Wednesday, August 11, 2010

German Restaurant

There's this thing about international restaurants. They are never authentic. Heavily influenced by the country they are located in*. How do I know that?
Because I just came back from probably the most terrible German restaurant on the North-American continent. It featured everything you need to make the locals believe it's German:

- rude SS-waitresses (awesome job doing the Nazi-attitude)
- Bavarian trumpet-music in the background

On one single plate for one person:
- 1 Bockwurst disguised as 1 Bratwurst
- gravy to the horizon
- 1 ham steak disguised as Kasseler
- flavourless Spätzle drowned in aforementioned gravy
- 2 pretty decent slices of pork roast (drowned in gravy)
- 2 Knödel drowned in aforementioned gravy
- Sauerkraut
and
- a "German" salad (lettuce, tomato, cucumber, carrot, a bit of potato salad; all of it swimming in tomato sauce)

I'm out of words.

The menue boasted 10 different German draughts, in reality there were only 5 and their variations (dark, light). They offered a thousand types of Schnitzel, but no Hamburger Schnitzel and no Wiener Schnitzel, instead their Schnitzel came topped with either tomato sauce (sooo German) or Swiss cheese.
The whole place seemed to cry constantly: "If I only was a chain-restaurant! If I only was a chain restaurant!"

I will never go there again. Never. Ever**. In my life.

*I remember this "Italian" restaurant run by a bunch of Germans back where I come from. Not 1 Italian thing in the place except the pictures of Naples. The menue features German versions of Italian dishes. People love it.

**Except maybe to have a beer. The beer was good (compared to what else is available). Warsteiner.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

H,

I am loving your blog, you are such a great writer! Your recounting of the whole survivor weekend from memory is absolutely extraordinary! Say hello to your lovely wife for us and tell her I'm putting in several nudges for her to come and work for us!!

Pavarti