Will this post stirrup your emotions? Neigh!

On May 13, 2013April 30, 2013 By StevenIn International Travel - Europe13 Comments

March was, for me, an insane travel marathon. Four countries, eleven trains, five flights (two of them trans-atlantic), two long car rides, and numerous hotels- all in a period between March 19 and April 5. During that time, I realized something that I had never really given voice to before now- travel for me is all about the food.

This realization came to me when we got back from the second trip to Zurich. Yes, I went twice. In less than five days. I didn’t mention that previously because the second trip was for work. One of our colleagues from the Florida office came to Zurich, and she traveled back to Regensburg with us afterward so that she could see a little bit more of Europe while she was on this side of the Atlantic. That Friday, while a small group of us were walking around the Altstadt, my personal tour-guiding spiel sounded a bit like this: “This is one of the two Irish pubs in town. Over here, right past $IMPORTANT LANDMARK, is a great Italian restaurant. Here’s another giant church, and near it, one of my favorite places to have breakfast.”

I didn’t realize it until that moment, but my mental map of Regensburg is almost entirely comprised of food.

That wasn’t even the first food-related observation I had that weekend, either. During the second trip to Zurich, we went out to a lunch with our customers at a super-fancy restaurant in what used to be a ship-building yard. How fancy was the restaurant? When we walked in, someone took our coats and put them on a hanger. The hand towels in the bathroom were rolled fabric hand towels, not paper. The menus were actually made of iron. (Insert heavy metal joke here.)

During that meal, I ordered this:

The steak in the center of this plate is wrapped in Serrano ham. The stuff surrounding it is delicious baby onions and strawberries in a strawberry-pepper sauce.

The steak in the middle? It’s Pferdefilet. A horse meat steak. And it was delicious.

This isn’t the first time I’ve (knowingly) eaten horse meat. The first time was at an Italian restaurant in Berlin last September, as a pizza topping. But then, I’ve never been squeamish about unusual food, unless I can see it’s original form. When I was in Hong Kong, I ate kangaroo meat, jellyfish, Thousand Year Egg, and fugu. I didn’t get squicked out until the restaurant staff brought out a duck with the head and neck still attached.

The only thing I didn’t eat from the plate pictured above was the ham and the flower. I don’t really like ham all that much, and I wasn’t interested in the flower even though it was edible.

It’s important to remember that while all of these foods might seem unusual to an American, they’re not all that strange to a local. People have eaten horse-meat all over Europe for centuries. There are even special butchers just for horse meat in some countries. The other things I listed above from my Hong Kong trip? None of them is unusual to the restaurants that serve them. (The kangaroo meat was in an Australian restaurant, by the way- you don’t see too many kangaroos in China.)

What’s the most unusual food you’ve eaten?

Eighteen Days In The US

On December 17, 2012December 17, 2012 By StevenIn The U.S.9 Comments

I traveled to the US with a series of lists. I had places to go, people to see, food to eat, and crap to buy. In eighteen days, I drove my rental car over 1200 miles across three counties. Here’s why:

I had a Culinary To-Do List, because there are just some foods that have no good analog in Germany.

I ate at Friendly’s with Lorrie on my first night back in town. After a year in Germany, it was a little bit jarring to be handed the check before were finished eating.
I got my diner fix, including the aforementioned Friendly’s visit, the Moonlite Diner with Vicki and Ilona, iHop, and Denny’s (in which I ate the Gandalf’s Gobble from the Hobbit Menu. Hilarity ensued.)
I got proper Thai food, having dinner one weeknight at Chaiyo Thai with Vicki.
Plenty of good burgers were eaten, including Jack’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers, and Charm City Burgers, where I also fulfilled my tater tot needs while lunching with Marc.
I had lunch at Muddy Waters with Karen.
I met my Tex-Mex cravings by joining my brother and his boyfriend for Taco Tuesdaze at Tijuana Flats.
I had Sushi with Holly at Katana, a fantastic tiny Sushi place in North Miami Beach.
I had a proper and delicious steak with my elder brother at the local Longhorn.
I finally got around to trying The German Bread Haus, a German bakery on Commercial Boulevard, East of I-95. I brought some pastries into the office with me, and they were quite good.
I also ate at the Cheesecake Factory, the Melting Pot, Rotelli, Miller’s Ale House, TGI Fridays, and Jimmy Johns. I may be forgetting a few places- this trip was all about the food.

