Lobster Cocktails, Italian Style

Since we had an extra tail left from Herr J's lobster cocktails, we decided to experiment with a little more Italian flavor and have a picnic in the English Garten.  (This is what I've been wanting to do all summer but have always been foiled by the weather.)

We brought some serrano ham, manchego cheese, and the rest of the wine. And of course, the football. Herr J is teaching me to throw a good spiral!

Though our presentation wasn't as nice (plastic cups, foil and tupperware!) as before, its was a great late afternoon picnic.

For the Italian style lobster cocktails, we added to the lobster: olive oil, fresh grated parmesan, salt, pepper, lemon juice, and a little bit of garlic. I was skeptical about the parmesan-lobster combo at first, but it was very tasty!

Lobster Cocktails

Friday evening Herr J whipped up an ad-hoc version of a classic summer appetizer - Lobster Cocktails.

In the really strange world of coincidence, Thursday night I dreamed about chasing a lobster across a front lawn. One of those pretty blue-spotted French lobsters they have here, but with two big claws that featured in the chase scene! I didn't tell him about this odd dream, but Friday afternoon he called and offered to swing by Nordsee and see what good seafood they had. We don't often eat lobster - and I've only once dreamed of lobsters -  so this was a very bizarre coincidence.

We didn't plan to celebrate anything, but it ended up being a wonderful celebration of Herr J making it through a super stressful week, of me getting a contract extension (yay!), and of FINALLY having an evening where we could eat outside.  

So, we set the table on the balcony, cooked up some Steinbeißer fillets with a light Asian-style marinade, opened a bottle of Macon Village chardonnay, and added some fresh green beans to compliment the main event - the lobster cocktails.

Very tasty and light, and fun to serve.  Here's the first recipe, below. We had an extra lobster tail so we experimented with it on Saturday, too.

(And most importantly to me, it was a delicious mayo-free seafood salad!)

Herr J's Lobster Cocktail Recipe:

• Use 1 medium lobster tail per person.  Broil, bake, steam, or boil until cooked.  Let cool to room temp.
• Cut into small pieces, place into bowl.  Add just enough olive oil to barely coat the pieces.
• Sprinkle generous portion of kosher (large grain) salt.
• Grind szechuan and pink peppercorns together and sprinkle over the mix (regular black peppercorns would work too if don't have szechuan and pink - they just add a different twist and flavor).*
• Add 1/2 tablespoon of your favorite spicy mustard, or mix your own.
  (We used a "grill" mustard which contains paprika, a little white wine vinegar, and a little garlic.)
• Add a splash of lemon juice and turn over with spoon until evenly coated.
• Should NOT be a heavy sauce - the lobster pieces should barely be covered.
• Cook's prerogative:  test and add mustard etc. to taste if it needs adjusting.

* I keep a jar of szechuan and pink peppercorns that have been ground together to add a little zest to simple seasonings. Neither actually are true peppercorns, but they have a nice subtle flavor. More complex flavors and don't overpower a dish the way black pepper can. We use this mix often for a quick seasoning to grill shrimp or something else where you want to add a little flavor but let the taste of the meat come through.

Munich Restaurants - Milagros (Mexican)

Within the foreigner community in Munich, people are always discussing new things to see and do.  "Have you eaten at [restaurant X]" is one of the most popular topics.  Therefore we decided to blog some Munich restaurants for both locals and visitors alike.

In this case, the first one is the easiest, because we can say it up front:  Milagros is the best Mexican restaurant in Germany.  Together Frau A and I have sampled places in Hamburg, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Bonn, and Munich, and there's no contest.  (Granted, Germany doesn't do Mexican very well as a rule, but Milagros would make it in Manhattan.)

Milagros opened its doors 10 months ago -- October 2010.  It sits in the city center, not far from the Viktualien Markt and Oktoberfest Museum.  Great location.  The owner, Scott Myers, is a Mexican-American who married a German woman and moved back with her.  It's certainly no Taco Bell -- his mentor David Sterling is head of the Los Dos cooking school in Mérida (Yucatán)!

We ordered the "Fiesta Mexicana" platter for two, which includes steak arrachera (marinated & grilled), cochinita pibil (slow roasted pork in homemade tortilla), barbacoa de pollo (marinated/grilled chicken), and carnitas (braised pork in homemade tortilla) with condiments of guacamole, refried beans, and salsa.  It's a great way to try different items, and they taste as good as they look:

To drink we had a top-shelf margarita (no salt when the tequila is this good) that uses fresh juice (no mix):

Above, you'll notice on the chair the familiar Yucatan striped pattern textile -- the decor is pure Mexican.  Below, notice the hanging lamps on the right, textile patterns in the upper left (on the ceiling), and the Virgin Mary in the bottom left.  (With Mary, it fits perfectly in Bavaria.)

