Our neighborhood restaurants

We have a local favorite restaurant. It is the Indian place directly across the street. It's so close that I think I could throw some Naan like a frisbee from our living room and it might stick to the restaurant window. The first time we tried it the food was good but not great, but we figured out that the owner speaks English. The next time we decided to ask him to make the food spicy - then it was delicious. He works there every day, and knows us by now. He knows that Brian's food is mitte scharf (medium spicy) plus 1, and mine is mitte scharf. Once I asked for the wrong level of spice and he corrected me. Not scharf is how the Germans would eat it, and then there is authentically Indian spicy. We are somewhere in between. I see the owner every once in a while going to the grocery store on the corner to pick up milk and vegetables. One of the first times we ate there it started raining while we were in the restaurant, and he offered to loan us an umbrella. "You'll bring it back," he said.

There is also a little Asian restaurant a few blocks away. Unlike the Indian place it is really cheap. Just like the Indian place, it's delicious. It's almost as good as the Cleveland Wok in St Paul. They do not, however, have friendly English speaking table service, nor have they offered any umbrellas. It's called "Good Friendz", yes, with a Z. Of course it would be good with a spelling like that.

The other place we go to eat sometimes is Ido Kebap Salon. I am sure I have written about Doner in the past, but in case you didn't read that one, Doner is the general word for Turkish-mediterranean food, and it's delicious. Often, Doner restaurants are more like fast food, but this Doner place is a little bit classy. You can eat in with table service and they make the bread in a wood fire oven. You can still get a Doner tasche, which is kind of like a gyro, for 3 euros. It's like German fast food but not even greasy. You can get fries if you want them but you can also get fresh veggies and feta cheese and falafels.

I know what you are saying, "What's with all these ethnic restaurants? Where is the wurst and sauerkraut?" They have those things too, but we haven't found a restaurant that's nearby that we really like. The traditional, meat and potatoes kind of food is more typical of Bavaria in the south. 

We will keep looking, but right now I would rather eat naan and curry than schnitzel and wurst.