I had an Acquisitions To-Do List.

I stopped at Costco to get a ginormous bottle of Excedrine and some Flintstones chewables for myself. I also picked up some generic Sudafed, another thing I haven’t found a satisfying version of over here.
I managed to find a pair of New Balance shoes I liked to replace my aging and slightly less comfortable pair. I also picked up some more work pants and long sleeved t-shirts in Target.
I went back to the ski store in Delray Beach to get another scarf and wound up buying an awesome neck fleece that I already love beyond all reason.
I went to Abercrombie & Fitch to get a pair of sweatpants that Jenny asked me to bring back to Germany.
I also went to the grocery store for some other requests- I came back to Germany with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Nerds, and A-1 Steak Sauce.
As an aside, shopping makes me kind of looney. This results in bad product based puns. For example:

I had an actual task-based To-Do List.

I successfully moved my stored stuff from a 5×10 unit in one location to a 5×5 in another facility. The place I was using claimed to be climate controlled and pest controlled, but it was near a canal and the doors weren’t sealed very well. As a result, I had various droppings and former insects, frogs, and worms in and around my stuff, along with live silverfish in the books. As if that weren’t bad enough, there was already humidity damage starting to show on some of my books. The new facility is immaculate and completely indoors. Also, the smaller unit in the new facility will save me roughly $65 a month in storage fees. You can see what’s left in storage in the picture to the right, including my beloved coffee table.
I snagged an International Driving Permit. I don’t drive here, but if I need to, this could be handy.
I got a haircut at Kathleen & Company, the place I went to for eight years before I moved to Germany. I can get a haircut anywhere, but this place deserves loyalty.
I worked a week in the Florida office.
I went back to my Neurologist for a followup. I haven’t made the time yet to find a Neurologist in Germany.

I also had a Gatherings To-Do list, which originally contained just a few shindigs, but wound up including much more.

I drove out to Wellington for my sister’s fabulous Thanksgiving Extravaganza. In the past, our family has sometimes splintered off into different directions for Thanksgiving, but this year most of us were all in the same place. A small portion of the group is visible in this photo, including both of my parents, one of my brothers, my brother-in-law and his brother, my nephew, both nieces (2 and 22), and my niece’s boyfriend. Not pictured, but present: The other brother, my sister and my sister-in-law. Like I said, it’s a big and convoluted family, but we’re a fun group.
I went to a “Friendsgiving” dinner that was being held by John, another long time friend. I arrived between their dinner and dessert courses, which was perfect timing for chatting and being social. It also gave me the opportunity to give him one of the two Bavarian beers I brought with me from Germany. He was pleased.
I had a pair of birthday shindigs- one with friends, and one with family. The friends party was held on the Saturday night before my actual birthday- I had friends join me for a fantastic dinner at one of my favorite restaurants, Season’s 52, followed by some drinks at a Ft. Lauderdale Irish pub.
My aunt, uncle, and cousin were in Miami for a wedding and since the timing matched up, they joined part of the family for brunch on that Sunday.
Sunday night was the second birthday shindig- my father put together a dinner at another restaurant and I got to see more family there, including a few who weren’t at Thanksgiving dinner.
I have a lot of friends outside of Florida who I wanted to see, but I only had the time to travel to one other state. I took the dart-board approach to selecting who to visit, and I wound up going to Minneapolis to hang out with Debra, another old friend there. We had dinner in the Mall Of America, which I had never been to. That place is HUGE, and has a theme park in the middle of it. There are roller coasters. In a mall. Amazing.

Last but not least, the most important to-do list item of all was to remember to come back to Germany.

The Five Restaurants You Meet In Regensburg

On November 5, 2012May 30, 2020 By StevenIn Life In Germany7 Comments

Some of the other expat bloggers I read are part of a Blogger Stammtisch that I’m not involved with, and they have really neat ideas for posts sometimes. In September, they had a ‘favorite restaurants in your town’ topic, and Grounded Traveler did a post about their top five favorites in Freiburg. I love to eat, so this really got me thinking.