It is important to clarify that the food and decor are not "tex-mex".  Most Germans (and Europeans in general) would not differentiate, but it's important here because the dishes are so authentically Mexican.

To finish, we shared a chocolate flan -- not sticky sweet at all, but a rich cocoa instead, with some fresh fruit:

Milagros claims that key or special ingredients are sourced from Mexico (e.g., chiles, Mexican oregano), but where possible local (Bavarian) produce is used.  Also, they use the traditional cooking methods:  tortillas pressed by hand, wood oven and grills using mesquite from America, and real banana leaves for slow-roasting the pork.  It's serious food, and should be a perfect match for the organic, quality-focused Munich diner.

And people are noticing.  The "Restaurant Kritik" wrote a very positive article (with interviews of the owner and mentor), reviews on Tripadvisor are good (it's already in the top 100), and Google reviews are excellent too.  Since it opened we're probably been 4-5 times already, it's that good.  (And Frau A lived in Dallas, so is a tough critic.)

Locals should try the best Mexican we've had on the continent so far, and visitors can take a break from a steady diet of Bavarian food with fantastic authentic Mexican.  Higly recommended.

And Bavarian Whisky Liqueur

Last week we sampled some Slyrs, the Bavarian single malt whisky.  As we were quite pleased with it, we decided to try their whisky liqueur.

The website describes it as a diluted whisky (30% vs the usual 43%) with the addition of honey and vanilla notes.  All things that sound good, but we've had whisky and we've had schnapps...and we really had no idea how this would taste.

Luckily most of the stores here sell single serve bottles of liquor, so we grabbed a small one to try. Better than being stuck with a full bottle of something we don't like...

My first impressions were its light color and an aroma that reminded me of the wonderfully intoxicating smell of vanilla extract.

Off to a good start.

While it does have vanilla notes to the taste, the vanilla is much more strong in the aroma than in the actual taste. It was a really subtle and well-blended drink. Very smooth and sweet, but not too much so. In fact, all of the tastes (sweet honey, whisky, vanilla, and caramel) mixed perfectly so that none dominated.

Of course my initial thought was "Wow, this is great. It's like a girlie whisky!" When I later looked it up on the Slyrs' website, I was amused to discover that whoever does their marketing is very in tune to customers' thoughts.  They mention that when they tested the liqueur in the destillery, it was not only women visitors who enjoyed it. And also that they sell in miniature 50 mL sizes "for the skeptics."

Well, we are skeptics no longer, and bought a normal sized bottle yesterday.

I'm thinking this would be great for eggnog and also a really good gift to bring someone from Germany. While it's not the strong smoky whisky taste that some love, it will definitely please those who love a smooth whisky. It's very subtle and really good.

July 4th Food

Happy July 4th!

Since it isn't a holiday here in Germany, we celebrated yesterday with a good, old-fashioned American summer meal.

Spicy pork ribs, sweet corn, and rosemary potatoes...with some Andechs Bergbock Hell, of course.

We've found an easy way to do ribs here (and luckily good pork is available everywhere). Wrap the ribs so they're air-tight in aluminum foil and bake in oven around 100°C for several hours.  The steam released from the meat should make the packet puff up as it cooks.  We usually just leave them in low all day and they come out perfectly tender and falling off the bone.

As a special treat, we topped it off with a homemade version of one of America's finest inventions - Reese's Cup Blizzard!
It's not a road trip without stopping at Dairy Queen, and sadly they don't have them here. Reese's Cups finally are becoming more widely available here - they have them occasionally in the American section of grocery stores in Kaufhof or Karstadt. But now they're available at the mini-Edeka in the Hauptbahnhof and at many gas stations!

Take your favorite ice cream and let it soften. Add crumbled Reese's cups and blend.

Delicious! 

While it's wonderful ice cream, the Häagen-Dazs Beligian Chocolate really is a bit too rich for this. It's great on it's own, but is just too much and also overpowers the Reese's cup taste a little. Next time we'll try with some vanilla or less chocolatey ice cream.

Hamburgers

One of the best parts of living abroad is that I find myself doing things I never would do at home...most notably meeting people (including other Americans) with whom my path never would have crossed at home.

On the more mundane side of things, are food and entertainment. In most US towns (excluding NYC and Miami), I would probably never go out for dinner or drinks at a hotel bar. Or spend the afternoon at the mall. Yet, in Germany, there are many great restaurants located in hotels that don't rely on hotel guests. In SE Asia, you can easily escape the heat or monsoon by spending a very pleasant day in a megamall - seeing a movie, having a pedicure, eating a great lunch, and having coffee and not necessarily ever shopping at all.

