Life's a Kitchen.

yesterday we had dinner – outdoor! – at aromi’s, eagerly taking advantage of one out of three awesome warm nights we had so far. reckon that’s all we are put of with this summer - for some dumb reason we’ve been chastised with nothing but shitloads of rain and chilly temperatures since april march feb jan. no-one, by law, should be molested by a climate like this but we are (me very pleased, i’m german, we live on feeling disadvantaged). no idea whom or what to blame for our misery (me not pleased at all, i’m german, i live on blaming others), but at least it can’t be our fault, because you’ll never find any leftovers on our plates (can’t be more pleased, i’m german, me never responsible).

anyway. to accompany our bottle of dry white, christian and me habitually rounded out our precious collection of disgusting german words in order to find the most repelling imposition our mother tongue is capable of. that’s a very challenging assignment and we are very good at it. the lucky wordy sod emerging victorious yesterday was: “schnabulieren” (thx cw!). as a matter of course i looked it up, but no way to find an english word as awful, frumpy, wry and goose-pimply  as “schna-bu-lie-ren”.

to give you an idea of its vibe: there simply is none. there’s just a shiver. try to imagine a person intending to come out foodily by using the term nibbling away or to savour whilst forcing down a dry shred of rubber beef filet, drowned in a microwave-heated-ready-made-sauce as a valentine’s dinner. noisily chewing, dressed in dark green corduroy trousers, a sweaty beige polyester shirt, wearing his grandfather’s sludge coloured spectacles, eyes due to delight and a severe farsightedness almost popping out. now you’ve got a slight clue what “schnabulieren” is about: people like this love to use words like that and they do it quite frequently.

we don’t. we are decent, magnificent foodies, modest and flawless. so yesterday we got exactly what we deserve: a delicious vitello tonnato we wolfed down the very second the plate touched down at our table. 

there’s just one thing i’m wondering about: shouldn’t a proper vitello be soaked in tonnato (thoroughly, at best over nite) instead of just wearing a fancy hat of mayonnaise (add capers, anchovy, lemon juice, salt and pepper)? furthermore (i just started this sous-vide-thingy as my new obsession): what might happen to my palate if i gave the veal a 24-hour-very-very-slow-cooking treatment?

been to “Bandole sur Mer” just the other day… pretty famous as bandole is I was pretty excited to learn more about the french cuisine in berlin (dispensable to mention that you’ll find loads of reviews like this or this or this or whatsoever all over the place if you’re interested!).

I’m not very secretive about my clandestine dislike when it comes to french food. for a simple reason: me doesn’t like complicated stuff. I’m blond. on a french plate you’ll always far too often for my liking frequently find helluva contradictory different tastes. some of  them will go along with each other very well (okay, I confess: damn well), some won’t, and some just wouldn’t decide if they’d like to do or don’t. dunno.

bottom line is: at the end of the night I was accordinlgy confused and less pleased, even though not as confused as our waiter obviously was – ‘cause he kept on asking us in posh english if everything’d be fine with us (guess it’s just compulsory sashaying down that language road if (1) german dude working in a (2) french restaurant in (3)mitte?).

it was. fine with us. only our purse suffered a severe eradication that night, though, but - talking about MITTE! – one wouldn’t mention that, would I?

there’s definitively nothing more comforting after a hectic and jittery week than a shared plate full of love, isn’t it?

pasta by ZEFIRO: tortelli stuffed with salmon in a lemon and tarragon sauce, tagliolini with a white squid ragout and summer truffles. yummy! [ann]