i had my passport when entering the country, of that
I am sure. Immigration was pretty quick, so I had a
good hour in the Senator lounge before boarding.

LH 178 FRA TXL 0945 1055 321 8E

I got the exit row aisle, which might have ended up
biting me in the butt, because there is no storage
at or above the row, so I had to store my bags a
good distance behind.

It was an insignificant flight, so far as I could tell.

I swam upstream a few rows and gathered up my stuff,
found the line for the bus ticket kiosk, bought my
6-day pass, and hustled to the Extremely Crowded X9 bus,
where I was lucky to find a seat. Got off at the zoo
and transferred to the S-bahn.

My room at the Hotel Carolinenhof was not ready, so I
stored my bags in the left luggage room and wandered
about Wilmersdorf. It was a seasonable, gorgeous day. I
walked past my friend Paule's apartment - it's amazing
that he's been gone for 5 years - and then wandered
through the fens that he used to walk his (nasty, bad-
tempered) dachshund in.

I returned an hour after the promised ready time and
was checked in expeditiously, only, uh oh, no passport
wallet. I mentally retraced my steps. There were a
dozen places I could have lost it or had it lifted. The
girl at the front desk was sympathetic but made me pay
in advance for the room, not the biggest of deals. Then
began a laborious process - contact the relevant police
stations (Wilmersdorf, airport), Lufthansa, the bus
authority, the Embassy, the Consulate, on and on.

Upshot - you have to make an online appointment at the
Consulate, but there weren't any available for three
weeks, so I asked the Embassy for advice, which was to
just show up anyway.

Having done everything I could, I joined my friend
Hans-Erich for dinner. Having a nice ironic sense of
humor, he took me to the Duke restaurant at the Ellington
hotel, which is a reputable haute place and despite the
silliness of the name offers Continental food in the best
of taste accompanied by easy listening pabulum music.

I just had a couple of appetizers.

Artichokes nori salad with foamed oyster veloute and
crispy shrimps - a wonderful dish, the freshest buds
cooked just so, the oyster presence more of a foam and
insignificant of texture but very oysterish in flavor.
Crispy shrimps were crispy blobs, very shrimpy in taste
but again counterintuitive in texture. One can just see
the weekly meetings of the brigade - how do we get that
elusive star? If your idea is selected, and we get that
star, you're fixed for life. Already the place has two
forks and spoons and the Michelin Plate, a new honor
above Bib Gourmand and below the famed rosettes.

I wanted an Oktoberfest, but that had ended the day before,
so I was served a Schultheiss Berliner Pilsner, which is
notable in that it is one of the few Pilsners that is worse
than the Weissbier offered by the same brewer.

Next, what was characterized as Fried duck liver with
mussels, Brunoise of potato and Passe Pierre seaweed. The
liver was of course foie gras, not the richest but pretty
close. The mussels were tiny, gamy, and extraneous, and I
am not sure why the seaweed. This was a rather small plate
but very rich, and I was well satissfied. though I continue
to shake my head about the combination, which cries out,
hey, Mister Michelin man, but in a language I and I believe
the Michelin man don't understand.

One of the conceits of the place is they have an ever-
changing wine inventory, which the sommelier sells on the
spot. I wanted a sweetish wine to go with my liver, a
combination that the young people at the restaurant
hadn't heard of. After some jawing about, in which the
staff and I both suspected translational issues, Hans-Erich
stepped in and described in no uncertain terms what I
wanted, whereupon they stepped up to the plate with a
Rheinhessen Riesling Kabinett 2010 that I didn't get the
details of, because after pouring me a taste for my
approval (it was sweetish, with the emphasis on the -ish,
quite honeyed and tropical and would have gone well)
discovered that was the tail end of the last bottle with
no more to be had. Whence they proceeded to the Ch. de
Ricaud (Loupiac) 2011 (or 12, they were vague on this), which
was moderately sweet, with lots of floral honey, rather like
a low-budget Sauternes and sort of okay with the liver.

Hans-Erich's meal -

Lukewarm trout with Fromage Blanc, flaxseed oil emulsion
and herbs - I tasted a smidge of this - it was reddish,
rather like a char, and tasted sort of salmony, very good.

Roasted saddle of venison with beetroot and vineyard peach
monochrome was a bit busy, very attractive though, medium-
rare and tender.

Short cake of plums with cooled almond Zacapa sabayon
and yeast ice cream - I didn't try this, but it was
pronounced good.

Throughout his meal Hans-Erich, who doesn't drink much,
nursed a glass of an off-the-menu Blauer Zweigelt that he
thought was pretty good. Okay, all the wines are off-the-
menu; this was more like a bin end.