Food #008: Urban Kitchen

Here’s a rather brief review of the Urban Kitchen restaurant in Frankfurt. We went there a few weeks ago on a Saturday after Chicago Meatpackers was completely packed. I was sceptical at first since Urban Kitchen sells everything from sushi, to curry, to schnitzel and burgers and from the outside it seemed a bit like Die Kuh die lacht – a restaurant with decent burgers, but I was in the mood to just pick something off the menu and be served rather than have to go up to the counter and answer a million questions about what bread I want and what sauce and whatnot.

I was glad to find that Urban Kitchen does have waiters who serve you, and after studying the menu for a while I decided to go for what I would’ve wanted at Meatpackers: a cheeseburger. We also ordered cocktails and I had my first Cosmopolitan. It was delicious.

The waitress was friendly and not too slow and the food turned out to be very good. I was particularly happy to find that my cheeseburger came with a little bowl of corn, as corn is, as you all know, the best vegetable ever.

A huge hamburger that can only be properly eaten with a fork and knife. Notice the corn.

I don’t know what happened to the bill, but I seem to recall that the prices were moderate and I’ll most likely go back to Urban Kitchen sometime and see if the other things on their menu are as good!

 

Food #007: Yan Jing

Thursday night I went to Yan Jing with a few friends here in Frankfurt. The restaurant is near Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof and the reason my friends wanted to go there was because the restaurant has a good sushi buffet.

When we got there at 7.30pm, a lot of tables were empty. They gave us a nice table in a corner, I ordered Apfelsaftschorle and then we filled our plates at the buffet.

Just a small selection of the sushi on offer.

The sushi is made directly at the restaurant, so it is very fresh and very tasty. They have all sorts of different types, even one kind that looks fried to me. But that’s not all. They also have more parts to the buffet with rice, chicken, aubergines, fried bananas and so on. You can even get packed ice creams from a freezer as part of the buffet! However, at the time I was told that, I was too stuffed to actually eat any. Also, it almost seems a waste to eat cheap ice cream if you could be eating sushi!

Now you’re most likely wondering how much an all-you-can-eat sushi buffet is. Well, it’s 15,80 EUR, and my Apfelschorle was about 3,60 EUR, so it’s certainly not the cheapest place to eat in Frankfurt. However, for anyone who’s really hungry and enjoys sushi, I’d still recommend the place, as the food is tasty and plenty.

Food #006: YOURS Australian Brunch

There’s an Australian restaurant in Frankfurt near Hauptwache that lies slightly hidden in a small shopping passage in the street that has a Starbucks, the stock exchange and also Die Kuh die lacht in it. It’s called Yours Australian Bar and it’s a good restaurant with decent burgers and also specialty items like kangaroo, emu or crocodile steak. It’s not to be confused with YOURS Sports Bar in Bornheim which doesn’t have delicious burgers but mediocre fish and chips.

Yours Australian Bar have brunch every Sunday from 10am to 3pm with a rather huge selection. You can get everything from eggs (hard-boiled or scrambled), tomatoes and mozzarella, sausages, lasagna, meat pie things, artichokes, bacon, croquettes, baked beans to pancakes, yoghurt, cereals, plum crumble, fruit salad, croissants and bread rolls.

While the picture may be bad, the food was rather good. Especially the bacon.

Brunch is 9,90 EUR per person, so not exactly cheap, especially since you need to get your drinks extra. I suppose it depends on how much you’re able to eat. The service was a bit slow and they didn’t strike me as particularly friendly (or unfriendly, for that matter), but it has to be said that the place was packed and they were probably just very stressed out.

Waffles, egg, a pancake and a fried tomato. Yum.

All in all, I do recommend brunch there for everyone who wants to eat a lot, but those who’d rather have a nice (or possibly unusual) dinner should stop by there some other time and get something from the regular menu when it’s slightly less crowded.

Not exactly cheap.

Food #005: Kowloon City

I once saw this really interesting documentary on Kowloon, the Walled City, a very densely populated district in Hong Kong that was later torn down. So I was quite curious what to expect from a restaurant called Kowloon City.

It came highly recommended and the menu on the Kowloon City website looked quite promising. While not too much to look at from the outside (in fact, it’s a bit out of the way behind the cinema near Eschenheimer Tor), the interior is quite nice with dark tables in fake wood design and such.

