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Stolperstein or stumbling stones

I came across them during our trip, at Salzburg's Erzabtei St. Peter and even steps away from Onkel H's shop. These little nondescript brass plates that state very chilling facts.  Name, Birthdate, Date Deported, and Date murdered. As a major KPO (busybody) I couldn't resist reading all of them. Needless to say, they were all very sad. Some of them were a cluster of stones, meaning the whole family who was wiped out.

Stolpersteinen @ St Peters Archabbey grounds

These are stumbling stones, aka Stolperstein, which were created by the artist Gunter Demnig to remember those who perished due to the Nazi "cleansing", oppression and persecution. Many European cities have agreed to implement these stumbling stones.

If I didn't translate wrongly (pardon my German), the left Stoleperstein says "Here lived Gottfried NeunHäuserer aka Father Romauld. Born 1882. He was deported in 1941 to "Schloss Hartheim" and murdered on 8th May 1941."

The right Stoleperstein says "Here lived Jakob Förtsch aka Brother Coelestin. Born 1896. He was in the Nazi Resistance? He was deported in 1943 to Ravensbrück and murdered 10th Feb 1944."

Read more about the project here.

Epic Disastrous Experience at Two Face Pizza and Taproom

Went out for dinner with B1, Mr Bear (I decided everyone other than Bär, Onkel H, 12 and B1 will be simply called Bear) and Mrs Bear. It was a culinary disaster of epic proportions. Oh ja, blogging more now because it's the holiday season and I achieved a massive milestone at Arbeit yesterday so phew, the chain around my neck is a bit looser now.

We were supposed to go Abe Diner (2nd failed attempt) but because I thought that the Abe Diner, being new, would have lots of seats but it was as small as it was nondescript-looking. And it was heavily patronized by the Japanese salarymen. I suspect it was because of the ad they put in the Japanese free magazine. Anyway so we had to sit outside in the relative twilight and I cannot stand cigarette smoke (it makes me sneeze and have headaches).

On top of that the prices were not very competitive, Abe Diner being more of a Izakaya, and selling limited food items. I pointed at the coffeeshop opposite. Why not try that? It looks relatively filled and was more brightly lit.

Kopitiam by day, pizzeria and taproom by night

Since Mr and Mrs Bear had their tummies filled up with the buffet tea they had, they were ok with the move. And B1 has no culinary opinion. We took up seats at the coffee shop (we call them "kopitiam"s in Singapore). The concept was quite clever. By day a coffeeshop with many stalls, at night it was a one taproom and pizzeria, called Two Face Pizza and Taproom, with blackboards shielding the food stalls from view while describing the menu items.

Its focus was primary finger foods, pizzas and bier. I scanned quickly one of the blackboards. Ok, fries S$4, fried pork belly with maple mayo S$8... wtf? My fav Foie Gras? There it was PAN FRIED foie gras with fries. Ok must order.

So we ordered the following:

Fried Pork Belly

PAN FRIED foie gras with fries

Seafood pizza

Fristo Misto of Calamari (the lady heard salah, and thought we ordered carbonara)

2 Cokes

2 Sapporo biers

The idea was that Mr and Mrs Bear were still very full so they just wanted to eat their calamari and drink some coke. I wanted 2 starters as my meal and seafood pizza was for B1. 

When we ordered, the lady was polite but distracted. She told us the Sapporo beer was cheap, only S$7 a glass. Then she indicated the glass inside the fridge. B1 being the Bier glut, asked her what is the capacity of the glass mug. Was it a pint?

"Standard size like other places."

Pork Belly with maple mayo

The waiter started serving the pork belly. Most excellent. The fries that came with it were edible. One thing bad about it was that the mayo was too little. Maybe it was because I was very hungry. I started grazing at the basket with my greedy paws.

It all went downhill from there.

Where was the cutlery? A waitress passed by and said she would get us the cutlery and plates. First oops. The cutlery were filthy, and the smaller plates for eating were served stacked so when we shared them out, we found one plate had crumbs, another had a dollop of chilli. Ewwww.

Dirty plate with chilli

The waitress had dashed off to grab water for us. When she came back she saw our grossed out faces and said she would get us new ones, but in the meantime did we still want the water? I later noticed that Mr Bear didn't touch his, and Mrs Bear only drank a little.

The waiter popped by and dropped off the pizza and the bier. Oops #2. The beer was served in like 300ml mugs? So little... and wait, one was only 2/3 filled and the other 3/4 filled. That is terrible. B1 was PISSED. He is no epicure (I notice that he only demands high standard when it's my cooking, that ass) but don't come between him and his bier. He was annoyed enough to demand that the bier to be topped to the correct capacity.