Regensburg has truly embraced cafe culture, so much so that some people refer to Regensburg as Italy’s northernmost city. There are so many bars and restaurants here that it’s probably not possible to eat at every single one. The sheer logistical impossibility has not stopped me from trying, though. For the relatively short time that I’ve been here, I’ve actually eaten in a very large number of restaurants. I really like so many of them that it was difficult to narrow a list down to just five. For example, do I include the better of the two local Irish Pubs? (Murphy’s Law.) How about the best of the bajillion traditional Bavarian places in town? (I’ve eaten at many, and I found the Regensburger Weissbräuhaus to be the tastiest.) Do I include the tastiest of the four (that I know about) Indian restaurants? (Maharadscha, with Taj Mahal a close contender for the Flavor Throne.) What about steak houses? (Just kidding, there are no good steakhouses in Germany. I’ll have to eat steak when I visit the United ~~Steaks~~.. er, States again in a few weeks.)

Here are my selections, in no particular order:

Continue reading “The Five Restaurants You Meet In Regensburg” →

Wurst Wurst In Regensburg

On October 29, 2012May 30, 2020 By StevenIn Life In Germany3 Comments

The weekend before last,I finally got around to trying the historic Wurstkuchl. Founded over 500 years ago, the Wurstkuchl is generally regarded as the oldest fast food restaurant in the world.

The restaurant is right on the banks of the Donau river, right next to the Steinerne Brücke (Stone Bridge). There is a small seated area outside, and an even smaller seating area inside. In between, there’s a tiny doorway right next to the grill where you can get some food “mitnehmen” (to go.)

I tried their standard takeaway, which is a Bratwurstkipferl, a small curved sausage, on a semmel (bread roll), with a helping of sauerkraut and the Wurstkuchl’s famous sweet mustard. The mustard is a family recipe passed down for generations, and they still produce it themselves. In keeping with modern times, however, you can now order their mustard through the Wurstkuchl’s online store. That’s progress!

I didn’t have the foresight to take a picture of my Bratwurst, but I did take a picture of the Wurstkuchl itself. The place is pretty much always busy, because a lot of tour groups stop in for lunch.

Oh, and the subject line of this post, “Wurst wurst in Regensburg?” Don’t believe it for a second; It was delicious. I just used “wurst wurst” for the subject because I like the way it sounds.

Things You Can Do With A Pfand Chip

On September 17, 2012May 30, 2020 By StevenIn Life In Germany3 Comments

I have this little blue Pfand chip.

These chips come in all shapes, sizes, materials, and colors, but this one is pretty simple. It’s the same size as a one Euro coin. At outdoor events, you pay an extra fee for your beverage, and these chips are commonly handed out at the same time. When you finish your drink, you bring the empty back, along with the chip, and you get your deposit back.Some people collect the chips from different events. That’s another story, though.

Grocery stores use them also- the shopping carts are locked together outside, and you need a one Euro coin to unlock a cart. Grocery stores sometimes sell their own little chips that are the same size and shape to fill this function. When you re-lock the cart to its brethren, your original coin or chip pops right out into your hand.

Those are some of the most common uses for a Pfand chip. I use it differently, though. Since my arrival in Regensburg, I’ve dined out quite often with Jenny- she rapidly became my closest friend in Germany. In the early days, we would forget pretty easily who payed for the meal last because it’s just easy to lose track.

Enter the chip.

We have joking nicknames for it: The Debt Chip. The Payment Turn Designation Device. We use it as a marker- the person holding the chip pays for the meal, and the chip changes hands when we’re done. There’s a mild amount of silly pomp and circumstance to the handing off of the chip at the end of a meal, but it’s all in good fun. We don’t include other people in the hand-off of the chip. If her boyfriend is with us, we pay separately by unspoken agreement.

I’ve always believed that when you’re friends with someone, you eventually forget who has paid for more of your shared meals. This little blue chip is challenging that long-held belief, but I don’t think I mind. Our friendship isn’t ever diminished in the slightest by knowing who paid last.

Whimsy. Tacos. The DMV.

Tag: food