One of Bettina’s long time mates had his birthday last week so we went out to a local Thai restaurant for a celebration feed. David and Lynne joined us as well which made for a good size group of us. Some of the Thai restaurants here are quite good whilst others seem to be a concoction of Chinese/Cantonese styles with a bit of chilli and coconut cream thrown in to re-label it Thai. Certainly none of the local Thai places here can even hold a candle to the blissful array of Asian restaurants that we take for granted in Australia. Maybe it is a localised peculiarity of Darmstadt and I may find some far more authentic Thai dishes if I was to look around in down town Frankfurt. At any rate the meal was quite reasonable and my plate of crispy duck on a bed of crisp vegetables in a chilli and coconut sauce was extremely palatable.
We cruised a little way up the road after dinner to the Grohe Brewery which is one of Darmstadt’s oldest. There we partook of several rounds of the local ale, which together with the general air of jocularity surrounding the occasion was cause for much mirth. It is a tremendous brewery as you can sit in the beer garden and look into the main brewing area with the fermentation tanks standing several stories high behind the glass facade. You are never in any doubt as to a constant supply of the stuff given the size of these tanks. It is also one of the few original buildings in town to have survived the fire bombing of the 1940’s and a lot of the pictures on the walls were taken shortly after that period and show just how close they came to losing such a truly magnificent local watering hole.
Alex, Bettina and I returned home from there to continue for a short while in the kitchen. Bettina finally surrendered to the sanctuary of her bed as Alex discovered the delights of his birthday CD, The Essential Radio Birdman. Yes indeed folks, from under the ashes the resurrection of Birdman in Darmstadt 2002. I think the evening ended somewhere around 3am. Great night, good mates and magic music.
