1 minute read
Viking Soul Food Expands to a Restaurant in Woodstock
from Savor Flavor
by playeri
by Isabel Lemus Kristensen
After 12 years of serving lefse—handmade Norwegian potato flatbread baked on a griddle—with sweet and savory fillings, chef-owners Megan Walhood and Jeremy Daniels of the Viking Soul Food cart, are bringing their beloved, Scandinavian-inspired dishes to a brick-andmortar location in Woodstock.
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The restaurant continues to offer the Viking Soul Food cart’s fare of Norwegian meatballs, smoked steelhead, pølse sausage, or mushroom hazelnut patties enfolded in lefse. But with the restaurant’s bigger kitchen space, Walhood and Daniels also plan to bring back smørrebrød (Scandinavian open-face sandwiches) and a variety of soups, including seafood chowder in a saffron-shellfish cream and Troll Hunter Stew, which consists of Swedish pork sausage and braised beef finished with gjetost.
The restaurant’s Norwegian meatball lefse is probably Viking Soul Food’s most iconic wrap. The meatballs are smothered in a Norwegian caramelized goat cheese, or gjetost gravy—a recipe from Walhood’s childhood—which is served inside of a lefse wrap paired with surkal, a style of sweet and sour purple cabbage pickled with apple cider vinegar and caraway.
“Jeremy was the one who had the idea to take the lefse and put the meatballs inside, which was kind of taboo, because you normally just have lefse with butter,” Walhood says. “And then we just thought, ’Wait, this totally works. Like, this is street food.”
In early 2010, Walhood and Daniels began creating a menu and purchased a Streamline Duchess trailer, which they named Gudrun, meaning “she who knows the secrets of battle.” By August of that year, Viking Soul Food opened at the Bite on Belmont (4255 SE Belmont St), where it remains to this day. Now, Viking Soul Food is setting up shop at 4422 SE Woodstock Blvd.
With a kitchen facility at the new location, Walhood and Daniels plan to introduce more Scandinavian desserts, such as a banana pudding-filled krumkake, rhubarb trifle, as well as mini pecan pies topped with whipped lingonberry goat cheese.
Walhood says the Woodstock neighborhood could not be more inviting and enthusiastic to have them. “It’s been a pleasure to be around so long and to know people for so long, because folks have been so supportive,” Daniels says. “It’s just been an incredible experience.”
