Germany Travelogue

EAT

I have read that German cuisine is boring, sausages, pork knuckles, meat loaf, sauerkraut. To be honest, I was not expecting great German food. Usually, how I get around is to look for different cuisines or interesting restaurant decorations to make up for it. Nevertheless, there were some food on my list to try, just to get a taste of what locals eat.

As much as I love potatoes, Germans must love them even more. Every dish is accompanied by potatoes, in the style of fries, sauteed, salad, hashbrown and even dumplings! I was curious what potato dumpling was. I assumed it would be like ravioli whereby potatoes are stuffed into the pasta. But it wasn't. Check out my first meal in Germany which comprised of potato dumplings. I had in my mind 'dumplings' refer to rice dumplings in the Chinese context. But when I was clarifying with the restaurant waiter, he was just like my presumption --- potato dumplings are as is, just like how we think dumplings equate to rice dumplings. Anyway, it was not my type of food, so I tried to avoid it during the rest of my trip. While most of the potatoes like fries, sauteed, taste alright, the potatoes taste different from what I am used to having in Singapore - USA Russet, China, Holland, Indonesia potatoes. The mashed potato at KFC tastes bad. 

I was also curious about Swabian cuisine, which are food people in Southwestern Germany (Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria) eat. The most famous Swabian food is maultaschen, where meat, spinach and onion are stuffed into ravioli pasta and eaten with beef broth. A little like prawn dumplings (水饺). I managed to try this at Blockhutte in Black Forest and it was not bad. Not surprising, it came with a side of potato salad! Tips: the surrounds of Blockhutte is captivating! 

Talking about sausages, I like the Bavarian white sausages and curry wurst style. They are white as no preservatives are used, heated in water but not at boiling temperature. They are made of minced veal and pork back bacon, and typically are not as salty as the orangey brown sausages we are more used to. Street stalls tend to sell them curry wurst style, basically the gravy for the sausages are ketchup curry. You can either have them with sausage buns or fries. Berlin has this famous Curry 36, but I actually prefer Mustafa's Gemuse Kebab, which is just along the same stretch as Curry 36 on Mehringdamm, Berlin. The kebab is flavourful and tender, which goes very well with the warm pita bread. 

On breads, I really love the breakfast hard rolls, which are good with both savoury ham and cheese fillings or sweet nutella and butter spread. As for the general standards of pastries and cakes, they tend to be sweet and heavy. I had several crepes, both from street shops and creperies. They are not of France's standards but it's good enough as a sweet treat. Always order the nutella crepe as it is unlikely to go wrong.

On pork knuckles, I only had them in the last few days of my trip in Munich, which means I am not into this dish. In fact, I had Sichuan cuisine like 水煮鱼, Thai cuisine like Tom Yum soup, Italian cuisine like pastas before I even thought of having pork knuckles! Still, I had my first pork knuckle in Spatenhaus an der oper in Munich. It's different as they drench it with clear broth, which makes it a wet instead of dry dish. So it was pretty good but as usual, I could only take a few bites as it was salty for me.

Generally, it was easy to find restaurants and food in Germany, both local and foreign, especially Italian. In the bigger cities, I will go for foreign cuisine as I reserve German restaurants for smaller or more traditional towns which may not have foreign cuisine restaurants. I strongly recommend to visit a traditional Bavarian style restaurant such as Spatenhaus an der oper as I absolutely adore its decoration. The larger cities like Hamburg, Berlin have plenty of dining varieties, including a number of Michelin star restaurants. I enjoy trying out restaurants that are edgy or funky or menus that are interesting, such as American BBQ at Chicago Williams BBQ, Frankfurt under the Gekko Group. I also like fusion such as Japanese Thai Vietnamese cuisines at Kuchi Kant, Berlin. For opulent feel, check out Fairmont Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten, Hamburg, which has lush velvety lounges, traditional white wood restaurant, glitzy fine dining at Nikkei Nine etc.  

STAY

I spend a considerable amount of time researching for hotels to stay during a trip. I generally go for boutique hotels, budget withstanding, as I like edgier styles and artistic designs done by these hoteliers. With COVID-19, this has changed a bit. I figured it might be better to stay in international chain hotels, as I assumed the hotels would adhere to sanitisation procedures, have more flexible amendment policies or staff would be more well trained on COVID-19 regulations. I did not look for AirBnB as I did not have the confidence on the above. On the flip side, AirBnB rentals would mean we are the only guests in a single property. 

My bet turned out well as I was satisfied with most of the hotels. In terms of well trained staff due to COVID-19 situation, I would say Crowne Plaza Berlin Potsdamer Platz (IHG property) exceeded my expectation. The room size and toilet were spacious, parking was free and just beside the property, we were just in Potsdamer which had a mall and eateries within 3 minutes of drive. What exceeded expectations was how the staff assisted us when our next property in Dresden (Moxy Dresden Neustadt, a Marriot property) simply sent us an email a day before we were due to arrive in Dresden that the hotel was out of bounds to tourists. This arose from Dresden's restrictions on travellers due to rising infection rates. She assisted to contact Moxy Dresden but no avail as Moxy was not picking up calls. She then assisted us to contact our next hotel after Dresden in Nuremburg, after we decided to skip Dresden and make a longer drive to Nuremburg to stay. The receptionist at the hotel in Nuremburg was not fluent in English, so we were really grateful to the staff at Crowne Plaza Berlin Potsdamer Platz who explained our situation and managed to get us a room in Nuremburg. From this incident and the subsequent interactions with Moxy, Marriot and Expedia (the portal which I booked most of my hotels from), I would say there needs to be better training and refund support as I had a tough time requesting for my refund. It was also unfortunate I encountered flooding in the bathroom in another Marriot property (Aloft Stuttgart) and how the staff handled the change in room was also not well managed. 

I mentioned I like boutique hotels for its edginess. I would say Hotel Sonne in Fussen was a nice surprise. I chose this hotel as I wanted to stay in Fussen which was a short drive to Neuschwanstein Castle. After I checked in, I realised the hotel had many nice photo spots, breakfast was good, and there was a nice spa! Another nice one in terms of photo spots would be Moxy Frankfurt East, with a real barber area and industrial design style room. However, there was no phone in the room which meant everything we needed, we had to come down to the reception to request! From the various experiences and in such uncertain times of travel, I may gear towards the more comfortable 4 star hotels like Crowne Plaza (as mentioned above) or Novotel Munich City for my future travels.