Cologne - Eating things

But now to the really important things about our visit to Cologne - what we ate! And after the purging I'd had during the week, I was really looking forwards to eating the local cuisine and drinking the local beer.

Fabi gave me a list of different breweries to check out. Top of the list was Frueh. He warned that that is quite touristy due to its position opposite the Cathedral but still pretty good. I suppose the way the Hofbraeuhaus is super-touristy but still pretty good.

Unlike in Bayern, beer in Cologne is served in teeny 200ml glasses. Once you've spent a few years drinking beer by the 500ml or litre, it get's pretty easy to slam down one of these little guys.

Halve Hahn. The local cheese tastes a bit like gouda and eaten with rye bread. Okay but nothing special in my opinion 

BUT THIS. THIS WAS SPECIAL!!! Himmel un Aeaed (heaven and earth) in Cologne dialect. Fried blood sausage with mashed potatoes and applesauce. I could have eaten this all on my own instead of sharing it with my travelling companions.

Jaeger schnitzel. Not a local speciality but it's been a while since I had one of these. 

After wandering around the city, Lynn looked up what the best restaurant in Cologne was on tripadvisor, and we unbelievably got Mr Cake Cupcake. It wasn't so far from where we were so we decided to check it out.

And it was pretty good! The owner/baker of the store asked how we came due to tripadvisor and when we confirmed this, he said that he'd had a huge rush of tourists coming in that afternoon. He wasn't complaining but he was run off his feet. 

Our selection - lemon cheesecak and carrot/orange royale.

This was my personal favourite though - the chocolate, served warm with a strawberry to dip into the gooey centre. 

But Mr. Cake wasn't just great at making cupcakes, he was so friendly and chatty that we actually asked him if he could recommend a place for dinner. He suggested Limani, saying that it had mediterranean-style cuisine with lots of seafood, but also a terrace on the river that would be nice given that it was such a warm day. He also called the restaurant to make us a booking and to make sure we got a terrace table! 

Dinner was accompanied by a local Riesling to go with our seafoody-meal

Entree - grilled octopus. Mmmmm, tentacular

Okay, not seafood, but these calves livers were pretty good!

Also not seafood but the highlight entree - stewed rabbit in red wine sauce. 

Our main - grilled tuna steak with spinach and potatoes. 

Dayum. It's been so long since I had a tuna steak and this was so good. I don't remember exactly what was in the marinade but I remember thinking I was going to try and replicate it at home. 

Chocolate mousse dessert. Recommended by Mr. Cake as the best chocolate mousse in the world. Tough call and we didn't agree that it was THE best, but it was pretty good. Also, Mr. Cake showed how good he was at recommendations because he suggested 3-5 entrees and one dessert to share + main and that that would be enough. He was right!

The next day, we headed out to another of Fabi's brewery recommendations, Pfaeffgen.

Where I once again had the Himmel um Aeaed! The beer here was a bit more bitter than Frueh. Actually, all the local beer in Cologne is more bitter than the sweet Bavarian beer.

Cake time! After lunch we walked back to the Dom and had afternoon tea in Cafe Reichard. My erdbeerbaisertorte. Strawberries and meringue. Ooooh yeah. I could have had 2 slices of this!

Lynn had the Schwartzwalderkirschtorte (black forest cake). I'm going to say it was good but not as good!

And then we rolled ourselves back to the airport to return to Munich. Bye Cologne, it was great getting to eat your local foods!