I Tried the World’s Most UNUSUAL Buffet!! (in Greenland.

My first ever in life Greenlandic buffet. Oh, wow. Today we're trying a buffet you cannot eat anywhere else on earth. For 20 years, I've been eating buffets all over the world. But let me tell you, nothing has been even remotely similar to this. Right in the heart of Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, Chef Agu has laid out a buffet that includes 25 dishes of traditional Greenlandic food. absolutely nothing here is farmed or raised. Everything is wild, natural, literally sourced straight from the Arctic. So today, our challenge is to try all 25 dishes at the buffet, every single dish. And I'm telling you, at least half of them, you won't find anywhere else. Welcome to the center of Nuuk, Greenland. This is, believe it or not, the downtown, probably the busiest area in Nuuk, probably in all of Greenland. And this is home to Hotel Hans Egede, which is home to the Greenlandic Buffet, first ever Greenland Buffet that I'm gonna try with Greenlandic food. And before the buffet starts, we're getting here a little bit early to meet up with Chef Agu, who's gonna show us around, and we're gonna see some of the food before we get started eating. What's up, Chef Agu? Hello. Nice to see you. You too, and welcome to Greenland as well. Thank you, thank you. And we're here for the buffet. So it's like 30 minutes before the buffet right now. Things are pretty busy. Chef Agu is like preparing there. All the chefs are preparing the final touches. So it's all like Greenlandic food. Yeah, mainly Greenlandic, of course. The veggies and all that is mainly important, but all of the meats and fish and shrimps, crab, all that, it's caught locally. Very cool. Is there any strategy that I need to know? I wouldn't say. Go in with an open heart and open mind. Yeah, very cool. And I think I'm pretty sure that a buffet, a Greenlandic buffet, is different from anything, any other buffet you'll see anywhere else in the world. And so I think, like, the finishing touches are going. We're going to start with all the different cold appetizer dishes before we move into the hot main courses, main dishes. Yeah. Very cool. The dining room is really nice. We're on the fifth floor overlooking downtown Nuuk. There's a couple of different dining room sections. I love the open windows, all the natural light coming in and yeah we got here a little early so they're just now setting out the cold station of the buffet first. More things are coming out. So for starters we are only serving the cold for about 30 minutes then the rest will come in in waves. Okay. But if we start from here we have some lump fish roe also caught here locally in Nuuk. Then we have some marinated whale with soya, some shrimps, dried cut, gravel eggs, marinated scallops as well as snow crabs that are also caught locally very cool then we have the meat section here where we have some smoked muskox oh that's the one in the smoker down there yeah exactly okay oh amazing and then we have some reindeer sausage or salami cured porpoise which is like a smaller whale okay then we have the mattek okay oh the blubber and the skin yeah tell me about mattek it's mainly just once you catch the whale and put the whale off the shore you will take all the skin off as well as the blubber and then you uh divide it into sections and give it out locally or you sell it and we mainly eat it even fresh okay so is the what's the difference between the white part and the black part it's the it's depending on the uh species uh the darker ones are from the narwhal and the white one is from the beluga oh okay one One of the most unique buffet experiences I think you could possibly have. So many different unique dishes and meats and everything Greenlandic. This is just only the beginning of the buffet. All right, here we go. Round one, the cold table. This is where the real Greenland lives. Raw, cured, dried, straight off the ice. There's some interesting things here. Thank you. Soy marinated whale, that looks awesome. And then lumpfish roe, yeah, thank you. Okay, now like the preserved meats, muskox carpaccio, raw muskox, wow, smoked reindeer, matak. Now we have reindeer sausage, smoked muskox. This is such a unique plate of food. Okay, I think our strategy here, let's kind of ease our way in to some of the meats. So, I'm gonna start with that reindeer sausage first. Look at salami. Wow, it's fatty and meaty. Oh, it's stunning. So good. Cheers, guys. Christian is