Four Days with The Royal Tunas

Four days of fantastic food, huge laughs, big touristing, and wonderful reconnection.  These are the days of The Royal Tunas.

As I mentioned in my last post, I met the Tunas 15 years ago on my big solo travel year - we met on my first stop on the trip, Easter Island.  They were on their honeymoon and we connected over food discussions on the tour we were on - they love food like I do.  And of course their name is not Tunas, I called them the Tunas on my blog at the time because Tuna King ate tuna every time we went for food, so it sorta stuck.  

So let me introduce you to the gang.  First there's Tuna Queen, who is the best cook in Sweden and is so committed to her Swedish pastries, especially the Easter specialty of Semla (a sweet bun) that she has it tattooed on her arm - she is a kindred spirit.  Her husband, Tuna King, is a huge viking who loves tuna (as mentioned), American football and Taekwondo.  They have a shoal of young ones - all who love their Taekwondo and compete, and their American football too.  Now the thing about the shoal is that they all speak flawless English (as do their parents), but the shoal are aged 11, 13, and 14, and they blew our minds with their fluency, vocabulary, and their use of the English vernacular - Mike and I couldn't believe it.  Their parents insisted from early on that their movie watching and on-line gaming be in English rather than dubbed in Swedish, and the consequence is all of us having a hoot of a time playing a drawing game all in English - incredible.

So, the shoal is made up of Prince S who is 14 and loves his Rubik's cubing (special bond with Mike), Prince B, 13, who is the Wok and seasoning king - he cooked us a fab stir fry on our final night and refused to allow me points for "buffet" in the drawing game when my word was "smorgasbord", and Prince G, 11, who makes the most delicious jam - we had his plum jam and cloudberry jam at our farewell breakfast and it was DIVINE!  Yum Yum.  

The Royal Tunas (L to Ri) - King Tuna, Prince S, Queen Tuna, Prince B, and Mike on our first night...Prince G was upstairs at the time, so here he is below - what a handsome, smart, fun gang!

So, Mike and I booked 3 nights in a hotel near their home, out in a suburb of Stockholm called Marsta, about 35km from the centre of the city.  Instead of riding, we decided to take the train with our bikes which was easy peasy lemon squeezy, and after a very busy ride to Stockholm Centrum station we grabbed a very glamorous train and were in Marsta in 20 minutes. So fast, so smooth, so comfy.  And there we stayed for four days.  We ate the most amazing food by The Tunas, laughed so much, developed our own private joke library that we drew on extensively through the four days, ate more great food, wandered through Sigtuna (the capital of Sweden before Stockholm, so cute), Uppsala (a famous academic and university city, really cute as well), but mostly hung at their place eating, laughing, and having existential chats about Cobra Kai, Spaceballs, Star Wars, John Wick, brotherly love, Vegemite (which they all tried), and things like parenting, being Swedish, being Aussie, world politics, all the easy stuff!  

It was four days that filled us both up - it's so bizarre to think that we met 15 years ago as strangers, and now there's a Swedish-Aussie connection for life.  The kindness, love, warmth, and deliciousness that was given to us has been so touching and humbling, and I thank the whole Royal Tuna family for their love and lightness, their wonderful welcome and tearful farewell, and everything in between.  It was hard to say goodbye on Thursday, but I know there's no real goodbye, just goodbye for now, until next time, which could be in a few weeks, a few months, or even a few years.  Royal Tunas, you are magnificent, and give the biggest and best hugs in the world.

Mike enjoying his first course of the first dinner at the Royal Tunas - crayfish with a cheese pie with creme fraiche and roe - sooooooo good!  And that smile just got bigger and bigger when Queen Tuna presented his FAVOURITE Swedish food Swedish Meatballs - with mashed potato, cream sauce, lingonberry jam (made by Prince G, the Jam Prince, more details below), and home made pickled cucumbers - OMG WE WERE BOTH IN HEAVEN.  Then pavlova for dessert, with lemon and lime curd.  Crikey!

Queen Tuna's awesome Semla bun tattoo - her and her fellow Semla queens gather on the day of Semla buns being available and they go and test taste all over Stockholm - they have a scoring system and everything.  She's my hero.

My incredibly awesome drawing in the game we played - my word was "wild boar".  Obviously.

Tuna Queen and Prince B in Sigtuna, such a gorgeous old town, and Sweden's capital before Stockholm

More Sigtuna

Tuesday's night feast starred one of my fave things I ate last time I was in Stockholm with the Tunas - chanterelle mushrooms. YUUUUUUUMMMMM.  One of the best days of my life was going mushroom picking with the Tunas 15 years ago, then cleaning them, and the Queen making up chanterelles on toast - gloriously sauteed in lots of butter with some cream. salt and white pepper.  Heaven.  She made them for us as our entree on Tuesday.  Odin it was good.

They were followed by a wonderful spag bol (another fave food), which I didn't take a photo of cause I was too busy eating, then for dessert she produced a range of "boll" - which are a Swedish sweet thing, they're chocolate balls made from oats, and they have varying amounts of chocolate and flavours in them - so she gave us a smorgasbord (buffet) of these delicious morsels for dessert while we played another game, a music game in which the Queen whipped all our butts.

Tuna Queen explaining the smorgasbord options...

Wednesday we headed to Uppsala, the grand old university town famous for its science and botanic studies - we browsed through the magnificent botanic gardens, then had a yum lunch at their cafe followed by cake in town, follwed by gelato!  Yum Yum!

And after an afternoon rest, we were served up a stupendous stirfry from Prince B, Prince of the wok and seasoning.  Check it out below - chicken, prawns and veges - perfectly seasoned and oh so tasty.  YUM!

Then it was Thursday and farewell breakfast (at 11am) - we had a feast, AMAZING JAMS by Prince G, the Prince of jam, more laughter, and then tears as we had to say our goodbyes, load up the bikes and ride back to the train station.

Cloud Berry jam and plum jam - so freaking delicious.

To the Tunas, we thank you from the bottom of our moustache pig hearts. We rode back to Stockholm so filled up with happiness and laughter.  It was magical.