sorry, indeed.

That's what kind of blogger I'm turning out to be. A sorry one. Indeed. Yes, folks, I am about as behind as you can be on keeping the old blog updated, and I apologize. So. To business!

Mike and I just returned to Switzerland from an extremely brief trip back to the U.S., but before we left, we did some eatin'. This here is my underwhelming attempt at managing my restaurant reviews. We live in a lovely little neighborhood here, and are surrounded by a whole lot of really small, locals-only restaurants, and Cafe Füchsli was exactly that. It's about a five-minute walk from our apartment and is in a funky little corner building with a terrace and a NEAT wooden ceiling. Its charm essentially ended there, however: the waitress, while effective enough, was not terribly thrilled to have us there. Undaunted, we perused the German menu and quickly settled on the entrecôte (Mike) and the "fleischkäse" (me). Mike's little steak turned out to be perfectly cooked, topped with a healthy slathering of herbed butter and surrounded by steamed veggies...yum. As I really had no idea what to expect from my "meatcheese", I should not have been surprised to be presented with a plate full of fried mystery meat topped with a fried egg, and yet, there it was, accompanied by some fairly decent french fries. I should have had the self control to not eat the entire slab of whatever it was (canned ham? some heretofore unknown variety of European spam?), but it was FRIED AND TOPPED WITH A FRIED EGG. Come on. How was I not supposed to finish that? It was just so meatily crunchy (and I mean that in the best possible way) and salty and topped with a fried egg. I rest my case. Not the best meal (or best service...!) of our lives, but it's just so close by that it may be worth going back to try some of their ravioli with sage and butter. Hard to go wrong with that.

Meal no. 2: quite a different experience. We went down to the Viadukt with our friend Nanda for a little cheese-and-port tasting sponsored by the utterly charming British cheese guy who has a booth there, and decided to stay and try out the restaurant for dinner. (For those of you not as familiar with the Zürich snooty food scene, the Viadukt is this super cool market built under a giant stone train trestle, populated with only the most expensive and luxurious foods/flowers/drinks/etc. available. Zürich's version of Whole Foods, only smaller and waaaay more expensive. They have clothing/furniture/other stores, too, but who cares, when there's food to be had??) Our waiter was extremely pleasant and quite enthusiastic when it came to describing the day's specials to us, and the menu was quite lovely, full of organic/local/other snooty choices, all of which we love. (Obviously.) Nanda went for the gazpacho (too much cheese-n-crackers beforehand, perhaps...?), Mike chose the pork steak, and I selected some sort of freshwater fish. Nanda's soup, which I, sadly, did not sample, arrived in a GIANT serving bowl, and my rather large portion of extremely tender fish arrived ALSO in a giant dish, on top of some sort of "black" (ok, it was purple, but they called it black) risotto, amidst heaps of extremely mild chopped scallions. Mike's steak came with mushroom risotto, and it was ALL pretty tasty, and surprisingly well priced...by Zürich standards, anyway. In all honesty, I can't tell you what wine we had, only that it was red and just fine. Service was a little slow, but we had a lovely meal in a very pleasant atmosphere (cool stone train trestle!), and as an added bonus, we got to chat with the cheese guy for a half-hour or so. What an interesting person. He decided to start selling British cheese to the Swiss--quite an undertaking, that, as the Swiss are extremely proud of their cheese!--after he married a Swiss girl and couldn't find a job in graphic design, which is his background. Figuring that he'd always loved food, and cheese in particular, and didn't want to be a cook, he settled on opening a British cheese shop in the Viadukt, and has quite a busy operation for himself. Plus, his wife raises thoroughbred Arabian horses on a farm up in the mountains, so there's that, too. At any rate, his cheddars are fantastic, and I actually don't hate the Stilton, which is a RINGING ENDORSEMENT from someone--me--who despises most blue cheeses. Anyway. Pretty good meal, not too terribly priced, in a fun atmosphere. We hear the Viadukt does the best espresso in town, too, so we will certainly be returning for that. And probably to buy some other varieties of seriously overpriced food products.

Ahhhh, Zürich. We're number 1! (No, wait. Make that number 6, or possibly 7...)

Up next: Liechtenstein.