here. Rene. Cheers. Cheers, guys. Buffet, Greenlandic buffet. Stunning. Really exactly what I want. Yeah, the quality is fantastic, right? Yeah. Yep. And this is like... You can see the sophistication of the chefs here. Mm-hmm. Especially of Agu. Oh, yeah. Agu and the whole team. Just imagine back in the days, you know, when the Inuit here ate whale and now they make a carpaccio, whale carpaccio and reindeer salami. Yeah, it's a bit of a step up from what you'd get here like, you know, 150 years ago. But I never thought you can get a whale carpaccio. But yeah, never failed to surprise you. Next up, I think I'm gonna go for a piece of the matak. Man, this is the whale fat and blubber, and even holding it in your fingers, You can feel the like oiliness, the richness of it, like almost melting in your fingers. Does have a unique aroma smell to it. And typically you eat it with this seasoned salt, but I'll just try a piece on its own first. That is so rich and fatty and kind of melts in your mouth. Like a nutty, like lotion-y consistency, but the crunch, yeah, but it has this really like cartilage-y kind of crunch and crispiness almost in your mouth. Okay, I'm gonna go for the next piece of the matak. This is a different, different taste. It has a little bit of a stronger aroma, but the flavor's not that strong. There's texture that kind of like melts with the blubber and the fat, but then it's hard little crunchies. It's quite a texture, unlike anything else. And this is like one of the essential nutritional foods of Greenlandic Inuit. Okay, this one is the smoked muskox. Oh, that's fantastic. infused with the smoke. Nice and tender actually as well. Next up, I think I'll follow that with some of the muskox pastrami, which I covered in this like, looks like a, almost like a chimichurri sauce. Muskox pastrami. Yeah, that is a little bit kind of like muscular. You can feel the muscularness of that one. We have muskox in like so many varieties. This one is the muskox carpaccio. Raw muskox. My first room. The raw muskox. Oh, it has like a little bit of a gamey taste. It is like beef, but a bit stronger, I think. That's actually very smooth, the raw version, the carpaccio. Mm, really good. So we had three different types of muskox already. And I think for the hot dishes, there might be another version. Moving on to the next meat, this is the smoked reindeer. Wow, that is incredible. They're so pure, so clean. Smoked, but like so lean as well. Like no fat in it, just pure protein. And in the meantime, we'll move on to my piece of bread. One side is butter with angelica, which is a local plant, a local herb, which I saw Chef Agu preparing in the kitchen. And then on the other side is the lumpfish roe with cream and onions. That bread is great. The butter, the angelica herb, which has a little bit of like, Chef Agu said it has a little bit of like a celery-ish flavor to it, but it's local. One of the shrubs you can see on the side of the rock here in Greenland. That's not a really strong flavor, but it's kind of like an essence, kind of like celery. And then for the lumpfish roe, the lumpfish roe is not quite as salty as some other fish roe, but it has that nice little beads that kind of, yeah, they do pop in your mouth. And then crunch of the onion, that sour cream, it's actually remarkably not fishy at all. I love the texture, the little beads. Okay, next up I'll try one of the marinated scallops. Oh man, it's just straight butter, like melts in your mouth. And that sauce, I wasn't sure what that sauce was when I put it on, kind of has like a fruity tomato flavor. Pure butter. Okay, this is dill-cured salmon or gravlax. Oh wow, so buttery, just melts in your mouth, coated in dill, oh, love it. Okay, next up, this one is whale, which is marinated in soy. It has this really red meat flavor to it, kind of like an irony flavor, but at the same time, it's soaked in with that soy sauce and the sesame seeds, and then the texture kind of, It's more tender than I had imagined. It's raw. Really red. Oh. Yeah, it's good. It's like not too strong in flavor. Really soft and tender. Just absorbed with that soy sauce and those sesame seeds. Okay, then on that note, I'll go for some of the salads. I got some of the green bean salad and some of the other salad as well. Just good, just refreshing. And kind of nice to be able to break up all the proteins with some greens as well. Okay, next up, this really dark piece of meat is a porpoise. Whoa, and you slice through it