March 17, 2009
"Rösti Replay"
After a long day at the office, filling my head again with new words, new technologies, and meeting new faces, I decided to head back downtown and find some Swiss food for dinner. I had scaled back on lunch a little, so hunger was motivating me, but I wasn't going to settle until I found something Swiss-ish.
Along the way I popped into a hair salon and a helpful gal named Deanna trimmed me up, ridding me of my winter lochs as we chatted about Bern and Alaska and things Swiss. She spoke hardly a word of English, but said she wanted to learn someday.
I walked further into town and found the place buzzing with activity once again, people heading from work to dinner or home, the life size chess game on again in front of the Bundeshaus, and the evening was starting to cool just a bit as the sun faded. I surveyed the lineup of restaurants along the Saturday market walking street and found mostly French-ish looking places, and a couple Italian-ish. Finally, I found one that looked Swiss, the menu outside showed a dozen varieties of Rösti, and by now I knew that this was truly a Swiss National food, so I went in.
What I found was a very gemütlich (pleasant) Swiss traditional restaurant offering food from the Wallis region, where I had just been on Sunday in the Alps! The restaurant was actually named "Walliser Bistro" and in addition to Rösti I quickly saw that they also served tradtional Fondue, Gschnätzeltes and other meat, cheese and sausage dishes.
I opted for a Rösti topped with ham and cheese from Wallis, with an egg on top, served in a small cast iron cooking and serving dish on a wooden plate. The potatoes were shredded and fried and then topped with the ham and cheese with a fresh egg cracked on top, then put in the over to bake until the cheese was melty and the egg was cooked. The result? If you like potatoes and cheese, this dinner which looked more like an American breakfast, was excellent! Are you hungry yet? Driven by my quest for good food, I'm starting to find my way around this cool city.
As my dinner wound down, and I filled up with the delicious, hearty Rösti (can you tell I like this link) and a cold Gurten Bier, a group of three Taiwanese students sat down next to me and began trying to deciper the menu. They turned out to be students in England, visiting for a few days in Bern. They were speaking Chinese and clearly struggling over the menu. When the waiter came they shifted not into German, but into English in hopes he would understand. They muddled through, using some sign language (or hand & foot as the Swiss say) and I greeted them in Chinese and offered my help, encouraging them to try the Rösti for sure. They did, along with some Fondue (I was jealous!) and a steak. They were set. We chatted as far as we could in Chinese, then switched into English ourselves and had a great visit. They were having fun learning about Switzerland and were curious about Alaska....the girl, Linglang, especially said she wanted to visit someday and catch a fish herself. Nice kids, I hope they had a good time! My kind of place, I can find opportunities to speak German, Swiss German, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Korean, Finnish, French, Spanish, and Italian...at least as far as my faking it will carry me!
