Eric and I went to a new restaurant in downtown Lancaster on Saturday night. It was showcased in the newspaper last week because it replaced a seedy dive bar where much criminal activity had taken place. It's also just a block away from the Water Street Rescue Mission, which is a homeless shelter. A nice, Puerto Rican restaurant that can only serve to elevate the neighborhood in which it resides. And this is why I cannot review this restaurant in my new food critic column.
The issue, you see, is that the food was not good. It was a great experience that allowed for a brief cultural immersion into a country with which I am not too familiar. You know it's authentic when Roxette's "Listen to Your Heart" is playing in the background in Spanish. The service was good and the owners are young members of a family who immigrated here and who dedicated this restaurant to their deceased mother. Pictures of the youngest members of the extended family adorn the walls, and the decorations are sparse, but sincere.
The entire proposition of the little place was sincere. So it is with that in mind that I am as honest, but as kind, as possible.
We ordered the recommended dishes. A small plate of assorted appetizers, Mofongo (mashed green plantains) with beef, and beef and onions with red beans and rice. Traditionally Puerto Rican, and we couldn't wait. The "bread basket" came with fried plantains on top of soft slices of white bread. It came with a condiment that was called "Madre" sauce, and it was a very close version of Thousand Island. The bread was awfully greasy, but the plantains were a great departure from American Fare. A great replacement for potato chips!
The appetizer dish was filled with fried items--corn rolls (a bit like fritters), empanadillos (filled beef patties), chicken wings, and potato cakes. I'm afraid to say, they were all a bit greasy, and they all needed the help of the condiment, except for the wings. The wings were pretty good.
The flavor of the entrees wasn't too bad. I felt there was definitely A-1 Sauce involved, not that it matters--I like A-1 Sauce. But the entrees were disappointingly dry. The beef was so incredibly dry, I thought it might have been jerky at one point. The mashed plantains were so dry they caked together, reminding me of a type of caulking that might be used in an ancient form of mud huts. Eric and I bemused that Puerto Rico, being a poor country, may not have the best and freshest ingredients available, and that this was probably really authentic. That this was the neighborhood's confort food.
In my only trip to Puerto Rico several years ago, I had asked the concierge of the hotel to send me to the most authentic Puerto Rican restaurant he could think of. I ended up at a little corner pad that reminded me a bit of a high school cafeteria, complete with the colored plastic trays. The food was equally reminiscent of a high school cafeteria. I can't say that there was anything I even finished, which is quite a rare thing with me. I remember feeling sad as I sat thinking, if the concierge of a hotel sent me here, is this really the best Puerto Rico can do?
Back to the present, and I imagine Eric is right, that there is a comfort in the food being served at Restaurant Madre's. If I visit it in the future, it's to honor their Madre, help lift up the community, but it won't be for the food.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
American Heritage Property MIS-Managers
The service industry is a very important and noble industry. When a company or institution does it right, it has the potential to uplift and delight the guest and voila! Loyalty is born. Screw that up, and it could, and should, be disastrous. This is why I get all hot under the collar when I receive bad service, especially if I'm PAYING for that service, and it's woefully inadequate.
This is my issue with American Heritage Property Management. They are very bad at property management. It's supposedly their specialty, and they are very bad at it. Not even average. BAD.
As with folks whom I have managed in my career, there are rock stars, there are competent workers, and there are people you need to counsel into doing something else that is a better fit for their personality and ability. I almost feel like I need to sit down with American Heritage Property Management and say, "Look, I know you want to do a good job (although, honestly, I'm not sure how true that is), and that you've tried very hard (again, not sure). But this isn't working because you can't seem to collect rent on time, you're pretty bad at finding the right tenant for the property, your stable of 'maintenance workers' are either ripping you off or you're getting a cut under the table, and there is enormous turnover of your property managers, so you're either hiring the wrong people, or you're treating them very poorly. Either way, your approach is clearly backfiring. So we're going to have part ways. I encourage you to find another career path that could complement your, um, incompetence in organization and management. You could try to do this at another location, but really. Don't."
