Popped over to Cambridge/UK for a couple of days on business. Lovely fish restaurant “Fin Boys”, just a handful of tables behind an unassuming storefront. Seared tuna to start, halibut for a main, both excellent. A Croatian white to accompany, and affogato to finish, served with Frangelico.
An early lunched booked tomorrow at Grantchester Green Man, a gastropub I’ve enjoyed in the past, but was warned today has returned to standard pub fair. Fingers crossed. Back to Frankfurt tomorrow afternoon.
Green Man has scaled back their adventurousness somewhat, bit it’s still a delightful experience. Shrimp and chorizo to start, house-made wild boar and apple sausage with mashed potatoes (upscale bangers and mash) and….sticky toffee pudding. Now I feel like I’ve been to the UK. Back home to Bad Homburg this evening.
And now for something completely different…very good Vietnamese at Vipho in central Frankfurt, less than 10 minutes walk from Alte Opera. Cute room. Generous portions of pho and bhun, and crave-worthy mango sticky rice (we should have ordered two).
Continuing with the Asian theme this weekend, we joined my SOs host and family for dim sum at Madame Mei, on a side street across from the Frankfurt Hilton. Char Siu Bao and other dumplings were very good, the lone exception being the soup dumplings, which SO declared to be too dry. Shanghai duck, served as a single course sans pancakes was excellent, crispy skin and all. Chinese broccoli had a welcome spice tang. Sesame balls filled with bean paste were the satisfying conclusion.
Sunday was meals at home, but in the evening we ventured out to a piano/flute/oboe concert in the gorgeous Hessen Radio (state public radio) concert hall that doubles as a recording studio. Seats 850 with a massive pipe organ at the back of the stage. Now that’s PUBLIC RADIO.
Return visit to Dorade am Main, this time with SO and one of her colleagues in tow. Once again split three ways the dorade baked in salt for two. Just a simple yet dramatic dish. Scallops au gratin was an app I didn’t try last time, again simple but superb. A crisp, minerally Italian Chardonnay carried us from start to finish. Kadaiffi at the end was also very good.
The humble pretzel is ubiquitous at intermission of performing arts events - from a concert at the Hessen Radio studios in Frankfurt to the Deutsche Oper in Berlin. Typically lightly salted, but Deutsche Oper also offered a buttered option. You really need sustenance to make it through a full opera performance. Rossini’s L’italiana in Algeri ran 3 hours. I think I would need a steak dinner to make it through a 5-hour Wagner opera.
Next to last weekend in Germany, nach Berlin, Friday night at the Deutsche Oper (as noted), Saturday long walks, a visit to Neue Nationalgallerie - the Brancusi exhibit was amazing. I loved seeing the movie of him moving large stones – some of you will know why that appeals to me .
Unsuccessfully hunted for Niederegger marzipan for my SO, but consoled ourselves with a long and late lunch at Hauptstadtrestaurant Gendarmerie. We had passed the restaurant with our friends from Berlin a couple of weekends ago and they said they were looking forward to trying it. Hope they’ll forgive us for sneaking back to Berlin and going on our own. The room appears to be a forrmer bank, very high ceilings, stately columns. The room is dominated by a huge Picasso-esque mural. We love restaurants that are open all afternoon on weekends. 3:30pm was slow and the service was attentive. They were featuring a tartare menu, so we started with steak tartare and truffled fries. Not laced with truffle oil, mind you, decorated with real slices of truffle. Both were superb. We shared a middle course of artichoke salad, the only uninspired dish we had. We asked for lemon wedges which added a bit of sparkle. For mains SO had traditional Berliner liver, I had bouillabaisse. SO loved the liver, accompanied by a Rioja. The bouillabaisse was assembled at the table, the soup ladeled over the fish/shellfish, aioli and grated cheese served on the side. Perfectly cooked - lightly poached shrimp. Paired well with a riesling sekt (sehr trocken) from Lutter & Wegner (who coincidently have a resstaurnt about a block away - next trip!)
A pavlova with pistachio ice cream and raspberry coulis was an unusual but great combination. Sorry I didn’t capture a photo before we destroyed it.
After lunch we continued the hunt for Niederegger marzipan. The concierge at the Hilton Berlin gave us a tip and we scored an assortment that met SOs requirements.
Another shout-out to the Berlin Hilton for a great breakfast. Sunday morning we went for a long walk around Museum Island before breakfast, and by the time we returned we were ready to dig in.
PS - that’s truffle on the artichoke salad and tartare, too.
One of the greatest joys for us every summer is diving into the fabulous restaurant scene.
I’ve not been to Gendarmerie or Lutter & Wegner, but at least the latter has been around for quite some time. Reviews are all over the place, so I’ll be curious to see what you think.
I’d have TPSTO recommendations for you if you are interested in any particular cuisine. Fantastic Turkish, Italian, Greek, and Thai come to mind.
.
