Food, of Course

Although I am not a cookbook author, I do have opinions on food and offer them here in a brief entry before we leave Berlin (which we will come back to for our last 4 days). We ate the first night at Altes Zollhaus Berlin where I had a white herring salad with river perch and the best creme brulee on the trip so far (I have ordered it every night). At Rutz on the next night, I had a wild herb salad with two pieces of lamb (since the English translation said "lamp" I had not idea I was getting lamb), venison and creme brulee (terrible). Our lunch at Facil was excellent, but we were with friends, so I could not steal the menu (it's a habit I learned from Mark) and we were talking so much, I cannot remember what I ordered. That night for supper we split a potato and wurst plate with link sausages on sauerkraut. Before the concert, we had pasta at an Italian wine bar around the corner, and last night we ate here at the hotel and split a crusted bass. The cream brulee here was good, but not the best.

Overall, I had wrongly assumed that German food would be mediocre, but we were both pleasantly surprised. Yesterday at breakfast, we were amazed at the number of Germans ordering beer when it was only 10:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning. The Old Regulars would have a fit! Most menus have two food pages and ten wine, beer, and liquour pages. Too, as in France, there is a lot of smoking though some restaurants offer two sections, still not like it is in the US.

Mark is off swimming, and I will go after I pack to Galaries Lafayette to look around. The sun is shining and it is supposed to be warmer, so we will have good weather to travel to Garmische.