This is my issue with American Heritage Property Management. They are very bad at property management. It's supposedly their specialty, and they are very bad at it. Not even average. BAD.
As with folks whom I have managed in my career, there are rock stars, there are competent workers, and there are people you need to counsel into doing something else that is a better fit for their personality and ability. I almost feel like I need to sit down with American Heritage Property Management and say, "Look, I know you want to do a good job (although, honestly, I'm not sure how true that is), and that you've tried very hard (again, not sure). But this isn't working because you can't seem to collect rent on time, you're pretty bad at finding the right tenant for the property, your stable of 'maintenance workers' are either ripping you off or you're getting a cut under the table, and there is enormous turnover of your property managers, so you're either hiring the wrong people, or you're treating them very poorly. Either way, your approach is clearly backfiring. So we're going to have part ways. I encourage you to find another career path that could complement your, um, incompetence in organization and management. You could try to do this at another location, but really. Don't."
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
What the HECK am I eating?!?!
While in my immobile state post-surgery for the past several days, I have done an enormous amount of reading. I've read Skinny Bitch, French Women Don't Get Fat, The Maker's Diet--and that's just the reading in book form! Yes, there's a theme here. I want to know the TRUTH behind a healthy, sustainable, long-lived body!
It all started when I was a young child. Okay, I won't go THAT far back and bore you to death, but you do need to know that I was an overweight kid. I loved to eat and I ate a LOT. Thankfully, a trip to Japan during my high school years, where a car was not at my disposal, and where I found that I was actually good at tennis and volleyball, reset my body and my mindset about eating and fitness. It also didn't hurt that I grew several inches in the following few years.
Since then, it's been very important to keep my weight in check. I read and tried the South Beach Diet, and it actually worked...until I went mad for the bread basket at a dinner one night. I tried simply eating less and exercising more. That worked until I got PMS or, uh, got irritated. I tried just eating half the food on my plate and having the server box the rest. That NEVER worked. I would pick just one more morsel until there wasn't enough to justify the take home box, so I just ate the rest of it. Why not have have the server box it at the start? Because I didn't want EVERYONE to know I had no self-discipline at all. How embarrassing. So I kept reading and kept fluctuating.
Of the books that I have just read in the past few days, I hold very little credence to Skinny Bitch. A few of the claims that justify a vegan lifestyle are far-fetched, and I really couldn't tolerate all the attitude from the authors. Yes, they have a disclaimer at the end where they admit they were "just being that way" to sell books, and that's even more vile to me.
French Women Don't Get Fat actually has a lot of wisdom in it. It just didn't need to take 256 pages to get the point across. My main take-aways: Watch what you eat, but don't deny yourself. Make trade-offs between delicious things that aren't slimming. Love your inner being; don't try to make yourself something you're not. Drink a lot of water, and learn to incorporate more exercise in your daily life, as opposed to running endlessly on a treadmill. I love that last part.
But really, there's something to the enjoyment of food that many Americans don't employ. We're an on-the-go society. We skip breakfast, work through lunch, and then eat in the car. Why else would we need so many cup holders in our cars? So next time, I'm going to not read, not watch TV, not work, when I'm trying to eat something. I'm going to enjoy my bites and chew thoughtfully and joyfully. That, and I'm going to drink more water, climb more stairs and love myself. Hm. That seems like a lot. Please, Lord, let this last longer than just one day!
The Maker's Diet was...interesting. Dr. Jordan Rubin has an incredible story that lends a certain credibility to his dietary platform, but when you really get down to it all, it sounds suspiciously like an organic version of the South Beach Diet. Well, minus the unclean meats and shellfish, as according to the Bible. But plus the addition of supplements sold by his company. That part makes me very suspicious. As my husband says, everyone likes to buy, but no one likes to be sold, and this book smacks of that.
