An ultimate dreamer: Strasbourg eats

Since Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in northeastern France, it seems to be compulsory to have at least one Alsatian meal during my visit to the city. Well, at least that is what I think now. My research on food for this trip was extremely lacking, partly due to my ignorance in European history. The reasons I chose Europe over North America were the availability of air ticket, Vietnamese food in district 13 of Paris and the low exchange rate of Euro. So yeah, that sounds quite a bizarre and random set of reasons, but that was what drove me to Europe.

Anyway, I did do some digging on where to eat in Strasbourg, but for some reason, I just tried one place. The rest was just ignored. And I just chose randomly when it was time for lunch or dinner. Maybe I was too tired (due to the time difference and the change in season) to walk around looking for all those recommended restaurants.

I stumbled into this Alsatian restaurant on the last day of my visit. I was attracted to the place by the cute duck sculptures in front of the door. It was a very small restaurant with just one cook and one waitress. But the decoration was very homey with warm lighting and wooden furniture. It offered me warmth which was extremely welcomed on that day, when the weather was super cold for an autumn day.

Alsatian cuisine, strongly based on Germanic culinary traditions, is marked by the use of pork in various forms. This was reflected very clear in my lunch, Choucroute Garnie. There were sausages, fatty cut of pork meat, diced cabbage, potatoes, etc. The taste reminded me very much of German food I had had in Singapore previously. In a way, I felt I was eating German dish, and personally, German cuisine was not my most favourite food in the world. Luckily, I also ordered Crème brûlée for dessert and it helped to lessen my disappointment in that lunch. Again, I don't want to say that the food was bad, it was not just my cup of tea.