Sunday, July 01, 2007

Seattle on the Neckar...

The last week was cool and cloudy, reminding me of the Emerald City, which I seem to miss more and more. Having become totally accustomed to the Seattle climate, I'll take cloudy and cool to clear and hot almost any day. Since Saturday was another gray day, we went into slow gear, cleaning up the ranch and then taking the kids to Jumpinn(for those in Redmond, think of it as "Drie, swei, eins Jump" - for the rest of you, it's an indoor park with lots of inflatable playground equipment). Our friend Luciana also took her kids. The number of calories consumed (by the kids of course) during the couple of hours we stayed boggles the mind.

We've arranged to have a babysitter every other Saturday night. Since Johanna was on deck last night, we decided to check out a Brazilian churrascaria in Mannheim we'd heard about, Brasil Tropical. The usual drill has waiters walking around with spits of meat they serve directly at your table. Since this place doesn't do the kind of volume to make this approach economical, they served us at our table in a more traditional style. Think of it as all you can eat steak, pork and chicken served a plate at a time (for a mere 20 Euros per person).

The food was really good, the highlight for me (ironically enough) being a vegetable dish consisting of peas, green beans and carrots in a coconut milk sauce. I've had Brazilian shrimp dishes served in this sauce, but these veggies were almost as good.

Since B is on a low-carb diet, alcohol is strictly verboten. That gave me all the excuse I needed to enjoy a few Hefes. Hmmmm.... Hefeweitzen. Anyway, this place on the Collinistrasse in Mannheim has good food, good service and plenty of cheap parking. We highly recommend it.

Last night this place was pretty much empty. I think later in the evening they play music for people to dance so it started filling up when we left (around 22:30). We'll definitely be back.

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