Now, it certainly has principles that absolutely make sense. Like stop eating chemicals. Got it. The whole antibiotics-in-commercially-sold-meat, milk, and dairy is certainly something that should raise an eyebrow, but what's the solution in this modern world of productivity and speed? Organic food seems to be more expensive than I want to spend, and I hadn't given it much thought. Until now.
So off I went into cyberspace to search for alternatives. There are many great websites that write about humane and sustainable protein sources. When I began the quest, I had a suspicion that I was in the perfect location to take advantage of those sources, and boy was I right. Lancaster county is teeming with healthful alternatives. Stay tuned as I turn the research into something more tangible in the next coming months. I'll let you know how I'm doing as a French woman eating grass-fed beef...
It all started when I was a young child. Okay, I won't go THAT far back and bore you to death, but you do need to know that I was an overweight kid. I loved to eat and I ate a LOT. Thankfully, a trip to Japan during my high school years, where a car was not at my disposal, and where I found that I was actually good at tennis and volleyball, reset my body and my mindset about eating and fitness. It also didn't hurt that I grew several inches in the following few years.
Since then, it's been very important to keep my weight in check. I read and tried the South Beach Diet, and it actually worked...until I went mad for the bread basket at a dinner one night. I tried simply eating less and exercising more. That worked until I got PMS or, uh, got irritated. I tried just eating half the food on my plate and having the server box the rest. That NEVER worked. I would pick just one more morsel until there wasn't enough to justify the take home box, so I just ate the rest of it. Why not have have the server box it at the start? Because I didn't want EVERYONE to know I had no self-discipline at all. How embarrassing. So I kept reading and kept fluctuating.
Of the books that I have just read in the past few days, I hold very little credence to Skinny Bitch. A few of the claims that justify a vegan lifestyle are far-fetched, and I really couldn't tolerate all the attitude from the authors. Yes, they have a disclaimer at the end where they admit they were "just being that way" to sell books, and that's even more vile to me.
French Women Don't Get Fat actually has a lot of wisdom in it. It just didn't need to take 256 pages to get the point across. My main take-aways: Watch what you eat, but don't deny yourself. Make trade-offs between delicious things that aren't slimming. Love your inner being; don't try to make yourself something you're not. Drink a lot of water, and learn to incorporate more exercise in your daily life, as opposed to running endlessly on a treadmill. I love that last part.
But really, there's something to the enjoyment of food that many Americans don't employ. We're an on-the-go society. We skip breakfast, work through lunch, and then eat in the car. Why else would we need so many cup holders in our cars? So next time, I'm going to not read, not watch TV, not work, when I'm trying to eat something. I'm going to enjoy my bites and chew thoughtfully and joyfully. That, and I'm going to drink more water, climb more stairs and love myself. Hm. That seems like a lot. Please, Lord, let this last longer than just one day!
The Maker's Diet was...interesting. Dr. Jordan Rubin has an incredible story that lends a certain credibility to his dietary platform, but when you really get down to it all, it sounds suspiciously like an organic version of the South Beach Diet. Well, minus the unclean meats and shellfish, as according to the Bible. But plus the addition of supplements sold by his company. That part makes me very suspicious. As my husband says, everyone likes to buy, but no one likes to be sold, and this book smacks of that.
Now, it certainly has principles that absolutely make sense. Like stop eating chemicals. Got it. The whole antibiotics-in-commercially-sold-meat, milk, and dairy is certainly something that should raise an eyebrow, but what's the solution in this modern world of productivity and speed? Organic food seems to be more expensive than I want to spend, and I hadn't given it much thought. Until now.
So off I went into cyberspace to search for alternatives. There are many great websites that write about humane and sustainable protein sources. When I began the quest, I had a suspicion that I was in the perfect location to take advantage of those sources, and boy was I right. Lancaster county is teeming with healthful alternatives. Stay tuned as I turn the research into something more tangible in the next coming months. I'll let you know how I'm doing as a French woman eating grass-fed beef...
