A Fika in Phoenix

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There are some pros to living in a big city. Bozeman, Montana, where I first ended up, only had 30,000 people in the area. While many of them had Swedish heritage, there was not much Swedish culture.

Phoenix is a whole different story though. I run into a lot of Swedes! Many have lived here for years and years, but all still speak Swedish, and still love Sweden.

When I first came to Phoenix I searched “Swedish restaurants” on Google. Beaver’s Choice came up.

Beavers Choice

Now this is an odd name for a Swedish restaurant, and when I came across it, it was actually closed! So I had to wait a few months for their remodeling to be finished before I could go and have some Swedish food.

Inside Beaver's ChoiceWhen their doors did finally open, it was well worth the wait! While this restaurant claims to be Scandinavian, Polish, and Canadian, I found it to be Swedish enough for my liking! Hey, I mean, the sign has Swedish in it 🙂

While the restaurant was a bit empty, the inside was beautiful. Not only was it clean, but it had pictures of Europe all over the walls. Sold!

The menu was great, as I saw Swedish words everywhere. Including köttbullar. pytt i panna, smörgåsbord and the like. I opted for the “Shrimp Salad Sandwich”, which was so good! The bread tasted exactly like the one I would get at Frostkåge kösken in Sweden.

shrimpsandwich

I asked the waitress if the owner was around so I could a) ask permission to take pictures of her restaurant and b) tell her how great her restaurant was! When I spoke to her, I started in Swedish, and she spoke English right back at me. I’m used to that.

However, it was interesting when my SWEA friend Mia came along and we started talking in Swedish. The owner noticed and started talking with us. She was so surprised I spoke Swedish. I pointed out that I spoke Swedish with her when I first came in. She laughed, because it didn’t even register with her that I was speaking a language besides English!

Turns out, that great bread she gets from a bakery in Scottsdale (northern Phoenix), who doesn’t sell to the public. Boo! That bread was delicious! Well, I guess I’ll just have to go back to Beaver’s Choice for my Swedish food fix!

 

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