with a knife. It's just like with a butter knife. It's so tender. And wow, that is really, really dark in color. That it almost is like a beetroot or even darker than beetroot. Wow, that has a little bit of a bloody taste to it. It's like the fibers of the meat just kind of like melt and disintegrate in your mouth. Almost like livery because of the bloodiness. Almost like spreadable. It's just like soft and buttery. Wow. Okay, we've got the Arctic shrimp, local Greenlandic shrimp. Oh, those are so good. Firm, meaty, so sweet. Just absorbed with that, the cleanness of the Arctic seas and the Greenlandic seas. Oh, yeah. Phenomenal. For the appetizers, comes down to the snow crab. Oh, this is my first taste, actually, of Greenlandic snow crab. Oh, whole nugget. Oh, the ratio of sweetness and salinity. Perfect. It's juicy, it's fresh, it's stringy. Oh, that is wonderful. Oh, yeah. So I think we have, I have one more crab claw to eat here, but I think we've worked through all of the appetizer dishes from here. We'll move into the main courses. Oh, what a nugget. Oh, it's so juicy. We had the first course with all the different cold dishes, which was incredible. And now they stagger it. So they bring out all the hot dishes, the main courses. Yeah. So Chef Agu, yeah, what do we have? Here with the meats, we have some reindeer as well as muskox and lamb from South Greenland. Then we have a game stew with both muskox and reindeer. Amazing. Mixed together and just boiled to deliciousness. Cool. Then we have our local arctic char, just baked, simple. All right. With a shellfish sauce, a fumet. Cool. And then a game sauce made with reindeer. Okay, so that game sauce can be eaten with any of the red meats? Yeah, exactly. Okay. This is our sauce with whale, it's porridge with rice and potatoes and onions, as well as whale meat, of course. Thank you. Okay, so that's the main course, the hot meats. Everything looks incredible. And again, everything is local, Greenlandic proteins, which is incredible as well. I'm excited to try, well, we have to try again, a little bit of everything. We're 16 dishes in, and that was just the cold food. Now we're moving on to round two, the Arctic Hot Main Dishes. Okay, so time for all the main courses. It's good variety again, and I'm going to start with the suaas set, which is one of Greenland's national dishes. It can be made with a variety of different things, including seal is also very common, but this one is made with whale. Thank you. Oh, that is... There's onions, there's potatoes, and then pieces of whale in here. Mmm. You can feel that is warming. That's like a dish you would want to be eating in the wintertime or even in the summertime Greenland it's still cold but it's rich it's hearty pieces of whale almost tastes livery and then the sweet onions and potatoes in there really good this incredible plate of meats I'm going to start with the roasted musk ox with that I think chef said that's game gravy all the gravy is amazing a rich depth of flavor I think he said drippings of musk ox of reindeer with some herbs in there. Oh, muskox is great. It's like a roast beef, but with a little bit more of a powerful flavor. Yeah, this is like an entire Greenlandic roast dinner. The gravy is incredible. And then this stew is a mix of, Chef Algo said it's a mix of muskox and reindeer. Probably like all the drippings and all the little bits that get shredded into a stew, cooked down with a little bit of vegetables as well. Oh, that one is amazing. I think with the sweetness of the onions and carrots, it's like a shredded game meat of Greenland. rich hearty natural fantastic okay moving on for the Greenlandic Arctic char with a shellfish sauce well that just kind of dissolves in your mouth a flavor that's similar to salmon or trout but from the fresh clear water streams and we did go fishing one day caught a few small Arctic char in the wild so this is the Arctic char season all that just like flakes apart it's buttery this one is quite lean as well not too fatty that rich flavor and with that shellfish sauce to bring out the flavor even more oh yeah okay so next up for the lamb roasted lamb and this is raised but still like Greenlandic which they raise lamb in the south of Greenland yeah Greenlandic lamb is really fatty really flavorful with that gravy wow oh it's tender it is nice and fatty too Greenlandic lamb is fatty i think no it needs the fat to survive the temperatures here but That is so clean, so natural tasting. I