I’ve lived in Oslo for around 3 years, and have tried out quite a few restaurants. Many of them are not that good, but you’ll understand why, once you look at my PATENTED method for determining the quality of a restaurant.

I have an engineering background, so I take a systematic approach to this, and all aspects of my life. I think it’s fairly objective:

Quality Scale (in no particular order)

FulFILLness (get it?) – I shouldn’t be thinking about food after leaving your restaurant, unless I’m thinking about how good the food was

Price – I generally don’t go to restaurants where a meal costs more than 200kr (20 euros (just divide by 10 to get the price in euros from now on)). Navigate to the bottom of this article to understand why I follow this general rule

Taste – I’m a fairly capable cook, so if I’m going to spend 2x/3x the money it would cost to make a meal at home, it can’t taste bad! This metric, obviously, is closely tied to cost, and increases in importance as the cost increases

Quality of Ingredients – I’m not a picky eater, buuuuuuut I don’t like processed meat, and love vegetables

Time of Delivery – generally, if I’m eating out it’s either a special occasion, I’m short on time, or I’m super hungry and want to eat now. It’s usually the latter two. So if I can count on the meal arriving quickly, then that’s a plus

On to the list!

San Francisco Bread Bowl

As the title implies, this place specialized in bread bowls, so stews/chowders/curries in delicious sourdough (I think?) bread bowls. They also optionally toast and butter the extra bread, which I highly recommend. The prices are excellent, between 110kr – 170kr.

It’s vegetarian friendly, the vegetarian/vegan options are hearty, and much cheaper than the meat options. The Indonesian bowl is great!

Also, this place is guaranteed to fill you up! If you aren’t full, just munch on the bread bowl until you are.

Finally, this place gets high ~a e s t h e t i c~ points, for its cool California vibe. The music they play is dope, similar to KCRW radio from California

Sato Japanese Dining

I’ve only been here twice, but I ordered completely different dishes, and both were great. The place can be pretty expensive though, prices range from 190kr to 300kr+. But it’s super tasty, and the portions are ginormous!

It’s important to note that this is NOT a sushi place, it’s a Japanese restaurant (though they offer sushi) . They have all kinds of traditional Japanese fare that you haven’t heard of.

It’s a good place for a date, because they have all kinds of traditional Japanese fare that you haven’t heard of , but you can pretend otherwise.

D-SAN

This is my defacto dinner place when I’m in a rush, since it’s close to
Grünerløkka, which is where I usually find myself for social gatherings. I mostly eat the banh mi, but the sushi is also good. They recently added bubble tea, and the Taro bubble tea was good, but ask for no ice, they add too much.

The banh mi sandwiches cost up to 79kr, and are large and filling

I’m pretty sure I’m their number 1 customer, and the world’s only D-SAN expert. Here’s my Banh Mi ranking, from best to not best: pork spear, lemongrass tofu, lemongrass beef, chicken.

If you ask for spicy, it will be SPICY, which is actually difficult to find in Oslo/all of Norway/ all of Scandinavia.

Plah Home

The “Home” part of “Plah Home” is important, since there’s 2 Plah’s in the city, a bougy one and a plebeian one. You will go to the plebeian one.

It’s expensive, 200kr minimum but maaaan the food is seriously amazing, and super filling. I only went there once, but I distinctly remember the meal, it was some pork curry on rice or something, it was super good.

The place is very small, so I recommend making a reservation!

It’s strangely difficult to find photos of their food, so take my word for it? I don’t normally take photos of my food, I’d feel very silly doing that, in public, since I’m not active on social media. Maybe I’ll make an article regarding my privacy concerns some day. Good idea!

Piri Piri

This is an awesome Portuguese chicken place, the menu is divided into a Chicken section and a Sides section. This is my first time trying Portuguese chicken, so I can’t comment on how good or authentic it truly is, but my Portuguese buddy thinks it’s pretty good.

Every table has three sauce bottles with awesome, spicy flavors.

The sides are great, with lots of options, I recommend the Roasted Vegetables or the Mashed Potatoes.

Prices hover around 150kr – 170kr for chicken and a side

Villa Paradiso

I’ve eaten a LOT of pizza in my life, but it’s mostly been North American, fast food style pizza (I lived near Toronto, Canada for 13 years). This was pretty much my first time trying Italian style pizza, and, I’m not exaggerating, the N’duja pizza is probably the best pizza I’ve ever eaten, full stop.

I’ve since tried various pizzas here, they’ve all been great, all under 200kr, and all left me fullFILLed. This is ANOTHER great place for a date, if you’re into that.

Justification for 200kr Being the Ideal Max Cost for a Meal

• It’s worth noting that VAT for take out and eating in is different in Norway, but restaurants account for this by having higher prices if you’re eating in. This post is about eating at the restaurant itself, and won’t get into the economics of ordering take out.
• Taxes are very high in Scandinavia! Let’s do a case study: VAT in Norway is 25%, and corporate tax is 24% on net revenue. That means that (if my calculations are correct) the business actually receives around 57% of the money from the sale of goods. Let’s keep it simple, and say that they receive 60%, meaning the gov takes 40%.
• That’s all fine (and dandy), but when you go to a kebab joint, and order a kebab costing 100kr, you’re actually getting a kebab that is “worth” 60kr. That’s a loss of 40kr, so no big deal. But it’s 40kr per 100kr you spend.
• A meal that cost 300kr means it’s “worth” 180kr to you, so a loss of 120kr. I understand that the cost of goods is based on demand, not cost of production, and I fully support the capitalist model. But a meal is a meal, I have three of them a day, 365 days a year. A “loss” of 80kr is about all I can justify for a single, casual meal, which is why I try to stick around the 200kr mark.
• Also, I’m a really good cook.

Thanks for reading the article!