Düsseldorf 2
It was breezy and snowing a little when we stepped outside in the morning of Day 2. First we went to a barber shop and J had his hair trimmed. Then we went to a cafe for breakfast. The cafe was located south of the downtown. It took just about 15 minute walk from the barber although the freezing weather made me feel it was a much longer way.
We passed by Kirche St. Peter, a Neo-Gothic catholic church that was consecrated in 1898. The cafe was on the next block.
Finally we arrived at Café Buur. I had toasted banana bread. The texture was not crumbly but gooey. Maybe a lot of crushed banana was in the dough. The taste was pretty good. J tried Sucuk HalliGalli - scrambled eggs, potato, parsley and spicy tomato sauce. J added feta cheese. Pickled cauliflower was a garnish. Toasts also came along. J liked the pan dish very much.
After the lovely breakfast, it was still super cold outside. We went back to the downtown. A kind of protest activity by a long chain of cargo vans was running on the day by the way. The Rheinturm, or the Rhine Tower was seen over there.
We reached Königsallee, or King's Alley, a city canal and a high-end shopping boulevard. It would be prettier when the trees are fully covered with green leaves.
We stopped by a mustard shop in the Old Town to look for a local mustard, called ABB. ABB was first produced in Düsseldorf in the early 18th century and is known as the oldest German mustard. It's made of brown and yellow mustard seeds and brandy vinegar. ABB is the initial of the name of the inventor of ABB and the founder of the original ABB mustard company, Adam Bernhard Bergrath. Legend says that one of the ABB's big fans was Vincent van Gogh. We bought a bar of ABB and tasted it when we got back home. The taste was a sort of like, Dijon and wasn't sweet like typical German mustard. We liked it!
There was a giant Christmas tree at the Marktplatz with the late 15th century town hall. The workers were removing the giant Christmas balls from the tree. Good-bye, the holiday season until the next one!
We found a chocolate store by chance. It was natural to check it out immediately.
Gut & Gerne Schokolade sells their handmade chocolate as well as other chocolate brands' products from the world. We bought two pieces of their handmade calvados-flavored dark chocolate pralines and tried one each at the outside of the shop. That tasted ok although I didn't taste calvados well. Also it didn't melt smoothly in the mouth. Perhaps the chocolate or I or both was too cold. It was below zero outside.
There was a ferris wheel at the riverside promenade with plane trees.
The Rhine tower was seen over there, again. It was too chilly to walk down there, though...
We walked around the Old Town a bit more and visited a couple of shopping malls to beat the cold. We also stopped by Japanese grocery stores and filled our shopping bag with lots of goodies and then went to a Japanese restaurant, Kushi-tei for lunch. As the name suggests, the restaurant is specialized in charcoal grilled skewered meat (especially chicken) but they also serve wide variety of Japanese dishes including Sushi, Japanese-style curry, Tenpura, Ramen, baked eel, etc. Like the ramen shop we went to a day before, all staff in the restaurant were talking each other and to us in Japanese.
We both chose one from several lunch specials. J had Chicken-Katsu (deep-fried breaded chicken). Mine was grilled mackerel. Delicious!
Before going back to the hotel, we picked up desserts at Bing Go, a small Japanese sweets shop.
J got Hoji-cha (Japanese roasted green tea) soft serve ice cream. That was the strongest Hoji-cha flavored ice cream I have ever had. Very good!
I had a classic Taiyaki, a fish-shaped pancake filled with An-ko (sweetened "Azuki" red beans). There were several different fillings, such as custard cream, chocolate and Matcha (Japanese green tea) cream in addition to traditional An-ko. You pick a filling and your Taiyaki will be made to order. My Taiyaki was freshly baked and super hot. Taiyaki is a street food in Japan. I enjoyed mine little by little on our way back to the hotel. The Taiyaki was absolutely delightful. I would love to know the recipe of the dough. First of all I could have never dreamed of eating Taiyaki in Germany!
To be continued...
