Last night was our much anticipated appointment for Curry Wurst, a special local dish. It's a favorite of Guido and Stefan and was the first time for Emrah. After work we picked up Stefan's wife Andrea. She was shy with her english which was not as good as Stefan who throughout the night kept nudging me to talk to her in english. He even told me to ask her open ended questions instead of yes/no questions to force her to use her english. They were a very cute couple.
We went to a restaurant specializing in this dish. It was very intimidating in the beginning. The place was bustling and it's up to you to find a table. We had to sit at the bar for our meal since all were too hungry to wait. Remember that the european can linger pretty long over their meals so you never know. The menu was simple enough although I didn't figure this out until later. Our waitress was rude and impatient (or so Emrah thought), when we didn't look like we knew what we wanted she just walked away! Anyway, all they have is the curry wurst or bratwurst, french fries, cole slaw and many different sauces on the side. What it looked like was a really fat hot dog with a nice gravy type sauce in which you dip the wurst and fries. Andrea ordered the satay sauce as her extra sauce which was a peanut base sauce. I thought that sounded too strange but when she let me taste it with the fries it was fantastic! Can't wait to bring Gary here. Definitely not a touristy place and I was happy to have a local experience. It was a very modern looking restaurant with uncomfortable furniture. They only had stools for chairs so by the end of the meal I had to stand up to straighten out my posture. The fries (pommes) tasted so good I ate it all. Guido finished his dinner and then ordered an extra plate of fries. Looking into the open kitchen you can see a mountain of french fries and dozens of wurst on the grill. Guido channeling our job observed how efficient and profitable this operation is. Simple ingredients - wurst and fries and some sauces, simple menu, and fast turnover.
After dinner we walked along the harbour which had some pretty awesome architectural buildings. All very funky and modern - one exterior looked like it was made out of aluminum foil and the others were crooked or were very oddly shaped. I think Gary would enjoy seeing this area. It's very different from the atmosphere of Old Town which can be seen in the distance north of the Rhine. We stopped in a bar to have a beer and I ordered the alt beer with coke. Yes, it's beer mixed with coke. They also do this with Fanta and Sprite.
We then got in the car to drive to Ratinger St. which was the crazy party street I went to a week ago. I learned that this street was also referred to as "the longest bar in the world". Apparently this street is at its craziest on Wednesday and on weekends. It was a very lively scene with people packed and overflowing into the street. There are many bars/restaurant lined up right next to each other on both sides. You can basically stop at any of the many bars and hang out along the sidewalk. The waiters go back and forth with platters full of small glasses of alt beer (a nice dark beer local to Dusseldorf). You just wave to the waiter as he passes through and pay him $1.6 euros for a beer. Ofcourse you can order other drinks but it seemed like beer was the popular drink and plentiful. Ofcourse we ran into other hkl people, how can you not when it felt like the whole city was compacted into this one block area! There were also dance clubs along this street so people usually venture into these as it gets later. How can these people stay up so late on a work night?! Ofcourse it was a younger crowd so maybe that's why! I'm not sure if Gary will like this place but at the very least it will be interesting for him to see. To be honest it was fun to see it but not my favorite place. I felt claustrophobic at times. It's a great place for anyone who enjoys the bar scene. It's more of a local place. The tourisy places in Old Town is only a couple of blocks over.
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