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Chicken Soup and Lancaster Health Campus
I just had some foot surgery done on Friday. Nothing major--it's the removal of a foot feature long despised by the women of my family. My mom has given me many things--her strong personality, her fun-loving mischief (yes, she is mischievous, but would never admit it), her loyalty to friends and family, and...her bunions. I hate to even mention the word, it's so ugly. I mean, nothing romantic and lovely could ever come from a word that sounds like "bunion."
Anyway, the point of my blog is not the surgery itself, but the Lancaster Health Campus on Harrisburg Pike and Rohrerstown Rd. I often drove past it and was vaguely aware of a huge medical campus with several new-looking buildings, but never paid too much attention to them. After all, I'm a healthy young woman.
Recently, though, my doctors have wanted me to take precautionary measures on something my annual physical revealed. So far, nothing definitive or alarming, but there's been quite a bit of blood-taking (okay, a lot. I'm surprised I'm still alive) and driving around to specialists. All that activity, plus my b***** surgery, has taken me to the Lancaster Health Campus several times in the past month. I have to say, it's absolutely first-class. It's clean and spacious; there was obviously thought put into how to make it as comfortable as possible for both patients and their families. Most importantly, the personnel are wonderful. I've never seen so cheery a bunch as the assistants and nurses whom I have encountered there. It takes a special person to joyfully serve people who are battling cancer or kidney disease and are getting sick and nauseous while taking in their treatment. It takes compassion, empathy, strength, a Godly love. And that place is full of it. It's contagious. I felt myself longing to find a way to volunteer. When, you might ask? I don't know. I told you, it's contagious. Colds are contagious, and they don't wait for the "right time" to inflict. Perhaps the same might happen here.
So keep on, Lancaster Health Campus. You guys rock n' roll. It makes getting sick feel a whole lot better...
Anyway, the point of my blog is not the surgery itself, but the Lancaster Health Campus on Harrisburg Pike and Rohrerstown Rd. I often drove past it and was vaguely aware of a huge medical campus with several new-looking buildings, but never paid too much attention to them. After all, I'm a healthy young woman.
Recently, though, my doctors have wanted me to take precautionary measures on something my annual physical revealed. So far, nothing definitive or alarming, but there's been quite a bit of blood-taking (okay, a lot. I'm surprised I'm still alive) and driving around to specialists. All that activity, plus my b***** surgery, has taken me to the Lancaster Health Campus several times in the past month. I have to say, it's absolutely first-class. It's clean and spacious; there was obviously thought put into how to make it as comfortable as possible for both patients and their families. Most importantly, the personnel are wonderful. I've never seen so cheery a bunch as the assistants and nurses whom I have encountered there. It takes a special person to joyfully serve people who are battling cancer or kidney disease and are getting sick and nauseous while taking in their treatment. It takes compassion, empathy, strength, a Godly love. And that place is full of it. It's contagious. I felt myself longing to find a way to volunteer. When, you might ask? I don't know. I told you, it's contagious. Colds are contagious, and they don't wait for the "right time" to inflict. Perhaps the same might happen here.
So keep on, Lancaster Health Campus. You guys rock n' roll. It makes getting sick feel a whole lot better...
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Superbowl Ads!!
Ah, yes. Superbowl. If the game is bad, at least you know the commercials will be entertaining. This time, the game is stellar. It's nail-biting. We're in the 4th with only 2:42 to go, and I really want the Giants to win. Come on, baby!!
I'm exhausted. As you all know by now, the Giants did pull it off, and I'm exhausted from the screaming and jumping. How 'bout that scampering by Manning that allowed him to escape a sack by the hairs of his chiny-chin-chin? Or that stellar I-got-it-on-my-helmet catch by Tyree? Man, football doesn't get much better than that.
Oh yeah, I was going to talk about the Superbowl Ads. But this year, who cares about the Superbowl Ads?
I'm exhausted. As you all know by now, the Giants did pull it off, and I'm exhausted from the screaming and jumping. How 'bout that scampering by Manning that allowed him to escape a sack by the hairs of his chiny-chin-chin? Or that stellar I-got-it-on-my-helmet catch by Tyree? Man, football doesn't get much better than that.
