Ammerthaler Hof

Last Saturday night (also known as the night when my legs were ravaged my blood thirsty mosquitoes), we went to our local restaurant.  Our landlord assured us it was “gut essen” or good to eat.  We asked if they spoke English there, and he smiled at us, shook his head, and said “nooo…”. 

So, off we went with our Rick Steve’s Phrase Book and John’s Blackberry, on which he discovered he could access Google Translate.

We walked in and sat down.  We were the only table there other than a large round table of older gents drinking beer and conversing jovially.

The waitress asked us if we would like something to drink.  (We picked out the word “trinkt”.)  John ordered a hefeweisen.  I did the same.  (And, by the way, one of the best hefeweisens I’ve ever had.)  After she came back with our beers, she asked us something else.  To which I promptly used my favorite phrase “Mein Deutsch is nicht gut.”  “Ah” she says, “no problem.”

We are left to the menu.  At the other German restaurant, the menu was in German, but also English.  Notsomuch here.  (And not really expected as we are somewhat off the beaten tourist/military community path.) We picked out the words that we knew and quickly typed in all of the other words we did not know on the blackberry.  “Fresh”, “mushroom”, and “glazed” all helped us muddle our way through.

It seemed easier than using the phrase book, which only had a select few words anyway.

After a few (maybe 10?) minutes poring over the menu, the waitress comes out from the kitchen with another young man and points to us.  He then comes up and starts speaking English.

“You may need some help?”

We had been identified as menu challenged.  Understandable, since we already identified ourselves as language challenged.

However, at that point, we had deciphered enough to decide on what we wanted.  So, we placed our order with him, and he retreated to the kitchen to start our meals.

I ended up getting the “Rindersteak medium” which I thought was beef, but ended up being pork.  (Either that, or just terrible beef.)  John got the “house specialty” which was a filet of both beef and pork.  His beef was much more passable as beef.  All in all, the meals were good!  The beer was great.  This place is walkable from our house.  (The entire town of Ammerthal is walkable from our house.)

The waitress checked on us and we communicated that everything was tasty.

She came back when we were done and cleared our plates.

Then she came back when our beers were empty.  She asked me something.  I thought she was asking if I would like another.  I replied “No.”  She got a weird look on her face and walked away.  In hindsight, she may have been asking if she could clear my glass.

After that, she walked by several times, but didn’t ask if we needed anything else.  (She didn’t ask anything, which is why I know this, because I’m not sure if I could have picked out what, exactly, she would have asked if she had asked us anything.)  At this point, the group of jovial men had left.  We were the only ones left.

John and I spent our final minutes there examining the phrase book and practiced asking for the check.  He never fully got it, so I raised my hand and asked

“Die Rechnung, bitte?”

She smiled and brought it right over and we promptly paid and were on our way after a friendly “Tchüss!” 

She probably thinks she will never see us again.

But she probably will.  Hopefully I will know more German at that time.