Last week saw the arrival of the second Saaremaa Food Festival.
Restaurant Week was part of the festival. Most of the cafes and restaurants created special menus for this week with fixed prices. Two course lunches for 10€ and three course dinners for 15€. My intention was to try five different restaurants, but I had to go with four.

Mosaiik Cafe lunch offer on the left, BBQ beef fillet. Saaremaa Veski pan bread with pork and cabbage on the right. Veski dessert was a classical floating islands.

Retro Cafe kama dessert.
Retro lunch menu also included pork chop with roast potatoes and coleslaw. The pork chop was thick, big chunk. The sauce and coleslaw were awesome.

La Perla dinner menu: three aubergine bruschetti, whole baby trout a la Meuniere, panna cotta with spiced plums

I'm not a fan of aubergines, it was ok I guess, the tomato salad on top was tasty. Trout was flaky and moist with a superb crispy skin. I ate all of that trout skin! Usually I wouldn't eat fish with tomatoes but this tomato salad was very citrusy, making it an ideal companion. The panna cotta wasn't too photogenic but it was seriously tasty with the right amount of melt-in-your-mouth softness. They should add it to their regular menu. Mmm.

I also wanted to try out Chameleon as I've never eaten there but they insisted that I either have to book days in advance or buy a load of booze. Their dining room was practically empty. I opted for the third variant - big fat PASS! Won't be going back.

Another exciting event, and probably my favourite of the week, was the day of pop-up apple cafes.

Õunõu.
Three chefs with a food truck. Same as last year. Simple three item menu:
pulled pork bun, chickpea coconut ramen, apple crumble with ice cream.

Sisters Luule and Lea set their cafe near the post office. Every local knows that these sisters can bake! The trail with little apples was so sweet.

Ristorante La Perla had an extensive menu with apple themed cocktails. I tried their tiramisu.

Suur õun.

Altogether there were ten cafes. I did not photograph them all.
Though the idea is that these cafes should be homey little pop-up cafes in peoples' gardens, a third or more of the cafes have professional chefs or caterers. It's good to have some professionals in the mix but I hope it will not start to dominate. That would kill the fun factor.

Looking forward to next year's event already!