Food
Soup ( supp ), dark bread ( leib ), sour cream ( hapukoor ) and herring ( heeringas ) figure prominently in the Estonian diet, a culinary legacy of the country's largely peasant past, and if you like your food without frills you can eat very well here. A typical national dish is verevorst and mulgikapsad (blood sausage and sauerkraut), and you're also likely to encounter various kinds of smoked fish, particularly eel ( angerjas ), perch ( ahven ) and pike ( haug ). You'll really have to be invited into a local home to enjoy Estonian food at its best as, unfortunately, the average restaurant ( restoran ) tends to serve up hearty international meat dishes - the most common of which is karbonaad , basically pork chop (sometimes fried in batter) - with potatoes and seasonal vegetables. You might occasionally encounter game, and several ethnic restaurants break the culinary monotony in Tallinn. Vegetarianism is not a widely understood concept. When eating out you're often better off heading for bars and cafes, many of which serve snack dishes and even full meals, and where the bill is likely to be less than in a restaurant. By and large you should be able to have a decent meal (two courses and a drink) for less than 130EEK and you'd have to really push the boat out for the bill to come to more than 200EEK. If you really want to keep costs down there are various fast-food options. Some establishments going under the name of cafe ( kohvik ) are essentially canteen-style restaurants where you can pick up main courses and dishes-of-the-day for as little as 30EEK, as well as basic soups, salads and sweets. There's also a growing number of pizzerias, many of which offer a range of pasta dishes. For self-catering, food shopping poses no major problems with staples like bread, cheese, smoked meat and tinned fish all available in supermarkets, and fresh fruit and vegetables available in markets.
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