As previously mentioned, customer service in Germany sometimes can surprise you...on the postive side, a service person's incredible knowledge in his or her area of expertise is shocking. And you will often come across people in stores who take great pride in their department.
Herr J's neighborhood grocery store is a great example of this. The man who runs the wine section spent 7 years in New Zealand, and therefore is always on the lookout for good NZ wines to include in the store's selection. The wine section of the store is "his" section, and he takes great pride in it. He holds wine tastings in the store every few months and likes to interact with customers to find out what they enjoy and how he can improve the selection.
One of the butchers there has a similar approach. In addition to the normal meat selection, they offer a variety of pre-marinated or pre-assembled meat dishes (think kebabs, roulade, etc.). We've found the marinades to be exceptionally good, and he explained to Herr J that he enjoys experimenting and making new creations to sell to customers.
His thinly sliced bacon-wrapped pork spirals on a stick were pretty amazing, so when we saw this unusual looking thing in the meat counter, we had to try it:
;)
It looked like raw hamburger braided with strips of puff pastry, so I expected it would taste similar to the beer and beef pies I usually have on hand in the fridge...just in a different shape.
We still don't know what these are called, but we're going to experiment with making them. The taste was wonderful - the ground beef (a very lean beef, as is typical here) was mixed with onion, garlic, and spices, sandwiched between strips of puff pastry, then braided. You cook around 150°C for 15-25 minutes, and then we turned it up a little at the end.
The results were so great! We're looking forward to seeing what else the butcher creates. ;)