Oh yeah, I was going to talk about the Superbowl Ads. But this year, who cares about the Superbowl Ads?
Friday, February 1, 2008
All this PORK!!
Years ago, there was an ad campaign done by the Pork Council of America (okay, that's not the exact organization, but you know what I mean). One of their trucks was adorned with,
"One potato, Two potato, Three potato, PORK!"
I thought that was the funniest thing I had ever seen.
"One potato, Two potato, Three potato, PORK!"
I thought that was the funniest thing I had ever seen.
Why aren't Germans fat?
I just returned from a business trip that took me to Cologne, Germany for 4 days. While there, I took great care to attempt to eat everything my German friend had listed for me. I was extremely excited about that list. It was filled with meat, sausages, meat, noodles, and meat. I'm a lover of meat, so I told my colleagues that I was going to eat meat that entire week, and could they please take along some fiber pills for me?
The first night was at a lovely, rustic Bier Garden overlooking the Rhine River in Old Town called Haxenhaus. I ordered the Paulaner on tap and the "Augustus," the house specialty. It included pig knuckle, Leberkese, bratwurst, sauerkraut, and some nice pan-fried potatoes. Now, I don't know about you, but when I read "pig knuckle," I was thinking it would be the size of a pig's toe. If they had toes... In any case, it wasn't supposed to be very big. Maybe kind of like Chicken Fingers. When I read "bratwurst," I was thinking of the huge sausages we have in the US where the diameter of the sausage is about the size of my wrist. And the Leberkese? I had no idea what that was. Our waiter, in his broken English, God bless him, said something about Bavarian and ham, but what the heck, everything I'm eating is coming from the pig.
When it came, it was enormous. Gigantic. An enormously gigantic plate of pig. The pig's knuckle was practically the size of my head. Turns out it's a huge part of the entire pig's leg. It's the portion just above the knee of the rear leg--so shouldn't it be called Pig's Knee? It was loaded with meat, and it had this wonderfully crisp skin that was still loaded with the fat just between the skin and meat. A few of my co-workers got to work in removing the skin and placing it aside. What were they thinking?!? That was the best part--high cholesterol be damned!! The Leberkese turned out to be SPAM! Now I know where SPAM comes from! It was pan-fried on both sides to give it the crispiness that offset the, ahem, very soft everything else. Now, the bratwurst was a bit of a surprise. It was like a very long breakfast sausage. You know, it's pretty thin, has a lot of spices. Very good, but really took a back seat to its pork brothers. Delicious meal, heavy as a brick.
The next day, breakfast consisted of smoked salmon with some horseradish sauce. I'm going to have that for breakfast for the rest of my life. Just imagine all that Omega-3 coursing through my body...offsetting the saturated fat I filled my body with the night before... Lunch was in a charming little restaurant in a little town a 45-minute train ride away. I had beef stroganoff with Spaetzle, an egg noodle that my husband LOVES. It was quite good.
Dinner was another German night. Wiener-Schnitzel. Now, I thought that might be another sausage. Boy was I wrong! It's a veal cutlet pounded until it's thin, then dredged in flour, egg, and breadcrumbs, then fried in LARD. It was DELICIOUS. Now, had I known it was veal, I probably would not have ordered it. While the slaughter of meat isn't the most pleasant of thoughts, or very humane for the animals, I still can't manage to not eat it. It's too good. Veal, on the other hand, does make me a little sick. Sticking a baby cow in a box not large enough for it to move in so that the meat can be as tender as possible really is disgustingly cruel. So while I savored the dish ignorantly, I now write about it guiltily.
Day 3, and I was on a roll. Breakfast of salmon, and I had found Nutella and peanut butter go very well together when spread on perfectly crusty bread. For a late lunch, we stopped by a little sausage stand to get some curry-wurst. It's the equivalent of the hot dog stand in New York City - the best worst hot dog you've ever had. They take the sausage and throw it into a machine that cuts it all up into bite sized pieces, and then they pour this gravy over it, sprinkle some curry on top, and there you have it. Good, but not my favorite. I really liked the curry flavor, but the gravy was too sweet and thick.
