The Schadenfreude Guide to Dining Out

WordGirl and I ate out at a local German restaurant last night in an effort to test the hypothesis that eating ethnic food in regions lacking a large local presence of that particular ethnicity is invariably a lousy idea. This also conveniently tested the notion that change sucks.

Even if the food turned out to be lackluster, at least we'd be able to see some of that wonderful German efficiency on display. Confident that the staff would have things well in hand, we even decided to show up at 6 pm without a reservation.

Let's just say one meal exploded a whole bunch of stereotypes.

First, the idiot hostess couldn't handle the 12 people in the lobby. The first batch of fools showed up with 6 people, had to have nonsmoking, and didn't bother with a reservation. This presented a quandary, as there were not enough seats available for them. Whereas a stinking non-Aryan barbarian might have done something silly like asked them to sit in the bar or wait in the lobby until space came available, our German hegemons would brook no such nonsense. So we waited. For ten minutes. While these fools weighed various options. Before settling on the Gallic Solution---they waited at the bar.

Then the two people in front of us posed another dilemma---there were seats available for them in both smoking and nonsmoking. This was apparently a real thumbsucker, as it took five more minutes to resolve.

Finally, the Teutonic twit turned her baleful glare toward WordGirl and I. "Two for nonsmoking," I said. "One moment," she said, and waited for her counterpart Brunnhilda to give our seats away to people on the phone who would not be here for 30 minutes.

There ensued a whispered conversation between the two which clearly could not be resolved by non-Junkers---an aristocrat was summoned. Being of such high station, of course, they didn't come quickly, and took time to converse with a patron at length over access to the upstairs area before deigning to address the problem at hand, namely WG and I preparing to get all Kung Fu on their sorry Hun asses.

After a few more minutes of intense discussion, it was confirmed that we had enough of a whiff of the Aryan about us that we might indeed sample the provender, and so with a curt nod we were allowed to wait five more minutes until Helga showed up to take us to our table. In the back. By the door.

Their quest for racial purity apparently did not apply to the help, for the waiter we were assigned was 100 pct pure redneck. He asked WG for the drink order, then promptly left to fulfill it, completely forgetting that I too might be parched. He returned momentarily and we haggled over the beer list, settling finally on a bottled dopplebock. Never let the Boche have a chance to poison your drink, Churchill used to say.

Hildegarde, the shield maiden of the restaurant's own Hohenzollerns, returned to ask us if the redneck had been to our table. We noted that he had. "Good," she said without a hint of the good cheer we've come to expect from the Huns when they're making others miserable. All business, that one.

We ordered a beef tenderloin carpaccio which lived up to its billing as paper thin. It dissolved on the tongue like a communion wafer, not bad except it was so drowned in balsamic vinegar that doing so meant inducing the gag reflex. Even Nicole Ritchie waits until after dessert to retch.

WordGirl had the venison, which was quite tender, having undoubtedly been beaten to death with truncheons in the back by Klaus and Dieter.

I had the sausages and sauerkraut. It was sufficient, in much the same way as Albert Speer's architecture was: bland but big.

"Leave room for dessert," WordGirl said, "It's supposed to be excellent."

Well, and so were BMWs, unless one actually owned one and was outside the glorious period before maintenance was required.

The redneck returned to clear the dishes (took him two trips, as one would expect at this point) and take the dessert order. WG ordered the bread pudding, which as it so happened was a specialty of mine that she looked forward to every Christmas. Iron Chef Portugal versus Iron Chef Third Reich, then.

The bread pudding was apparently a loaf of bread coated in a bit of cinnamon sugar with bourbon sprinkled over it. It was accompanied oddly by pineapple. I can't seem to recall Rommel's campaign in Hawaii, but perhaps it was Field Marshal Blucher who first ground Oahu under heel. Cuisine is history, you know.

No matter---the correct cultural notes were soon struck by a liederhosen-clad accordionist. Hopes rose which were soon dashed by the, ahem, "eclectic" song selection, including "Una Paloma Blanco" and "That's Amore." I was holding out for the "Theme from Starsky & Hutch", but WG insisted we retreat like Frenchmen.

Upon reaching the parking lot, however, I noticed an Infiniti with out-of-state plates with its lights on. I trudged back into the bierhaus and confronted Hildegarde with the news that somebody's battery would likely die before she could find another mongrel to wait upon them. "We have no paging system," she shrugged, "But thanks for letting us know."

I suppose Bonaparte had broken the Prussian fighting spirit long ago after all. I'd like to think that as I left, she called out "Klaus! Dieter! Bring your truncheons! Kristallnacht in the parking lot!" but I'm afraid they merely went on about their business of keeping patrons from sustenance.

That's the trouble with the EU Age---you simply can't tell the Germans from the Frenchmen anymore.