser | April 25, 2008 3:10 AM