Dinner that night was at a place called Oyster, near the train station. I ordered the French Oysters, if only to find out what French oysters were like. They were raw oysters with a garlic vinegar condiment. Now, it might have been my high expectations that a place called Oyster would deliver an incredible oyster experience, but it was average, perhaps a little disappointing, even.
My entree was the Iberica Pork, which is cured ham from Spain. These pigs have only been fed acorns. Wonderful dish! Two slices of the Iberica ham, one crispy with the bone still in, the other with a pink hue that was incredibly tender. It was served with a balsamic vegetable ragout that lent the right amount of tang and sweetness. It was also served with baked new potatoes with herbs.
Last day, and I couldn't even eat breakfast--my body just couldn't take in any more calories! I went shopping that day and found myself in these gourmet markets in the basements of the department stores there. Beautiful produce and interesting culinary finds! For lunch, we stopped at the tortellini counter where there were these plump, fresh tortellini of all kinds just staring at us with tags written in German that we couldn't read. After the man behind the counter did a couple of chicken flaps and rooster sounds, we just said, "Pick anything. Enough for two plates, okay?" I still can't get over how delicious the mushroom tortellini was, how I almost wanted to ask for the hazelnut mixture in one of them as a side dish, the freshness of the halibut concoction in another. Not bad for a couple of foreigners without a clue.
Dinner that night was at a Chinese restaurant. Say what? Yes, a Chinese restaurant. I still like to visit the world and see whether the Chinese is any good or not. And this time, it did not disappoint. I saw a dish on another table that is a typical SiChuan dish. Hot and spicy, beef is stir fried, placed onto a bed of vegetables, and over the top this spice mixture goes! In New York City, the dish is so spicy, the top of it glistens in red. But I couldn't find it on the menu. Turns out the dish is an off-menu item, and I was lucky enough to cash in! I also gave a try for the Seafood Tofu Hot Pot dish. It was surprisingly good, but still a distance from the version I have come to love at California's Sam Woo's restaurant.
After all of this eating, I was so ready to go back home. My calorie-laden body just couldn't handle anymore heavy meals with lots of simple carbs. South Beach dieters would have been appalled! I promised myself I would go on a 40 day fast. Perhaps a diet like Daniel's when he's in Babylon. Anything but more meat and heaviness.
But the thing that still eludes me -- Why aren't Germans fat?
The first night was at a lovely, rustic Bier Garden overlooking the Rhine River in Old Town called Haxenhaus. I ordered the Paulaner on tap and the "Augustus," the house specialty. It included pig knuckle, Leberkese, bratwurst, sauerkraut, and some nice pan-fried potatoes. Now, I don't know about you, but when I read "pig knuckle," I was thinking it would be the size of a pig's toe. If they had toes... In any case, it wasn't supposed to be very big. Maybe kind of like Chicken Fingers. When I read "bratwurst," I was thinking of the huge sausages we have in the US where the diameter of the sausage is about the size of my wrist. And the Leberkese? I had no idea what that was. Our waiter, in his broken English, God bless him, said something about Bavarian and ham, but what the heck, everything I'm eating is coming from the pig.
When it came, it was enormous. Gigantic. An enormously gigantic plate of pig. The pig's knuckle was practically the size of my head. Turns out it's a huge part of the entire pig's leg. It's the portion just above the knee of the rear leg--so shouldn't it be called Pig's Knee? It was loaded with meat, and it had this wonderfully crisp skin that was still loaded with the fat just between the skin and meat. A few of my co-workers got to work in removing the skin and placing it aside. What were they thinking?!? That was the best part--high cholesterol be damned!! The Leberkese turned out to be SPAM! Now I know where SPAM comes from! It was pan-fried on both sides to give it the crispiness that offset the, ahem, very soft everything else. Now, the bratwurst was a bit of a surprise. It was like a very long breakfast sausage. You know, it's pretty thin, has a lot of spices. Very good, but really took a back seat to its pork brothers. Delicious meal, heavy as a brick.
