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Schnitzel Haven.

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The Schnitzel (these are two ‘small’ portions of breaded pork schnitzel)

M has been raving about ‘Zum Ochsen’ and their ridiculously awesome and huge schnitzels, so this had to happen eventually. We were quite lucky as we made our booking rather spontaneous and therefore, had to show up at point 6 p.m. to be done by 7:30 p.m. when the guests for the proper evening reservation arrived. Inside and outside you can see and feel the history of this old Freiburg institution that until today has no written menu. The waiter introduced us to the few dishes of the day with schnitzel having a permanent gig besides more seasonal dishes like venison sausage and vegetarian mushroom pancakes. Since M ordered the ‘small’ portion of schnitzel which included two huge slaps of thin and crispy breaded pork escalope, I knew I was getting a taste of it. That, and not having one in ages played a role in me ordering the cordon bleu instead.

First up came the default sharing bowl of green salad. You don’t get to see this serving style very often nowadays, it was huge and the best was that the dressing was made in good old grandpa style. Nice one. Since the menu is so small and an estimated 75% of all customers going for the schnitzel, the kitchen was pretty streamlined and food came out reasonably fast. My cordon bleu was absolutely delicious. The excess oil was nicely drained, the crust was crispy and the inside juicy and very well seasoned. The ham and cheese gave extra flavor but didn’t overpower the main act. It was pretty fantastic, sufficient and at Eur15 tolerably priced. Sneaking a couple of pieces of that famed schnitzel though I already knew what my order was gonna look like next time. Super thin and still having strong flavors going on with another thin layer of crispness blanking it all wonderfully. The potato sides also did the job with the brägele  (roasted potatoes) being full of nice and crunchy baked bits and the potato salad being pretty good as well .

If you’re in Freiburg and love a good schnitzel you should definitely come and check this place out. If you’re bringing an even bigger appetite you can go for the large portion that comes with an extra (third) schnitzel so you should be all set. And in case you shouldn’t be able to finish up, the friendly waiter will be more than happy to supply you with enough tinfoil to doggy bag it all home. I for one will be back as soon as I feel like a solid meaty schnitzel meal again. Can’t be long.

Get Your Grub On!

Zum Ochsen (closed Wednesday)
Zähringer Str. 363
79108 Freiburg im Breisgau
p: +49 761 553860
Germany

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Se Mighty Schnitzel Lunch.

imageOnce in a while it is time for a big ass lunch with my colleagues and having a humongous Wiener Schnitzel at the new Brotzeit at Westgate just seemed the right thing to do.

It was a truly gigantic slap of veal and even though pounded ’til super flat the meat was still juicy and with the crispy paper thin crumbs around, this thing just ruled and tasted like a bit of home. The potato salad on the side was not your commonly found weird mayonnaisy version but more the one I miss from back home, made with stock, chives and all. It was great, I wish every lunch could be like this but unfortunately that would make my waistline much fuller and my wallet way emptier so I’ll probably need to wait until it’s my next birthday or something. Schnitzel for life.

Brotzeit – German Bier Bar & Restaurant
3 Gateway Drive
#01-04 Westgate
Singapore 608532
Tel: +65 6465 9874
http://www.brotzeit.co/

I ❤ Kassler Tuesdays.

imageMy buddy from work ventured the internet for lunch options and found out it was “Kassler Day” at Marché today and so we didn’t have to look any further no more. I hadn’t been here for a long time as my last salad experience was both disappointing and expensive but the Kassler, being a lunch item, sounded like a good deal.

It was actually pretty great, a big fat slice of pork, with a nice smokey crust around the thick and juicy meat that was ultimately salty. Simple flavours like from home, kicked in the butt by some sharp dijon mustard that went all up in my nose. The mashed potatoes were creamy and fluffy delicious and the salad wasn’t too bad at all either but we just missed the Sauerkraut they usually offer aside of this.

Marché is nicely setup, while nothing extraordinary, it’s a bright and casual lunch bistro and other than last time the food was actually freaking delightful today. I really hope it’ll be “Kassler Day” again soon.