The service was fast and friendly and we ordered some tea, which came in cute little tea pots.

As a starter we had a mixed plate of dim sum, as they recommend in the menu that you should get them. They were quite good.

As a main course I ordered rice with vegetables and tofu, which was excellents. Their noodles were good, too.

Some plum wine for dessert and voilà, a perfect evening out. I can recommend this place and suggest you go sooner rather than later!

Food #004: Lunch at Café Pause

In Lyoner Straße in Niederrad (in Frankfurt), there’s a little café that I still remember from when it was a Starbucks back when I lived in Niederrad in 2009. As Niederrad is essentially a district where people work, it used to be closed on weekends but I don’t doubt they had a lot of visitors in the mornings, during lunch time, and after work. I went there with my mom on the evening on which I moved away, uncertain if I’d ever return.

We recently went to Café Pause for lunch and I got me one of their paninis and a hot chocolate. I don’t know how they manage it, but regularly when we go there they forget part of the order, this time it was the hot chocolate that arrived only after asking again. Once we went there and someone ordered something like a tropical smoothie and then ended up getting a very different smoothie. When he complained the woman at the counter said, “I know you wanted a tropical smoothie, but we were out so I made you this one.” Ehm, riiight. They simply seem rather overwhelmed when it gets busy.

Another drawback to eating there is the price. A panini  panino with feta and serrano is 3,90 EUR and their hot chocolate is 2,90 EUR. Not exactly what I’d call cheap.

Despite all this the quality of their food is good indeed. Their bread is yummy and their muffins are as well and I certainly won’t complain about their hot chocolate. Mmmh.

All in all, while I don’t recommend Café Pause as the place to eat all the time, it is sometimes a nice place to get away and eat in an atmosphere that is less like a canteen and more like a real café.

Food #003: Carrot ginger soup with sweet potatoes

What: Lunch @ Herriot’s.
Cost: < 4 Euros.

Herriot’s canteen in Frankfurt served a very delicious soup made from carrots, ginger and sweet potatoes. They have a tendency to put salt into their soups like it’s going out of style, but not this time. Spicy, but not too hot, it was a perfect mix with a few chunks of soft carrots hidden in it. I ate it all with a poppyseed roll.

The dessert was meant to be Creme brûlée, but they were out so I picked the walnut and croquant mousse with rosemary oranges. That was okay, although the mix was a bit odd. Some parts were crunchy, others very soft.

All in all a very good, above average lunch, though.

Food #002: Nougat Macchiato

A few weeks ago, I treated myself to nougat macchiato at Herriot’s. I could spoil this story by going into detail about how it might have been a nougat cappuccino or something of that sort, and that it might not have been weeks ago but months ago, but bear with me. It was busy, so you pay first and then wait for them to come up with your drink, and so when the friendly coffee man put a beverage in front of me, I said something to the effect of, “Dear Sir, pray tell me, is this the nougat beverage I requested?”

His answer took a little while:

If it has nougat written on it, that’s probably what’s in it.

Food #001: Breakfast at Iimori

My blog has atrophied for a while now, and I think it’s high time I revive it. Why not revive it as you would a person – with some good food?

On Sunday, we got out of the house early enough in the morning to enjoy a delicious breakfast at Iimori here in Frankfurt. Their weekend breakfast starts at 10am and goes on until 1pm, so I don’t have to tell you what great effort that was. They are located near Dom/Römer, just a few steps behind the Starbucks on the corner.

Iimori’s quaint interior. A lopsided view…

Iimori’s interior is quaint, with wooden floors, old wooden furniture, tea boxes standing around and a faux cherry blossom branch on the wall. It’s sunny, too, and in the unusual heat of the day, it got quite warm in there.

The perfect waffle. Not too soggy, not too crunchy.

 

Breakfast is 6.90 EUR, which includes apple juice, cereal, unusual rolls with what I assume to be green tea crust, little croissants, waffles, baked goods with red bean paste, ham, eggs, yoghurt, raisin bread, etc. While this all you can eat buffet may not be as intimidating  big as other buffets, there is quite a lot to choose from, and at the end of your meal, you’re likely to be well satiated without being entirely stuffed.

You may think my plate is half empty, but it is, in fact, half full.

All in all certainly recommendable!