Seafood Pizza

He pointed at the 2/3 bier and said "this beer looks like it has been drunk." The waiter said sorry and that this was because of the foam. WTF *haha*. I swear B1 gave him my "vendor look".

Anyway the guy apologized and ran off to fill the bier to the correct capacity (I hope he didn't spit into it, but it didn't look that foamy *haha*). B1 was still mad about the beer quantity. Standard my ass, I heard him mutter angrily, drinking his bier.

The  waiter came back and tried to serve us more pork belly. We said we already got our order then he walked off only to come back five minutes later with a plate of cabonara. ???

"We didn't order that but if you want to give us it's ok." I laughed. The waiter didn't find it funny and pointed out that we did order that. Sigh. Turned out the lady misheard me, but it was our own fault for not checking the receipt. So we just ate it. Mr Bear being stuffed (stuffed bear *haha*) nibbled at the bacon and remarked "why is this bacon black?"

B1 replied "why is the cabonara brown?"

Mr Bear "I think it is mushroom."

Me "where is the mushroom?"

Burnt Cabonara

Four pairs of eyes stared at the plate. No mushroom was harmed in the making of this dish. Clearly the cream was murdered that's why it was a dirty brown with black flecks (which was definitely not pepper). Hmmmm. Still I was hungry so I ate up. Mr and Mrs Bear were super turned off.

B1 concentrated on the seafood pizza which came with scattered bits of lala clams, miscellaneous squid and prawn parts. I flicked off the prawn, and tasted it. I like my pizza very thin so I thought it was ok. Not fantastic but 5/10 kind of standard. We could all hear the waiter apologize to the table behind us.

"Must be the way they operate. First apologize then serve." Mr Bear observed drolly.

I continued munching and we yak yaked a bit more. I was almost full when the foie gras arrived. I had been looking forward to it. I had been waxing lyrically to Mrs Bear that the best way to eat foie gras is to have it pan-fried and hot on a nice steak. She looked kind of ill.

When I looked down at the basket. I was like ...

WTF IS THIS SHIT?

2 sad-looking pieces of carbon sat on a basket of soaked fries. EWWWWWW. They looked like something a severely constipated dog pooped out after grimacing on the grass. The dog would definitely have had a less pained look than me, who approached the basket with a hesitant fork.

Carbon in a basket

"It is supposed to be pan fried. Why the fuck did they burn it until like that? If it were deep fried, I would never have ordered it!"

Yup, looks like carbon. Tasted like carbon. How could they treat this beautiful product like that? Mr and Mrs Bear did not even dare to touch the basket other than making a collective ugly face at it. B1 just drank his bier.

We should complain, but at that point, we couldn't be bothered already. S$14 for this literal crap.

Mr Bear pointed out that fries on their own cost S$4. So basically I paid S$10 for this two lumps of coal.

This really dampened my mood. Mr Bear remarked that the cafe was aptly named, the menu is one face, the food is a different face. I know the cafe was only opened for 3 weeks. But this is crap. I can accept bad service in a new restaurant but food wise. wtf. Where is the QC? You can't serve this to people and expect to get away with it.

Chillax @ Schwangau (Part 1) - Die Kirchen

Note: I apologize ahead for this Great wall of Yak yak.

Duckie boo sits at the window sill to Cafe Gerlinde

I thought I'd better complete writing up the German trip blog entries before my memory loss gains *haha sorry for the pun* on me. Lack of sleep coupled with stress have made me quite dumb dumb. Learning German has become an exponential curve- like climb. As it is, memory loss has claimed the Vietnam, some of the Taiwan, all of the Japanese, and most of the South Korean trips before I can commit them to word. So I will be carrying out a one-time exercise to write up everything and schedule the posts.

Pension Gerlinde specializing in afternoon cakes!

As I am typing this I am starting to forget what was the name of the fantastic place we stayed at with Onkel und Tante H (just sounds friendlier than saying Herr and Frau, isn't it? Even though I haven't asked them whether I can greet them in such close affection *hehe*. H, if you are reading this, is it ok? Our Germany trip was definitely made 10X more awesome while we were travelling with you, that B1 and I didn't even bicker once).... Ah yes, Gerlinde.

We stayed at Pension Gerlinde with Onkel und Tante H, who love the place so much that they stayed there 21 times in the 14 years that they have visited Schwangau. After staying there, I must say I love it just as much. Ok I love the entire Schwangau area (not including nearby Füssen which is overrun with tourists).  I also think that of the 14 days we spent in Germany, the 5 days we spent in Schwangau was the best. I wish I can go there again. It was incredibly restful and idyllic (not including the crazy day we decided to cycle around Forggensee, it was nearly as bad as cycling to Desaru, except that we had decent bikes in Germany).

