Düsseldorf 1
In January we took a train to Düsseldorf for a short trip. I didn't know much about the capital of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia but I knew that the city was home to one of the largest Japanese communities in Europe. Eating and shopping for Japanese foods was my primary mission for the trip.
We arrived in Düsseldorf on Sunday. The shops were closed and the shopping area was quiet. On the other hand, museums were open. First we visited an art museum called the K20. The collection focuses on the 20th century's artistic movements, such as German Expressionism, Cubism and Surrealism as well as Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art and Minimalism. The large collection of works of Paul Klee was wonderful. Also, it was pleasure to see some works by Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, which always interest me.
The exhibition room on the ground floor was filled with works by Chaïm Soutine. Many people were visiting the exhibition although the photo below somehow doesn't show anybody. How strange...
For lunch we tried Takumi, a Japanese ramen restaurant. Takumi's original restaurant was open in Düsseldorf in 2007. The restaurant quickly became so popular and today there are six shops in the city and more than 40 in Europe. We visited their second shop in the city. The shop was small. The owner is a Japanese and all staff also looked like Japanese. Everyone was talking to each other in Japanese. Our waitress talked to us in Japanese. I felt as if I were back in Japan.
We had Gyoza dumplings with creamy sesame sauce for appetiser. They were fine although I would prefer plain Gyoza with a dipping sauce made of soy sauce and rice vinegar.
The shop's signature Ramen soup is Tonkotsu (pork-bone)-based while they also offer Miso- and Shoyu-based soups as well as vegetarian soup. According to our waitress' recommendation, I had Tonkotsu Ramen, a basic Tonkotsu based soup and noodles with classic toppings. The soup was rich and pork-y. I liked the thin noodles. Their noodles are made in Sapporo, a Japanese city of Hokkaido, and air-delivered from there to the shop frozen.
J ordered "Special Asagaya," a traditional Shoyu-based soup with gorgeous toppings - grilled shrimps, braised pork belly and fried chicken, plus Naruto (fish cake), scallion, Nori, and bamboo shoots. His noodles looked thicker than mine. I guess thicker noodles go better with the clear Shoyu-based soup. It seemed that J enjoyed his deluxe ramen bowl.
It was a pretty chilly overcast day. After the ramen lunch, we directly walked to Konditorei Heinemann, a pastry shop in the town center. We had their famous champagne truffles before and I was excited to visit their physical shop this time. The pastry shop was founded in Mönchengladbach, a city near Düsseldorf, in 1932 and currently there are five shops in Düsseldorf. We visited one of them which had a cafe/restaurant on the first floor so that we could have a tea time with desserts.
It took for a while to pick a cake for the day...
J chose his cake immediately as usual. It was something like a vanilla cream cake that came with strawberry (raspberry?) sauce. His artistic skill was showcased.
I had a rice cake according to a recommendation by the gentleman at the cake section. It was like a cake version of rice pudding. The bottom of the cake was a crispy biscuit and thin chocolate layer. The top was raspberry jelly. The entire cake was tasty and not so sweet. I liked it very much. I just realized J's "sauce" artwork was still ongoing in the photo below. J's cake was so light and delicate. It was delightful with the sauce.
After the lovely tea time, we took a walk around the city center a bit, but it was getting dark and still quite cold to be outside. We went back to the hotel to save our energy for the next day.
To be continued...
