Persian Dinner in Munich

This past fall I spent a lovely couple of weeks in Europe visiting my brother Ry, his girlfriend Melissa and our sister-in-law Kendra. After a jolly afternoon spent tasting our way through Volksfest in Stuttgart, Germany, we drove to Munich where Ry and Kendra were competing in a 10 km race the next morning.

We arrived very late, and even after our ravenous adventures at Volksfest, we were famished! We walked down a dark street bundled against the icy wind and found a little nook glowing with so much warmth and cheer that we simply had to go in. It was a Persian restaurant filled with happy diners hunkered over all sorts of intriguing dishes.

We secured a spot at one of the last open tables, our seats against a rugged brick wall made perfectly comfortable by the provision of velvet and tapestry pillows. 

Dimly lit by jewel-toned lamps, the room felt as cozy as it looked with wine bottles tucked into nooks bordered by old books, the flatware resting in filigreed silver cups on each table, and sugar cubes were mounded in a gold footed bowl.

Even the simple paper placemats had beautiful burgundy scroll work to take them a step above ordinary.

We started with a large platter of stews: savory greens sprinkled with pomegranate seeds, spicy lentils, another legume dish, and cooling cucumber yogurt, all scooped up with warm slabs of flat bread. We nibbled on glossy olives and crisp cucumber spears, slurped a hearty soup, and dug into lamb kebab over saffron rice with a baked tomato. We ended our meal with sparkling water and Persian mint tea and leaned back in our seats sated, content, and happily sleepy.

Early next morning Melissa and I waved good-bye to Ry and Kendra from our oh-so-warm beds as they headed out to run the Munich 10-km race. While they were out hoofing it through the Olympic Park, Melissa and I had a great visit over a leisurely breakfast then made our way to the metro station, figured out how to get tickets and found our train. (It is always such a thrill to me to figure these things out and not get hopelessly bamboozled! :-)) The Olympic Park is a gorgeous place of lakes and canals with velvety green hills and big, leafy trees. We arrived in time to cheer and hoorah our runners – we were so proud of them!! :-)

 There's talk of us training this year to join them in next year's race! That sounds perfectly ghastly. :-)