Hello Frankfurt - no sausages please!

I think we’ve had enough of sausages!

So - what are we up for here I wonder.

First of all - our train was a dissappointment - whatever happened to the Restaurant carriage?  It’s there, but all we could order was sandwiches - bother!  We had been really looking forward to a nice lunch on board.  And even the  internet wasn’t working on the train either.  Whatever happened to German efficiency?  To top it all, the train left Berlin on time, but by the time we reached Frankfurt we were running 60 minutes behind schedule.  There were quite a few irate people on board.

But its ok - as we drew into Frankfurt station we were issued forms to fill out - once completed all we had to do was front up to the Railway office (DM), and we would receive a 25% cash refund of our tickets.  So they said - anyway once we had sorted ourselves out in the hotel ( 500m from the station) we fronted up to the DM office, waited in line for 45 minutes, and duly received our refund!  Yippee!  Off to a good start!

As always, our first errand was to find a supermarket for a few supplies.  The road indicated on my map sent us up a street that  was lined with strip joints with some very shady characters crowding the doorways.   Oh dear.  What on earth have we let ourselves in for!  We took a sharp turn right turn away from this lot towards what looked like a main thoroughfare - thank goodness we were doing this in daylight!

It was a good move - we were definitely on safer territory now.  We found the supermarket we were originally  looking for - either they had moved premises, or the GPS was out by a fair few metres!  Never mind, we were on safer territory, so felt more relaxed and slowed our strident pace to look around for somewhere to eat a decent dinner.  No sausages hopefully.

Looking skywards, it is all starting to look far more modern than the part of Berlin we have just left.

Hardly a German restaurant to be seen  though: Thai, Chinese, Italian, even American.  Then this little gem caught our fancy: “Im Herzen Afrikas”.  An African restaurant.  We just happened upon it, but I later researched it to find it was highly recommended by Trip Advisor.

The restaurant floor was 6 inch deep sand! Most tables and chairs were really low level - we would have ended up with our knees up to our chins!  But there were a few tables tucked away in a dark corner at the back which were standard height, much more suitable for us aged specimens!  Next - on sitting down, relaxed and comfortable, we found that you have to eat your food with no cutlery!  This was all way outside  our comfort zone - but hey!  It isn’t sausages and potatoes!  We decided not to do a runner and give it a go.

We ordered a mixed platter - and when it arrived the waiter had to show us how to eat it.  Dollops of food are to be scooped up with pancake-type bread.  It looked a right mess!

There was spinach, lentils, beef, potatoes, carrots, salad and an extremely spicy chicken curry - with neatly folded pancakes on the plate rim.  It was, actually, absolutely delicious!  All washed down with a good South African Sav. Blanc.

Never been in an African restaurant before, but we were very impressed with the flavours and really loved the atmosphere by the time we left!

Is there anywhere like this in Sydney I wonder?  Don’t recall anything like this even in Africa and certainly hadn’t expected anything like this in Frankfurt.  

Looking forward to seeing what other surprises Frankfurt has in store for us tomorrow.