mean, a combination of that fresh Greenlandic air, the environment, I mean, you taste the environment in the lamb as you do with everything on this plate. Okay, and the next protein, I think I'll add a little pepper, is the roasted reindeer, which is also excellent. Tender, lean, natural. You can almost taste the mountain, the rocky herbs that the reindeer eats within that bite. Oh Yeah, that is I need to lean back in my chair, but that is the main course that is a lot of meat That's a lot of protein a lot of natural Greenlandic meats I need a little breather But I think we did manage to eat all the every single appetizer and every single main course Now we have the dessert coming up. But something I really love about the buffet is that it's it's manageable. It's not gigantic It's not one of these 300 dish international buffets that takes this massive strategy to try to eat what you want to get and navigate and try to maximize your stomach space. This one is manageable, so you can taste a little bit of everything. It's quality over quantity. But yeah, it's also, this buffet is actually also quite a fascinating education. Of course, it's a modern day buffet now, and it's adapted to modern life, but still so many of the dishes and the process of everything still holds true as it's done for hundreds, for thousands of years. Hunting is a part of everyday life in Greenland, and I think just about everyone from Greenland knows how to hunt. So far, so good. We've tried every cold dish and every hot dish, and now Greenland has to answer a question. What does the Arctic do for dessert? Nice. I like the dessert. It's quite manageable. There is a lemon mousse there is Greenlandic cake and then the final dessert is a pavlova christians from New Zealand yeah it's good came all the way to Greenland for some Greenlandic pavlova came all the way to Greenland to find out that they make a better pavlova in Greenland who invented it probably Greenland all the places yeah Greenland invented it all i know now awesome what was your your favorite thing at the buffet? I love the gravlax with salmon with dill. It was just wonderful. Rene, what was your favorite thing at the buffet? I think the muskox roasted muskox maybe. Oh yeah. Okay so let's try the pavlova. Oh that is good. Completely that like crispy meringue just completely collapses in your mouth with the cream with the fresh fruit on top. Not too sweet. I love how it just collapses and just disintegrates in your mouth. It is really good. And then we got got the lemon mousse. Oh, I think that's the angelica in there too. The arctic herb. That's nice and refreshing as well. Really foamy. Foamy and airy. Yeah, perfect way to end a meal. And then finally, the Greenlandic cake, which is something I think that's very special in Greenland because we've already had it a couple times. I guess like it's more of a like a bready texture with raisins and then it's kind of dense. I know this bread or this cake also has a lot of history greenland as well yeah i like it like it'd be really good with coffee it's a little bit dry you got the flavor of the it's actually not really sweet but the raisins give it the sweetness kind of a little more salty than sweet actually 24 dishes there's one left well actually it's a drink and chef agu has been saving it a proper greenlandic goodbye chef agu comes out with the unexpected flight of schnapps home infused with different arctic plants so here we have labrador tea crowberry and arctic thyme thank you you're more than welcome choose one who's driving tonight it's not you it's not you going for the arctic thyme oh arctic thyme smells amazing yeah What a buffet in Greenland. Thank you guys. Now we're off to the schnapps buffet. Thank you. Thank you, Chef Agu. Agu. Oh, that arctic thyme is wonderful. A little burn going down with that herbaceousness. Oh, it's good though. Quite mild, but refreshing. It's refreshing, yeah. It's the taste of the arctic. The restaurant is Safa Lake right in downtown Nuuk at the Hotel Hans Egede. and this has been an incredible educational Greenlandic experience. Staff here are so friendly. Chef Agu really took care of us. He's an amazing guy and he's really promoting Greenland through its food and its authentic culture and culinary heritage. Oh, I'm happy. I'm full. I need to go straight to sleep. Those Greenlandic meats will, oh they will fill you up that's a guarantee but highly recommended when you are in Nuuk don't miss the Greenlandic buffet at Saqalik