First Floor

Finally some days off coming my way. Spent three days in Berlin at Hotel Palace, a really posh place. Morning and evening turn-down, including one-time slippers placed on a napkin (sic) by the bed. Nice spa, excellent breakfast, and the first-floor Guide Rouge star-restaurant: First Floor. No one would call it cheap, but very posh with polished wood-panelling, a total of eleven tables (whereof three were occupied on this Wednesday night), waited on by five waiters.

Some kind of olive-oil appetizer, very strange, but excellent.

Cracker with dill and some other stuff. Also an un-ordered appetizer that was excellent.

The six-course tasting menu with six selected wines was really good. As is common in these, posher, establishments, six-courses turned out to mean nine, and pralines for the coffee. 

Dove-filét with sauce, a light foam of something and some stuff on the side. Just brilliant.

Then, on Thursday, we went to another place with South-german food and wine. Very much simpler, although not in a bad way. A quite rustique atmosphere, small bare-wood tables and at least two booked sittings per night. They actually asked us to leave to be able to seat the next group. So, popular, and very good.

Friday morning I broke my two-day vacation streak with a meeting at the lab of a couple of my collaborators. After that we ate lunch at another rustique but Italian place, right under the rail-way. More brilliant food, I miss Berlin already.