Icelandic Facebook Groups: Besti Bitinn

Humans cannot live without food (unless you’re one of those Soylent people) so it’s natural that Iceland has a plethora of food discussion groups. “Besti Bitinn?”, which means “Best Bite?”, is one of these. Though it has just under a thousand members—most of them friends—the group is active with reviews of meals or questions about where one could satiate a particular craving.

I’ve used it to lament occurrences like when BK Kjúklingur only gave me two pieces of chicken rather than the three pieces I had payed for, an event I am putting in this paper to hopefully publicly shame them into giving me free chicken for a year (just kidding) (unless they want to give me free chicken, then I’m not kidding). Other posts recommend cheap delectable meals around the city, most recently Rima Grill in Grafarvogur, or rave about restaurants like Brauð & Co., which one girl, Alvia, described as “Next level shiit!”

But the group is not without its share of controversy. For example, after eating at popular burger joint Vitabar, Aldís Dagmar Erlingsdóttir posted a scathing review. “WTF Reykjavík people? Vitabar fucking sucks… What is with you? Just puttin’ it out there, the hype is completely unreal.” This spawned some aggressive reactions, with Sölvi Magnússon (who you can see in the above photo), replying, “La di dah di dah, maybe you should take the silver spoon out of your mouth and and the stick out of your ass so you can enjoy the nice atmosphere and fair priced burger at Vitabar.” Tómas Daði Halldórsson then added, “Vitabar brings out the best in me but obviously the worst in you Aldís. This is like ISIS’s persecution of the Muslims.” Matthildur Matthiasdóttir responded with a picture of her friend eating a Vita-burger while throwing the bird, presumably at Aldís. Many members added their two cents, 99% of them pro-Vitabar and anti-Aldís, and to this day, Aldís cannot post any question about food on the group without people recommending Vitabar. As is the case with 9/11, Besti Bittin? never forgets.

In conclusion, hey BK Kjúklingur, my email is hannah@grapevine.is. Let’s talk.

Read more “Icelandic Facebook Groups” here.