Luckily, Washington DC is a very international city, with its constant churn of diplomats, Popes, etc. and so even this far-flung shore has to cater for those of us from the old countries. Which is why we found ourselves this evening at Cafe Mozart enjoying some good old-fashioned German cooking.
Now, I'm not German personally, but my hometown of Frome is famously twinned with Murrhardt, a town in the Baden-Württemberg region of Germany with the shortest Wikipedia page ever. Their choir once visited us in the early-80s and stayed with families all across the town. We hosted Helmut and Ushi at our house. Helmut arrived in his BMW with a boot full of German beer (a near-mythical commodity in Britain at that time) and within days became the most popular man in Frome.
But I digress. Cafe Mozart is the nearest restaurant to Hannah's work, and is very well disguised as a deli; you walk through various wonderful European goods (Kinder! Toblerone!) before you discover the eatery at the back. But once seated, and finding that they serve beer in two-litre glasses, you know you're in the right place.
The best bit (although this may be the two litres of beer talking) is the live accordion player, who wandered around the tables and regaled us with European classics. It turned out she was from Austria, which I'd already spotted from her Tyrolean hat. Cultural awareness - very important.
I admit to less acquaintance with German cuisine, aside from knowing that it's better than British food because...well. But after devouring my sausage platter and chasing it down with apfelstrudel à la mode (while Hannah and Pete destroyed schnitzel and a Black Forest Gateau) I now have a new favourite DC restaurant.
Apparently my homeland will shortly be voting whether to stay in Europe or leave (by pulling our little island with tugboats to somewhere in the mid-Atlantic?) Anyone considering severing ties should come and spend an evening in Cafe Mozart. It would be a shame if our ex-colony over here appreciated our European siblings more than we did.
"Danke schoen," she said as we left. "Bitte sehr," I replied. That's my GCSE German exhausted in an instant.
Black Forest Gateau. Like the 70s dinner party never ended!
