Louis (another bloody French king) Dinner Night, Thursday 30th September 2004

Sometimes, I think of France and wonder why almost every king they had was called Louis. I mean, it's not like the royal family there couldn't get hold of a book on baby names or anything like that. But for some reason, they just bloody love the name Louis. I can just imagine the scene at birth. The doctor exclaims, "Ah ha! A boy, your Majesty. Many felicitations! Er, may I suggest calling the new prince a name other than Louis this time? Say, Bob? How about Andy? No? Louis, again? Oh, OK then."

Well, why not? Anyway, it's a great name for a restaurant that does really fine food, fit for kings. Well, probably, in my opinion, but then, what do I know? Best if you come along and try it for yourself.

Anyway, the gourmet restaurant Louis in Berlin is offering a superb deal which ends on the 30th September. It is for a full five course gourmet dinner, with a separate wine for each course. Normally, I would have expected such a dinner to cost well over 100 Euros, especially counting the wines, but we can get Hoelger Zurbruegge's wonderful set menu for less than 50 Euros each (OK, 49.90 Euros). A little bird (which I have since caught and eaten) tells me that we might expect tuna sashimi, a dashi, duck cannelloni, capon filled with lamb salami and a beautiful dessert as the courses, with a different fine Italian wine for each course. Yummy. No vegetarian options, I'm afraid, as it's a set menu dinner but believe me, it's well worth the effort as the dishes at Louis are really quite superb. And after dinner, I fully expect that Hoelger himself will stroll out to check with you personally how the dinner went. It's that sort of place, you know.

So, the restaurant isn't that big and it's a trifle formal, so please note that no tatty jeans or T-shirts would be expected for this event. Just dress casually formal, like you would if your boss called you in to explain your actions, and all will be fine. Like I said, it's not a big restaurant, so if you are interested in this event, please let me know as soon as possible. I think it'll be hard to squeeze in more than 8-10 people for this event, to be honest. The date again is Thursday, 30th September 2004 and the location is Louis, Los Angeles Platz 1, 10789 Berlin. The lucky people who make it on the list will get the usual confirmation email, map and meeting point details.

After dinner, guess what, there's a cool Piano Bar downstairs where one can chill out to songs by Al Green, Elvis, Lionel Ritchie and stuff like that. At least, that was the case last night. It's was really great as I was so stuffed and drunk and they had nice, large, comfortable settees. But, as usual, I am open to ideas as I never get any myself.

The email address as usual is chris@berlindinnerclub.com and please let me know real quick this time. Oh, and don't forget that Oct 1st is a public holiday in Berlin so you can stay out real late if you want.

 

How it went on the night...

To be honest, the whole evening was virtually free, cost-wise. There were 5 superb courses along with 6 excellent well-matched wines with each course, including a lovely sparkling aperitif and I reckon the whole evening would have been a steal at twice the price that we paid. My favourite dish was the dashi, stuffed calamari tubes on a lovely basil-based sauce, but that's just me being picky because every course was actually just simply excellent. Anyway, if you care to look below, you'll see that Ana appeared a lot in the pictures but that's only because she looks so good in them, unlike me. Oh well...

Anyway, after the dinner, I had planned to see a little concert, especially as I had free tickets for everyone, but Ray somehow managed to convince us that we should not go there, so we didn't. Instead, we just sat downstairs at the Piano Bar listening to Mr Joe Dorff singing to us what it's like to be Three Times A Lady. Talking of ladies, we also encountered someone there who may or may not have fitted the description, gender-wise. I would have taken a picture except that he/she might have come over and thumped me one. It's just one of those nights, if you know what I mean.

St Tropez!	Tina & Ana	Kristi & Kathi	Ray not drinking	Dashi
Menu	Duck Canneloni	Capon & lamb	Andreas & Tina	Sylvia (late...)
Ana looking nice	Dessert	Kristi (chilling...)	Them again