A few weeks ago, a friend and colleague of mine was lamenting the fact that she was about to leave Europe and hadn't made it to Ireland, the place where her ancestors are from. Perhaps it was the wine we'd been drinking copiously at dinner or my lust for travel, but my response was "why not go together?" And so that's how we found ourselves in Ireland for the first time last weekend. Here's a quick recap of what we saw and did..
Walking is my main source of exercise these days as it's an activity that I enjoy and one that my beagle will actually take part in. (We quickly found out when he was a puppy that running was out of the question after about five minutes.) I wrote a post last fall about some of my favorite walks in and around Stuttgart, and I'd like to continue that post with three more walks that I've found since then.
And so here are three more walks that I've come to enjoy in and around Stuttgart (again, in no particular order and continuing from where I left off)...
I've been to the Marktplatz Istanbul for two years in a row now. It's one of those festivals that we first stumbled upon by accident on one of our walks downtown, discovered the food and entertainment were awesome, and then made sure to look out for it every year.
This year, we decided to go on Sunday, the day the festival opened, and met some of my coworkers. We were there at around 12:30 to grab some lunch, but discovered that they were still setting up. No matter -- we grabbed some drinks and waited a bit at the picnic tables until the food stalls were ready for us. It was nice because there was hardly anyone there (unlike our trip last weekend to the Stuttgart Street Food Market), and right when they opened up the food stands, we were the first in line...
It seems like May is the month of holiday weekends, what with the Tag der Arbeit (Labor Day) on May 1st, Christi Himmelfahrt (Ascension Day) last Thursday, and now Pfingstmontag (Whit Monday) this Monday. I love having a long weekend, but it's kind of a pain when the grocery store closes because these days I can't be bothered to plan ahead for meals. This was the case on Thursday, so we decided to avoid the hassle of planning on Wednesday and went out for dinner on Thursday night.
A coworker of mine recommended Tokio Dining to me ages ago, but with Kicho just down the road from us, we hadn't gotten around to it. However, she promised they have the best Katsudon that she's had outside of Japan, and so it's long been on the top of our list for a visit...
I found out about the Stuttgart Street Food Market about a month ago on Facebook. Even though I never grew up in a city around much street food, I've loved eating at food trucks on our trips to places like Amsterdam and at festival stalls around Stuttgart. There wasn't much information about this market leading up to the event, but I was pretty excited to try it nevertheless.
The website details said it would be at the Nordbahnhof from 11:00 until 18:00. While planning for the event, I had every intent on getting there early, but when we left the house around 11:30, it was such a beautiful day that we decided to walk there to work up an appetite. As we passed through the city center, we saw a huge antiques market stretching from the Rathaus (town hall) all the way up to the Altes Schloss (old castle), as well as some kind of bike festival in the Schlossplatz. It's odd for two events, let alone three, to be going on at once on a Sunday, and I wondered if there would be enough people left to attend the Street Food Market...
Every time we go to the Mövenpick Weinkeller in Stuttgart-West, we pass a restaurant called Rat-Rat on the way up the hill. I remember noticing it for the first time about a year ago, but something about the name didn't sound so appealing to my English (language) ears. However, after a particularly long tasting session at Mövenpick, our group decided to give the restaurant a shot and discovered that, to our surprise, they serve some delicious German food.
We returned again this past weekend after Mövenpick's Degustation Frühlingsfestival (spring festival tasting), during which we found a lovely Columbia Crest Cabernet Sauvignon from Washington state and a Rivaner Pur! from the Mosel river valley. (If you're interested in trying them for yourself, Mövenpick is having another tasting May 21st-23rd.) Following the tasting, we stumbled down the hill to Rat-Rat and discovered that they had set up their outdoor patio for the summer. We chose a table under an umbrella (which turned out to be a good choice later when it started to sprinkle a bit) and sat down to order...
When I have to stay late at work and need a meal, there are a few reliable places that I like to frequent, including Pier 51, Pincho, and Holzkrug. On nights when I'm craving something else or when I know we'll have a large group, the HendlHouse also makes a great meal.
This local chain serves one main meat: chicken (as you might have guessed from the name). You can find rotisserie-style chicken, chicken breasts, and fried chicken with all sorts of flavors and combinations of sides. I find the offering of so much chicken odd, because as a friend and I were discussing the other day, you can't really find chicken in Germany as frequently as in the US and the UK...
The past two weeks have been incredibly busy for me at work. I've had a hard time finding time to blog, and meals have tended to be quick, on-the-go affairs. Still, when it was my turn to cook last Friday I decided to take a break with some friends and enjoy a nicer form of takeout: authentic, sit-down Italian pizza.
I'm not sure where or how we got the recommendation for L.A. Signorina, but we frequently pass it on our walks through Marienplatz. The restaurant sits just on the northeast corner of the square, giving it a great location for people-watching. In the summertime, the restaurant has a good many patio tables for outdoor dining. However, the weather has still been a bit chilly at night, and so we decided to opt for an inside table for this particular meal...
Ever since our failed burger meal at Woody's, we've been on the hunt for a good, American-style burger in Stuttgart. We've heard from several people that the [m]eatery is the place to go, and though we've been before for dinner, we didn't try the burgers. And so, with Matt and I both off work again this past Friday, we decided to take advantage of the lovely weather and the [m]eatery's lunch menu by checking out their burgers.
I so rarely get to go out for lunch, that it makes the few times I do seem very exciting! We could have made reservations online, but we decided to take a chance and show up without one. We walked to the [m]eatery's location downtown between the Königstraße and Calwerstraße and had no problem getting a patio table for two at around 1pm. I was especially glad to see their patio was out, as some but not all restaurants in Stuttgart have started setting them up. The weather was absolutely lovely on Friday -- it even hit 73 degrees! (Fahrenheit) -- making it perfect patio weather...
![Finally, American-style Burger Patties at the [m]eatery](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/535c1783e4b0faf2733dd647/1428834753526-02SUQ3C80Y8GYHOWAJ65/image-asset.jpeg)