Marché Mövenpick Jem
50 Jurong Gateway Road
#01-03 Jem® (Jurong East Mall)
Singapore 608549
Tel: +65 6694 0884
www.marche-moevenpick.com/jem

Now that’s a proper brunch.

image‘Alte Kanzlei’ in Stuttgart is a very nice and popular place for brunch and lunch and so we found ourselves stranded within a crowd of people and without a reservation. The fabulous waiter though spotted a soon to be available table for our group and after an only 10 minute wait we already sat down. Off to a good start.

It wasn’t lunch time yet so I was looking for something smaller and after discovering ‘Weisswurst‘ on the weekend menu I didn’t have to look any further. The sausages were darn good and well seasoned considering we were outside of Bavaria. They obviously had used an “opferwurst” (victim sausage) – a sausage cut open into the broth so the gets saturated with salt and doesn’t drain the taste out of the other sausages – so the ones I got to eat were still hearty and delicious. The brezel maybe was a bit dry but added nicely to the saltiness of the whole thing and that all topped with some sweet and grainy mustard. Washed down with an extraordinarily refreshing ‘Spezi‘ and I was home.

It was a really nice place, bright and warm, bustling and yet the waiters went out of their way to help us. The food was appetizing and service efficient, friendly, funny and fast; screams for a repetition.

Alte Kanzlei
Schillerplatz 5a
70173 Stuttgart
Germany
Tel: +49 (0)711 294 457
http://www.alte-kanzlei-stuttgart.de/

Green Sauce Goodbye!

imageAt the end of a long trip I was driving down from Erfurt to Frankfurt with three lovely friends and wanted to show them some local dishes there before we all jumped on other trains and planes to go our own ways. We ended up in Sachsenhausen where I was just a couple of weeks ago with my family and I spotted a place I had been to a couple of times in the past – ‘Lorsbacher Thal’ – another of those famous ebbelwoi (apple cider) places.

While I was really tempted to order something else I couldn’t other than having the ‘Fleisch mit Grie Soss‘ (meat with green sauce) again. The portions here were ridonculous as the one big slap of cooked beef on the picture is hiding another one right underneath. Tastewise it was also pretty good maybe just a little bit too dry. I really enjoyed their take on the sauce, really refreshing on a summer day like this and plenty of it to drown all my boiled potatoes.

Nice place with a small beergarden outside and the guy who served us was overly nice and extremely friendly. Just the meat could’ve been a tad juicier and the kitchen also wasn’t the fastest that I have ever waited for. ‘Lorsacher Tahl’, can.

http://www.lorsbacher-thal.de/

Lorsbacher Thal
Grosse Rittergasse 49-51
60594 Frankfurt am Main
Germany
Tel: +49 69 616459

Stripclubs & Currywurst

imageIt was the hottest day of the year and we had celebrated my youngest sister’s birthday with some beers in the sun. It was getting late and we felt like supper, like currywurst supper to be exact. We literally walked the extra mile to reach ‘Brunnenwirt’ a tiny corner shop located in the red light area of Stuttgart – Bohnenviertel –  that sells hearty grub on the go and until late.

We used to come here quite frequently when we were living around the corner and therefore ordered our old time favorite, the ‘Currywurst Spezial‘. The currywurst here was an extra large skinless pork sausage that they chopped in bite sized chunks. Then all covered with ketchup (tomato sauce) and mayonnaise and sprinkled with curry powder. But the ‘spezial’ came from the dash of gravy they added from the pot in which the ‘Shashlik Skewers‘ simmer for hours. The sausage was not too strong in taste and traditionally lacked the snap because of the missing casing. The other flavors are hard to separate but the sweetness of the tomato sauce, the creaminess of the mayo, the curry taste and the meaty shashlik gravy fused together very nicely, just what we wanted after a long day in the heat.

It’s quite a dodgy little corner stall with a very mixed clientele but it is also an honest place, no thrills but still clean, tasty, unhealthy junk food with a sometimes quite entertaining combination of characters around. Go check it out.