But there's one thing I've realized I do abroad that I would NEVER do at home: Go to the Hard Rock Cafe. Sure, when we were kids, it was cool to collect HRC t-shirts or pins from locations far away. But as an adult I never would choose to go to one in my hometown or while on holiday in another US city.

That, my friends, has changed.

 

Because, some days, you just need a good burger.

Hard Rock is one of the few places worldwide where you can reliably get a good, American-style burger, ice-tea, and even American-style salads or decent pulled-pork sandwiches. There's something valuable about that!

It started in Bangkok, where we Americans in the office would go every few weeks for lunch (usually pulled pork sandwiches). We even found it was a fun place to go out at night, always with good coverbands playing crowd favorites.

In Munich, Herr J and I have found it to have the best burgers so far. We've found that the best cure to a bad week often is a burger and some ice cream (Hagen Dazs is on the walk home).

It's also one of the few places we've found yet in Munich that will cook your burger medium. Though Germans happily eat tartar (on an open-faced sandwich in many delis), many restaurants refuse to let the burger be pink in the middle.  Many burgers here also are a mixture of beef and pork, so they just aren't the same.

We've had a few other decent burgers (MC Mueller, Killian's Irish pub, Feuerberg, and the kangaroo burger at Outland) here, but haven't made an official survey. If you anyone has recommendations for good burgers in Munich, let us know. We're ready to branch out and find the best burger in Munich

(As for other Bangkok burgers, I highly recommend the Elvis Burger at any Greyhound Cafe. They're in a few shopping centers, including Emporium and Central Chitlom)

Aspirational Ice Cream

German marketing traditionally has focused on quality differentiation and quantifiable data -  BMW's engine is x-times more efficient, Siemens' washing machine uses x% less water, Daimler's BLUETEC diesel has x% lower emissions, Porsche's sedan can accelerate from 0 to 60 in x seconds, etc...  

US product marketing generally employs a very wide arsenal of tactics, but still often relies on selling the consumer a dream. If I drink this beer, the women will want me....If I carry this phone, I'm ahead of the curve....If I buy x, I'm environmentally conscious but not wasteful with my money....

In Germany, we're starting to see the emotional and aspirational marketing creeping into the product selection. In the ice cream selection, they've gone far to the extreme. Langnese (the German brand for Unilever's ice cream - Walls in the UK and Asia, Good Humor in the US) currently is promoting two ice cream flavors where you can buy romance.  Like fire and ice, you can choose the "Eiskalt" romance of Dr. Zhivago or the fiery passion of Gone with the Wind.  

The Doctor Zhivago flavor is described as an "ice-cold" film romance of snow-white ice cream with marscapone, lemon ice cream, fine vodka-lemon sauce and tiny chocolate snowflakes.

Gone with the Wind, on the other hand, is a fruity raspberry and dark chocolate ice creams with fire-red raspberry sauce. (it also appears to have dark chocolate sprinkles on top)

While these are a special promotion, many of their other ice creams sell a similar dream - usually a dream of exotic and magical destinations. And, given the German love of travel, it seems like a pretty good aspiration to sell.

We haven't tried them yet, though they seem to be just a bit too much to me. Perhaps the cherry and chocolate one would be good, but the others have so many different flavors in there!

What are the flavors?

Kirschzauber: Cherry Magic: A magical combination of sour cherry and vanilla-poppyseed ice cream with sour cherry sauce and tiny chocolate flowers. (note: the "poppyseed" is a bit hard to describe. In Germany, it's "mohn," a common filling for pastries and cakes. While it is poppyseed, it's not crunchy like the ones commonly sprinkled on rolls)

Safari Afrika: Creamy chocolate ice cream, swirled with delicious vanilla ice cream, intense chocolate sauce, and tiny chocolate paws.

Andalusische Träume: Andalusian Dreams: Vanilla-orange ice cream, swirled with cherry-sherry saue with tiny chocolate hearts.

Dschungelzauber: Jungle Magic: Creamy pistachio ice cream swirled with delicious vanilla ice cream with chocolate-coconut sauce and tiny chocolate apes.

What do you think? Do you buy the ice cream dream, or just go for a good flavor? For me, Langnese also makes the delightful Magnum bars (thank you Thailand for teaching me about Magnums!!) with their rich chocolate and so creamy ice cream. The new Ghana Cocoa bar (milk chocolate shell with hazelnut ice cream and fudge swirls) is my second favorite ice cream bar ever. Doesn't quite beat the Ben & Jerry's Peanut Butter Cookie Dough bar, but I'm willing to test out all the competition!