Swans swimming at Lake Forggensee

The awesome views, the FOOD (it needs another post by itself), the duckies and swans (schwangau means swan country in German but I saw more ducks while I was there), Forggensee, Tegelsberg and the nearby attractions like Wieskirche. I didn't even mind that there was a cemetery so close by. Normally I would be creeped out but German cemeteries are pretty and restful, unlike the others I have seen (e.g. Japanese, Singapore), which are rather scary. I didn't understand Anne of Green Gables' fascination with cemeteries until I saw a German one. The one in Salzburg was scary though...ok sorry for being so morbid.  Anyway the one near Gerlinde, Pfarramt Waltenhofen, has a war memorial attached to the cemetery which we saw when cycling past. I checked it out before leaving Schwangau, but am not uploading the photo out of respect for the dead. 

Pfarramt Waltenhofen

Schwangau has another pretty church in the middle of nowhere, the Baroque Church of Saint Coloman. It looked quite stark and lonely in the middle of the fields against a mountainous backdrop. Damnit, I want to live in Schwangau. It was there and then I decided that if I could retire there, I would die very happily. Well, until Onkel H told me that houses there are very expensive. Just imagine the SGD- EURO exchange rate...

Baroque Kirche of Saint Coloman

Of Tea and Potatoes - Poteato

The original intention was to go to Abe's Diner, but for some reason, the place was not open for lunch (same like the other time when we tried to go Open Door Policy and ended up at Paul's instead). Actually we went to Open Door Policy a long time before but I hadn't blogged about that... oopz

We wasted a lot of time looking for the place because it was so nondescript that it looked like part of the shop next door.  In the end it was only after we asked for help via phone call, that's when we found the actual address and realized that it was closed. 

"So where do we go now?" asked Bär. 

"How about Poteato?" B1 and I saw it that day while strolling after dinner at Big Mama's. We also saw four Playboy bunnies scrambling out of a Limo (I didn't even know that there are limos in Singapore), but that's another story.

Oopz... we ended up walking up all the way from one end of Tiong Bahru enclave to the other. We were grilled half way through then just to test our resolve, the skies opened and it started to rain as well. Fun. Not.

Photos of the old Provision shop

So we wandered into Poteato, which space used to be a provision shop. They even took photos of the old place before the renovation. I kind of like the industrial+retro elements in the cafe, simple yet modern. However I thought that the middle brick wall was rather unnecessary. Btw you should check out its WC. The sink is a metal bucket. Hahaha.

Great wall of tea...

We looked through the menu. Since its name is Poteato, needless to say, its focus is on potatoes and tea (had a wall of teas!). I ordered lychee tea and Bär, passionfruit tea. I must say if it had not been for the fruit lurking at the bottom of the glass mugs we would not have been able to differentiate between them! But the tea was quite cool and refreshing, thank god, after the shitty long walk we had.

Can you tell which one is Lychee tea?

So a few minutes after that the waiter wanders around carrying small teacups. We totally ignored him because we got our beverages right? Nope, after 5 minutes, he finally figured that it was us who ordered soup.

Bär's was potato and leek soup and mine was clam chowder. Bär's must have been pretty bland because he kept adding salt and pepper to it. I realized that it was delicately flavored. Mine was not bad, quite yummy. I thought it was a tad salty. Soups are not really worth it, because of the portions vs price.

We didn't order any appetizers because they were mostly fries. As it was, both of us were seeking death because we had bad coughs that week, and we still ordered fish and chips. Seriously who comes here and orders sandwiches or pasta? A bit wtf right?

My fellow redditors thought that this fish and chips were really great

I uploaded another pic of the fish and chips on reddit. The Leute thought that it was pretty nice and crispy looking, though someone else commented that to be really British fish and chips, the chips should be thicker. Dude, it is not British... how can it be when the fries are made of Russet and Sweet Potatoes? Anyway it got 100+ upvotes which is pretty amazing. I am such a slut for upvotes (today I had posted a photo on wedding banquet appetizer dish and got 750+ upvotes, and counting!!!!!).

I like the fish to batter proportion

The fish and chips were pretty good, really flaky and it didn't have the nasty mud smell commonly associated with dory. Bär also thinks the fish and chips were very good. Too bad our coughs rendered us unable to finish the chips.

Service was a bit off because the waiter was a bit of a blunderbuss (though friendly) and I ended up pouring our own water and getting serviettes. I told Bär this place will be banned if they got the cheek to charge us 10% service charge. Nonetheless the place is a nice hangout and the prices are not too bad, other than the soups. The funny part happened when the lady owner mistook Bär for someone living nearby. So atas leh, Bär. *haha*