The next day, breakfast consisted of smoked salmon with some horseradish sauce. I'm going to have that for breakfast for the rest of my life. Just imagine all that Omega-3 coursing through my body...offsetting the saturated fat I filled my body with the night before... Lunch was in a charming little restaurant in a little town a 45-minute train ride away. I had beef stroganoff with Spaetzle, an egg noodle that my husband LOVES. It was quite good.
Dinner was another German night. Wiener-Schnitzel. Now, I thought that might be another sausage. Boy was I wrong! It's a veal cutlet pounded until it's thin, then dredged in flour, egg, and breadcrumbs, then fried in LARD. It was DELICIOUS. Now, had I known it was veal, I probably would not have ordered it. While the slaughter of meat isn't the most pleasant of thoughts, or very humane for the animals, I still can't manage to not eat it. It's too good. Veal, on the other hand, does make me a little sick. Sticking a baby cow in a box not large enough for it to move in so that the meat can be as tender as possible really is disgustingly cruel. So while I savored the dish ignorantly, I now write about it guiltily.
Day 3, and I was on a roll. Breakfast of salmon, and I had found Nutella and peanut butter go very well together when spread on perfectly crusty bread. For a late lunch, we stopped by a little sausage stand to get some curry-wurst. It's the equivalent of the hot dog stand in New York City - the best worst hot dog you've ever had. They take the sausage and throw it into a machine that cuts it all up into bite sized pieces, and then they pour this gravy over it, sprinkle some curry on top, and there you have it. Good, but not my favorite. I really liked the curry flavor, but the gravy was too sweet and thick.
Dinner that night was at a place called Oyster, near the train station. I ordered the French Oysters, if only to find out what French oysters were like. They were raw oysters with a garlic vinegar condiment. Now, it might have been my high expectations that a place called Oyster would deliver an incredible oyster experience, but it was average, perhaps a little disappointing, even.
My entree was the Iberica Pork, which is cured ham from Spain. These pigs have only been fed acorns. Wonderful dish! Two slices of the Iberica ham, one crispy with the bone still in, the other with a pink hue that was incredibly tender. It was served with a balsamic vegetable ragout that lent the right amount of tang and sweetness. It was also served with baked new potatoes with herbs.
Last day, and I couldn't even eat breakfast--my body just couldn't take in any more calories! I went shopping that day and found myself in these gourmet markets in the basements of the department stores there. Beautiful produce and interesting culinary finds! For lunch, we stopped at the tortellini counter where there were these plump, fresh tortellini of all kinds just staring at us with tags written in German that we couldn't read. After the man behind the counter did a couple of chicken flaps and rooster sounds, we just said, "Pick anything. Enough for two plates, okay?" I still can't get over how delicious the mushroom tortellini was, how I almost wanted to ask for the hazelnut mixture in one of them as a side dish, the freshness of the halibut concoction in another. Not bad for a couple of foreigners without a clue.
Dinner that night was at a Chinese restaurant. Say what? Yes, a Chinese restaurant. I still like to visit the world and see whether the Chinese is any good or not. And this time, it did not disappoint. I saw a dish on another table that is a typical SiChuan dish. Hot and spicy, beef is stir fried, placed onto a bed of vegetables, and over the top this spice mixture goes! In New York City, the dish is so spicy, the top of it glistens in red. But I couldn't find it on the menu. Turns out the dish is an off-menu item, and I was lucky enough to cash in! I also gave a try for the Seafood Tofu Hot Pot dish. It was surprisingly good, but still a distance from the version I have come to love at California's Sam Woo's restaurant.
After all of this eating, I was so ready to go back home. My calorie-laden body just couldn't handle anymore heavy meals with lots of simple carbs. South Beach dieters would have been appalled! I promised myself I would go on a 40 day fast. Perhaps a diet like Daniel's when he's in Babylon. Anything but more meat and heaviness.
But the thing that still eludes me -- Why aren't Germans fat?
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