The food here is slowly killing me

The Germans love food. And I love food. That’s why spending 7 days in Germany may very well be 6 days too many.  Today I made my way over to the famous Berlin department store, KaDeWe. This store is insane. Six floors in all, selling everything from apparel to jewelry to computers to even baked goods. Eat your heart out, Mr. Nordstrom. What started out as a short visit quickly turned into a large scale affair. The goal? It was lunchtime, and I was hungry.

By the way, have I mentioned lately that they really love Christmas here?

So I went up the 6th floor, where they reportedly were keeping all the food. And my goodness, was that ever the case. Vendor after vendor of international cuisine, offering delicacies that ranged from light fare to the more traditional (and deelish) German dishes. I walked up and down the aisles, finding very few menus that had either a.) english, or b.) pictures of the food.

My heart jumped for joy when I came upon a Japanese restaurant. I had a flash of déjà vu when I believed that Mike and/or Loke Uei might have come here the last time we were through Berlin for the Mobile and Embedded Developer Conference. I’ll leave it to them to confirm or deny. At any rate, I ended up having some spring rolls and chicken lo mein. I especially enjoyed it because it reminded me of this asian restaurant we used to go to when I was a kid. It was in a booming suburb of Syracuse called Mattydale. I call it “booming suburb” with all embellishment possible.

Who knew that there was such good Japanese cuisine in Germany? Is this a serendipitous side effect of the world wars? Whatever the reason, that lo mein rocked my world. The best part of the meal came at the end… the fortune cookie.

The inscription reads, “Eine neue Romanze bahnt sich an” which I believe means something about how a renewed romance is coming. The funny part is that the fortune in English on the opposite side was completely different, and unrelated.

That fortune read, “The person next to you is serious and deserves your respect.” Are they messing with me? I snapped a picture of the person next to me – so you be the judge.

I think I’ll just take the fortune about the renewed romance, thank you very much. So that’s it. A great day for food, and for a little bit of international terror. Oh, and yes, it wouldn’t be a nice night in Berlin without a Bratwurst and some charred chicken.

Time for me to sleep some of this cuisine off. I think I may be single-handedly responsible for an increased fare on the trip home, due largely to just how much bratwurst and heavy noodles I’ll be carrying on.