Brunnenwirt
Leonardsplatz 25
70182 Stuttgart
Germany
Tel: +49 711 245621

Spaetzle = Home

imageIt was my sister’s birthday and my mom had booked a table at ‘Restaurant Roessle’ in Waldenbuch where we met family and some of my sis’s friends. They had changed their menu slightly since I have been here the last time but all the old favorites were still there.

I ordered the ‘Rinderfillet Jaeger Art‘ (beef fillet with mushrooms) and remembered to order it rather rare what my recent visit at the ‘Bootshaus‘ had teached me. The first cut into the lovely charred meat proofed that this was the right decision as it was perfectly rose and juice in the center with a surprisingly strong beefy taste for a lean cut like this. The mushroom sauce was rich and creamy but tasted so delicious I completely wiped it off the plate using the tasty handmade spaetzle (local type of pasta). The spaetzle were soft, fluffy and light and were sprinkled with in butter fried breadcrumbs that coated them with more texture and flavor. Home.

‘Roessle’ had been around for some generations and offers a very nice selection of regional specialities in a more up market atmosphere which also has it’s price tag and makes it a place for rather special occasions. Also the service is more than friendly and the salad bar is awesome, just saying.

http://www.landgasthofroessle.de/

Roessle – Landgasthof Hotel
Auf dem Graben 5
71111 Waldenbuch
Germany
Tel: +49 7157 7380

Oh, I just have a salad!

imageA spontaneous invitation from friends brought me to the beergarden at the old train station in Holzgerlingen today, the town I went to high school in.

They offer the usual beer garden fare and as I wasn’t that hungry my choice fell on something “light” , ‘Schwaebischer Wurstsalat‘ (Swabian sausage salad) which was a slight variation to the sausage salad I had about a week ago in Freiburg. For the Swabian version they used slices of black sausage additional to the lyoner. The two types of cold cut sausage tasted good and were seasoned well but for my taste the blood sausage was too soft as I prefer it with a little bit more bite. The dressing was nice, slightly sour and a bit too oily. There were sour pickled gherkins that added extra flavor and the chopped red- and spring onions gave it all a sharp kick.

The beer garden at ‘Alter Bahnhof’ is self serviced and offers simple but good food to reasonable prices and is a nice hangout for a sunny afternoon and for those who prefer a less casual ambience there is the waited restaurant area only a few meters away.

http://www.gourmetbahnhof.de/

Restaurant und Biergarten Alter Bahnhof
Bahnhofsplatz 1
71088 Holzgerlingen
Germany
Tel: +49 7031 682796

A Green Welcome

imageMy first stop in Germany was my place of birth, Frankfurt am Main which has a very traditional and regional influenced cuisine to offer. The part of the city where most of the old ‘Ebbelwoi/Apfelwein Wirtschaften’ (apple cider restaurants) are located is Sachsenhausen on the opposite bank of the Main river facing the business district. One of those is ‘Kanonesteppel’ which we chose for today’s lunch.

I ordered my favorite Hessian dish ‘Fleisch mit Grie Soss‘ (meat with green sauce) which came with four big slices of boiled beef fillet that was wonderfully tender and lean and fell apart when touched with a lightly sour aftertaste. I really liked the boiled potatoes as they are different to the floury potatoes you mostly get in Asia but these were solid and had a great potatoe-y taste. All this was covered under a layer of this heavenly green sauce mixed together from seven different herbs, sour cream, boiled egg and some other herbs and spices. The sauce was cold and gave the dish a lovely refreshing lightness that I nearly felt sad when I had finished it all up. I normally would have washed that down with the local ‘Ebbelwoi/Apfelwein‘ (apple cider) but I had to drive to Freiburg later that day.

Frankfurt is known for it’s fancy bars and clubs but what I almost always do when I’m there is go and visit Sachsenhausen and it’s ebbelwoi restaurants cause I love the local dishes and also recommend them if you want to try some real authentic German (Hessian). I want more.

http://www.kanonesteppel.de/

Kanonesteppel Apfelweinwirtschaft
Textorstrasse 20 Grosse Rittergasse 49-51
60594 Frankfurt am Main
Germany
Tel: +49 69 66566466